Saturday night was a busy one around Boston. Kraftwerk were at the Wang Theatre, Yo La Tengo played the Wilbur, Pure Bathing Culture were at the Middle East, Bob Moses was at the Sinclair, and rock upstarts BOYTOY played O’Brien’s. For some, though, the night centered around RIDE’s return to the Paradise Rock Club, the site of the reformed shoegaze band’s shows in town more than two decades prior.
The Oxford quartet, the latest band in a string of shoegaze reunions that have seen the return of My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive in recent years (and will welcome Lush back next year), blasted through a near 90-minute set Saturday night at a packed-to-the-gills ‘Dise. Though familiar hits like “Vapour Trail” and “Drive Blind” tore through the horizontal venue, it was pulverizing track “Dreams Burn Down” that nearly blew the roof off the joint. Luckily, someone captured the moment (we were vibing out with our eyes closed up on the balcony), and you can relive the magic below via fan-filmed video.
Meanwhile RIDE will continue their North American tour next month, but not before heading back to the UK to perform 1990 album Nowhere in its entirety for nine select dates. Andy Bell notes: “I didn’t realise how few times we’d actually played most of the songs. And of course we have never played the album in its original track order before. We have been throwing in versions of some of the songs at our US dates but the majority of the preparation for these shows was done during rehearsals in London in-between our festival shows this summer. I’m especially buzzing about how ‘Kaleidoscope’ is sounding. It’s going to be amazing playing it for the first time.”
He adds: “All in all, it’s a big deal to us, and we haven’t been certain we could pull it off until now. We as a band are so proud of the album and we are aware that fans have been campaigning for us to perform it in full on this tour but it’s only now that we are sure we can do the album justice.”
Listen to one of its standout tracks below…