Ride have a new product to promote and as such a UK Tour is in full swing, Interplay is the new release full of all the ingredients we would expect from Ride. The term Shoegaze will always sit heavily on their shoulders but they have meandered in and out of the genre over their existence, the debut album Nowhere probably getting the maximum points for it’s Shoegaze credibility and then the magnificent Going Blank Again was such a perfect record for the time. They then started to look back to their 1960’s contemporaries and influences which painted the sound and feel of 1994’s Carnival Of Light, still a success but maybe a sign of a change in thinking within the bands songwriting partnership Mark Gardener and Andy Bell.

Tarantula crawled out to a very lukewarm response resulting from internal strife which was breaking the band apart. They split in 1996.

 Unexpectedly in 2014 Ride reformed after the band members had been “playing away” in other bands or projects happily for many years. This was primarily for touring but when they had settled right back into what they did best, new material was released in 2017 on the Album Weather Diaries. Harking back to the sounds of the early nineties it was instantly appreciated by the fans who were not expecting their return. Two albums later and Ride were at Portsmouth Guildhall where I caught up with their show.

Support artists on this tour were Junodream who describe their sound as Spacerock due to their influences, though maybe a mix of genres as with many modern bands in fact there are some similarities to the band they are touring with. Well-structured and interesting songs along with strong vocals kept the early crowd interested for the half hour or so, that Junodream were on stage.