Ride the wave of shoegaze music revival in Singapore
Twenty-five years ago, UK band Ride released the epochal “Nowhere” album, whose influence in the music scene still reverberates. Having created ripples of excitement with its earlier singles, Ride’s debut album cemented its status as part of the vanguard of shoegaze pioneers.
Come this Sunday at the two-day Neon Lights Music & Art s Festival at Fort Canning, fans of the Oxford quartet in Singapore will be able to hear some of the songs from the landmark album plus those from its various singles and subsequent albums.
Comprising guitarist and vocalist Mark Gardener, guitarist and vocalist Andy Bell, bassist Steve Queralt and drummer Laurence “Loz” Colbert, the band has been riding on a crest of a renewed reverence for the shoegaze genre, typified by dense guitar sound powered by pedal effects and dreamy vocals.
Having been cited as an influence by a later generation of shoegaze bands and those of newer genres like nu-gaze and post rock, fans of these bands who weren’t born yet or are too young to have heard of Ride from the halcyon days of shoegaze music until its breakup in 1996 have been turning up in large numbers to attend its gigs. It was only in November 2014 that Ride announced that it was reuniting, and it has every reason to celebrate an “inspiring” 2015.
Speaking to Yahoo Singapore, Gardener said the outpouring of affection from both the older and younger fans at its gigs this year for Ride has been overwhelming. Ride has been playing in more music festivals in the past year than it did in the 1990s, enabling the band to reach out to a wider audience base than before.
“The year has gone better than anyone of us could have imagined,” Gardener said. “When we made music 20-odd years ago, we just hoped that something that we did would stand the test of time. This is proof that it has and that it has grown bigger than it ever was.”
Back in 1989 and in the early 1990s, Ride was hailed as a member of the holy trinity of shoegaze giants alongside My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive. Soon, the fickle UK music critics were to deride shoegaze bands as grunge and Britpop bands dominated the music charts.
Gardener doesn’t mind the shoegaze label attached to Ride and in fact, he said the recent successes of his band, MBV and Slowdive after reforming – all of whom were previously signed by the legendary UK label Creation Records - have prompted the music press to relook at their legacy.
“Whatever you do, you are going to get tagged. Shoegaze was a description of the sound, and wasn’t like a fashion,” Gardener explained.
“All the bands that you have named (MBV, Slowdive, Ride and Lush) were not fashionable. That is why we survive because we didn’t turn with the fashion and we made good music.” Without citing any particular Britpop bands, Gardener said a number of them were more focused on “style than substance” and had disappeared from the scene rather quickly.
Ride went on to release three more albums – “Going Blank Again”, “Carnival of Light” and “Tarantula” – and by then, its musical direction had deviated from shoegaze to a meld of influences ranging from baroque pop to psychedelic rock. When asked to name their favourite Ride album, most fans would typically choose either “Nowhere” or “Going Blank Again” – the latter is Gardener’s favourite, he revealed.
In between the break-up and reunion, the band members went their own ways. Gardener, Bell and Colbert carved out separate musical careers while Queralt left the industry to settle into domestic life for a while. Notably, Bell joined Oasis as a bassist and later, as a guitarist for Beady Eye, fronted by Liam Gallagher.
When asked if Ride will return to the music studio to make a new single or album, Gardener said the band hasn’t had the chance to make any recording plans as it has been touring the whole year. “We just want to concentrate on here and now. Nothing is ruled in, nothing is ruled out,” he said.
Recently, Ride took a break in northern Hawaii after a gig and was in the same area where the iconic “rising wave” image on the cover of “Nowhere” – taken from a compilation book of photographs - was shot. The symbolism of the crest and trough of the waves in the Pacific Ocean mirroring the rise and fall and resurrection of Ride over the past 25 years could not have been missed by the band members.
Having performed at gigs across the US, Europe and Asia for around eight months, the band members will fly back home to be reunited with their families after their gig at Fort Canning in Singapore. Gardener said the band has been asked by many fans in Singapore to play its first ever gig here and relishes the opportunity to do so.
“It will be a very celebratory show. It is an amazing way to end what has been an amazing year in a place we have never played before.”
Neon Lights Music & Arts Festival will be held on 28 November (Saturday) and 29 November (Sunday) from 1pm till late at Fort Canning Green & Gate. Tickets are available at www.neonlights.sg Ride will be performing at the Neon Lights Stage on Sunday from 9pm onwards.
