Ride
Glasgow Barrowlands
Martin Williams
Five Stars
If ever being typecast to a 'scene' killed a band - this is the one.
Shoegaze pioneers Ride began as four boys from Oxford barely in their 20s with a knack for distorted noise pop who rose and fell like the record label that discovered them, Alan McGee's inventive Creation.
Now four men in their mid 40s, the reformation was predictable after guitarist Andy Bell was at a loose end after an Oasis and Beady Eye hiatus.
Tonight reveals the preferred artistic option.
They are greeted with a deafening noise at the Barrowlands, the perfectly intimate venue for them to show whether they can still cut it. And cut it they most definitely do.
Significantly there are to be no songs from the Brit Pop-influenced third album they nicknamed Carnival of Sh*ite that saw their artistic vision and popularity take a nosedive.
Instead the whooping crowd are treated to prime Ride; the taste and vapour of what they were and what they could have been.
While the man-in-black singer/guitarist Mark Gardener may have filled out over the years, those wistful vocals remain dreamy as ever.
When the first chimes and ahhhhs of Taste are played, the room finds it's voice and combusts. Gardener smiles says "you're a top crowd" and wants a picture of the devotees before plunging into a rampant Vapour Trail.
After the feedback-heavy Drive Blind erupts with its mash of melancholy and white noise menace and the Andy Bell guitar squall totem of Leave Them All Behind is encored I am left with the overwhelming feeling that they missed a golden opportunity over 20 years ago.
There are many undeserving bands who became far bigger than they were or are. Just maybe this time round they will get the respect they so richly deserve.
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