What sounded like a combination of excitement and relief, an attendee yelled out “I’ve waited 20 years for this!” It was Ride’s first announced NYC show in a long time. Technically, it was supposed to be the band’s first NYC show in 20 years, but the MHOW show scheduled for earlier in the week took that distinction. They are the last of the OG shoegazers to reunite, as My Bloody Valentine, Swervedriver, and Slowdive done before. It’s really good timing with the plethora of noisy bands coming into prominence like DIIV.
I arrived 30 minutes after doors opened and already it was almost a full house. People were struggling to wiggle their way through the crowd to get to the front of the stage.
UK alt rockers, Ash opened for Ride, as they did plenty during the mid-90’s. They played a short 30-minute set that was mostly made up their hits, and sprinkled in a few new ones from their recent record, Kablammo!
Ride took the stage a little bit before 9 and burned through a career spanning set that nearly clocked in at two hours. They covered all of their releases, with a plenty of songs from their debut Nowhere. The band kicked off the set with the fan-favorite scorcher “Leave Them All Behind” and never looked back. The mammoth set mostly featured songs from their earlier part of their career, like Nowhere and the EPs.
I already had my doubts about how the band’s sound would translate in T5’s acoustics based on my experiences so far. Terminal 5 is notoriously known as a poor sounding venue, but strangely it didn’t live up to its negative reputation that night. I thought the band’s blaring guitars would get lost in translation due to the vastness of the former airplane hangar but it actually sounded great (even if I wore earplugs). It felt good hearing finally hearing these tracks live like “Polar Bear”, “Like A Daydream” and “Taste”.
There were large uncoordinated collective sing-alongs throughout the night, as the entire venue erupted during “Vapour Trail” the “ba-dadada-daaaaa-dahhhhh”’s included.
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The set closed out with a sonic annihilating rendition of “Drive Blind” with a massive guitar overload mid song, similar to what My Bloody Valentine does during “You Made Me Realise.”
The band came back for a 3-song encore that started with a nice cover of the Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows”. The band closed with a slightly extended version of “Chelsea Girl.” Andy Bell and Mark Gardener kept trying to extend the end of their closer if they were stalling the inevitable end of their set.
It took the band 20 years to get back together and hit the stage, and thankfully, the next wait won’t be as long. Ride has another string of tour dates for the fall with two NYC dates at Irving Plaza.
SETLIST: Ride @ Terminal 5, 6/4/2015 Leave Them All Behind Like a Daydream Polar Bear Seagull Sennen Cool Your Boots Black Nite Crash Natural Grace Twisterella OX4 Dreams Burn Down Time of Her Time Chrome Waves Paralysed Taste Vapour Trail Drive Blind
Encore: Tomorrow Never Knows (The Beatles cover) Mouse Trap Chelsea Girl