Before there was Nirvana and some of us still had luxuriant long hair, we used to shake it to a plethora of bands who emerged from the Home Counties and mixed the sweet harmonies of The Byrds and The Beatles with the coruscating noise of guitars tuned to sound like axe grinders. For a period, the genre that became known as shoegazing, because it was all a bit shy and shambling, seemed like the saviour of British music for those of us getting sick of vapid late '80s pop music. Then came grunge and the movement was blown away by bands who were a bit nastier and louder.
Ride were the kings of shoegaze - all floppy hair, angelic vocals and guitars which provided a cathedral of sound (to coin a phrase beloved of the music press back then). The thrill of being in the middle of a sweaty mosh pit in the legendary and long defunct TJ's in Newport as much-heralded new boys on the scene Ride blew us away with the likes of Drive Blind and Like A Daydream will forever be burned into my memory. That was almost 35 years ago.
I didn't really think I needed Ride in my life again but on the strength of their first ever gig in Cornwall, I most certainly do. The band fell out in 1996, did their own musical things for years - most notably, guitarist Andy Bell joining Oasis on bass (as he's likely to do at next year's reunion) - before reforming in 2014. This was one of those gigs where I suspect a large element of the audience (including me, I have to admit) wanted the old stuff - those giant shi.