We have reached the last date of the Going Blank Again tour. Nancy, Terminal Export, a small dark venue lost under a bridge, a few yards from the Salvation Army... It is 4.30 pm and Mark Gardener has just woken up. The others are still in the van. He rolls a cigarette and looks around him. They haven't played in such a small place for a while and he worries about the quality of the sound. By the time he has gone for a frugal "breakfast", he is ready to run through that long touring year for Ticket to Ride. It started on 7 February in hometown Oxford and finished here, in Lorraine. What memories will he keep?
Mark: The best bits of the tour... I guess it starts at the end really for me. When we started on the British tour, it was brilliant. It was the first time we really could get what we wanted to, the lights, lots of songs to play... Then we went to Europe for a week after that, which was okay, it was just a week, and then things started getting a bit weird. Everyone was thinking "now we've got to get away for basically like 10 weeks", which is like America, Japan and Australia. I guess Australia's still exciting, but America wasn't very good for us basically and Japan was really stressing. When we went to Australia, it was really relaxed again, so it definitely helped.
Is it why you played Heroes?
Mark: Well, we tried. Now and again we have these little ideas, like bees in our bonnets; we think it's a really good idea for about a week. But as soon as we started to play, I realized that I couldn't sing that high, and we couldn't really play it either, we forgot the chords.
Have you played any other cover?
Mark: No... well, just John Lennon, I don't wanna be a soldier. Well it's Andy Bell's "I wanna be John Lennon".
How comes you've never played any song from the Twisterella EP, apart from Twisterella itself?
Mark: I don't know really. We did play Going Blank Again but we've never tried Stampede. That was originally a tune I had when we were doing Nowhere. I remember one time I just had a sort of bad vibe about it and we just put it on the shelves and I think it was Andy who was listening to tapes of things we'd forgotten and that was one of them. He said "we do it", so we did and put it on that EP. But I don't know...
Last week, I heard your cover of "The Model" on radio...
Mark: Oh yeah, that's a bit strange. Well it was more Steve actually, you know, he's into lots of synth things as well. We just thought we can either do like a guitar version which would be a bit obvious or we get the synths and try to programme it all exactly like it was. So we did that and just sang on that. But I was happy with it and the others are as well, it was alright. But covers get boring after a while. I don't like spending too long on covers cause it's just reproducing something that's already there rather than creating your own things. I think we did that in a day, which is fair enough.
Why haven't you played Grasshopper?
Mark: Cause we tried it!
Yes, in Japan again!
Mark: Yes! And it was just too weird. We try them all out on the Japanese and if the Japanese don't like them, then we know noone will ever like it!
I don't know, in Japan you have to play for like one hour and a half, it's a torture or something! It's an unhonourable thing to play below that time. I think it's too long cause what actually happens is the people think it's great you're playing all these songs but each song loses something cause you have to play for so long. You're always holding back cause you think there's so long to go whereas I think we've gauged ourselves right with like one hour and fifteen minutes or something. I think that's good for us and keeps us going well on full steam.
Do you feel the same when you play something like Nowhere or Drive Blind as when you play, say, Twisterella?
Mark: I think, I probably feel more comfortable in a way playing Drive Blind cause we've played it for so long and I still really like that song, singing it. It always seems to work really well. But yes, it's kind of different. If anything the next material we do, we'll go, not back to what we were once doing but I don't think we'll have things like Twisterella or Making Judy Smile. We've now had two attempts at writing kind of noisy pop songs and it's alright, but I kind of get bored sometimes playing them.
It's like it's not Ride.
Mark: It is, cause we do it. At the time we were getting fed up with appealing on a sad level to people. We wanted songs that made you feel good, just happier sounding songs. I don't really like bands that just come from one mood all the time, I think we're always going to try to change it around a bit. I really like the way Twisterella sounds on record and some of Making Judy Smile but it's a bit harder to pull that sort of thing live.
I prefer the live version of Twisterella.
Mark: Do you? Yes, it is noisier. I like the Hammond thing on record.
As to Making Judy Smile, maybe I'm getting used to it but I find it less hard to listen to than it was.
Mark: I think we'll be knocking that one on the head soon, really.
And it's always the song that's going to stay on my mind even if I listen to 15 other tracks. Maybe that's the purpose?
Mark: Yes, it's catchy, isn't it. It's a weird one. I don't know what the purpose is. What was Andy's idea. I really liked it when we did it. It was good to play it but we've played it too much now. I don't really enjoy playing it anymore.
Do you often change your set list on tour?
Mark: Not a hell of a lot. A few things in and out. We don't totally change it. We've been alternating between Drive Blind and Nowhere, sometimes Seagull, sometimes Chelsea Girl, sometimes Close my Eyes.
Close my Eyes is really good.
Mark: Yes, that works all right.
It's great that you're playing three songs from the first EP.
Mark: Yes, it's weird. It's still really good to play it. I'm still proud of the first things we did. I know some people might just come to these concerts only knowing Going Blank Again but it's good that people know these tunes as well. It's also good for us, making it more varied again.
You never feel like playing one of these old songs you've never released, like I'm fine thanks?
Mark (laughing): No, cause those were rubbish!
Dave said you were not going to release that compilation album after all? That's a shame, it would have been good to hear all these tracks.
Mark: Yes, well I don't know really. It's not good. I'm sure something will happen in the end, a lot of these things will be heard but it's not the right time. I think we should be waiting until we've got more. I want the next thing with our name to be brilliant and faultless.
Is Ride a hobby or a job now?
Mark: It's a job. It's a job and a hobby. It's a job, a hobby, and a lifetime. Touring can feel like real hard work sometimes but when you actually play, it feels like your hobby, which is, you know, one hour in your daytime. The other 23 hours just feel like hard work. Then when you get home, you relax again and start picking up the guitar and writing songs and you feel like you're getting paid for your hobby, which is good. Sometimes when you're in the studio, it feels good as well. It's just all this bloody coach isn't, travelling around like you're soldiers, that's what I don't like after a while. I always like playing on stage but it's just the days around it, hanging around, it's just really boring.
So, what's a typical day on tour?
Mark: It's just like when you come in and get up, walk in some place like this and have a yoghurt. And a banana if you're lucky (laughing). Smoke a cigarette. Wonder where you are. Maybe have a look around, play football. Next time it's gonna be more fun cause we're gonna bring our bicycles with us.
Then there's the big party after the concert?
Mark: Sometimes, yes. But if there are too many parties, you start losing the next day. I'm happy cause it's the end of it and we won't be in a coach for a while.
Well, maybe for next tour, if you're bigger, you can go...
Mark: in helicopter!
Yeah! Some people imagine you travel by plane and stay in big hotels..
Mark (sighing): No way! If only! My idea would be a little jet pack that I could just shoot back home. Go anywhere and then go home, stay in your own bed, have something nice to eat before you leave, beans on toasts that you don't find anywhere else, and shoot back over to play the gig. That would be great but you can't really do that, you're just turned up on a mad bus for several weeks.
But that's ok if you consider you're paid for it!
Mark: Ah yeah! I mean, I moan about it and we've all moaned about it but at the end of the day I've seen lots of places which is one of the ultimates. You know, when I was at school, I really didn't know what I wanted to do. I liked music and the idea of travelling, so this is doing it for me which is great.
So many people dream about it...
Mark: Yes...It's easy to have a lot of dreams shattered. I dreamt about it and wanted to do it and then we kind of made it happen cause we were really into doing it. It can all be really distracting, a bit like soldier's fight when you realize how it all works... But I think the main thing is if you actually still get on and hang on to what it is you started it for first which is write songs, I think it'll be alright. Touring sometimes questions that for us cause we're just travelling and getting stressed up, but one of the ways we keep it going is that everytime we get back home, we're always in a mood to write songs.
End of part one - The interview continues on issue #9.
Interview by
After the American semi-disaster followed by the Japanese pressure, the European tour had been modified so as not to force Ride into their last limits. The result was sometimes painful as no Belgian date was planned. For Ride, though, the division of the tour into two series of dates spread over two weeks, cut by a fortnight of rest, was quite beneficial as they reached Nancy with almost as much freshness as when they started in Stockolm.
The tour started in Scandinavia and the first two dates, Stockholm and Gotenburg, were particularly good and offered Ride two sold out shows. However the series of 8 German concerts that followed was less exciting: the venues were not fully packed and the band lost some of their enthusiasm. Still, they played a rarely heard cover in Bielefeld; John Lennon's I don't wanna be a soldier (which they had also played earlier on at Reading). This first leg ended with the only Italian gig of the tour, in Milan.
After two weeks of rest in Oxford, Ride took to the road again for the French leg, interrupted by three Spanish dates. These, however exciting they first had appeared, turned out to be disappointing for Ride, in particular in Madrid where they were playing at a festival alongside the Farm and the Manic Street Preachers, amongst other bands: some bad Reading. In comparison, from Rennes to Nancy, all the French gigs were really good, with the Parisian date reaching sky-high perfection. Sold out shows, crazy audiences, no doubt: Ride will come back to France!
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I can't imagine a better way to spend my holidays than going with Ride on a small part of their European tour: my sister, a friend and I went to the 8 German concerts. We were a bit worried whether the concerts would be boring after a while... No, they weren't! Each gig was different, each show turned out to be special. Not too much but what mattered were small details like: were Ride going to play a "surprise" song tonight? If so, which one? Were they going to make "Chelsea Girl" long or short? How would Loz play his drums? Etc.
Ride's playlist was basically the same at all concerts. They started with the best opening track ever, "Leave them all behind", of course. Then old songs alternated with songs from Going Blank Again. Each night we had the pleasure to hear "Taste", "Sennen", "Time of her time", "Like a daydream", and, "Mouse trap", for instance. Then we heard "Ox4" twice and "Unfamiliar" just once, in Stuttgart.
The best moments for me were "Drive blind" and "Nowhere" which alternated each night (except in Berlin where Ride gave us both) as well as the songs played during the encores. Even if the concert was just "plain good" up to that point, at the end of the concert, the four boys always gave their best. Hearing "Close my eyes" live for the first time was brilliant and even "Chelsea girl", which Ride have played for years, was so passionate and powerful that you could scarcely believe it had been written such a long time ago.
From the third night, Ride chose their encore tracks backstage after the first part of the concert, based on the reaction of the audience and their own feelings. They sometimes met with the audience's requests like in Bielefeld where they played John Lennon's "I don't want to be a soldier" (because so many English soldiers live in Germany). But the very best moment of the tour was in Stuttgart when after a long "Chelsea girl", Andy continued playing his guitar and, after a change in rhythm, "Chelsea Girl" became "I wanna be your dog" from the Stooges. The others just had to follow.
When all this was over, there was only one question: why didn't Ride play one of the tracks from the Twisterella EP? I would have liked to have heard "Stampede"...Maybe next time...
Article by Sandra Spagnol
The night before Paris, in Rennes, I made it up with Ride again. Their concert in Britany, first of the French tour, was excellent and enthusiastic and erased the slight disappointments I'd had in Amsterdam, Koln and, in September, Rotterdam. However, if Rennes was excellent, Paris was a killer. Just like Slough in 91 or Oxford in February 92, the concert at the Elysee Montmartre was beyond all hopes. There was nothing to say: Ride were just perfect.
After the Beatles' "Ticket to Ride" as introduction (!?), "Leave them all behind" started promptly. I may have heard it a dozen times but I won't get tired of this long epic which now ends with one of the best noisy moments of the show. Already in Rennes, seeing Andy shaking like a psychopath at the end of the first gig on the first date, I wondered how he would look like by the time the second encore started in Nancy... Anyway, didn't he promise to make every night special? So here we are, embarked on what we feel will be a very special cruise. The guitars become less noisy but the rhythm strongly quickens on "Taste", immediately followed by "Not Fazed" which, with each concert, shows its rich and polished texture better. Played on the proper volume, that is very loud, this extract from Going Blank Again, is more intense every time I hear it.
"Sennen" then appears as a cool breeze in the storm while the Elysee Montmartre goes all blue; later on, orange will be the dominant colour for "Twisterella". Live and deprived of too meticulous production, this ideal single is more energetic, more unbridled and certainly more coaxing. Back to blue, reminder of the sea or space, for "OX4". Carried on by Steve and Loz's rhythm, the guitars sound joyful and careless. As soon as the song starts, Andy, watched with concern by the bass player, leaves the normal chords and gets lost in a dangerous improvisation. By a miracle, or rather, with talent, the guitarist finds his way back to the final note and the track goes happily on. This is not the first time Andy will surprise us in this way and that night he will let his talent loose: "Leave them all behind", "Nowhere", and "Close my eyes", amongst others, will all be refreshed by this creative fantasy.
We were talking about the colours blue and orange. Now the old theatre turns red as "Time of her time" explodes with painful passion. Once joyful, the guitars then sound languorous and plaintive, mercilessly playing with our emotions. "Time of her time" is a great introduction to the following track which, to me, is the best of the concert: "Nowhere". I like "Nowhere" because it starts very slowly, actually already with the first few notes aimed at tuning up the guitars; then the wave grows on Mark's noisy background while Andy's guitar howls like a trapped wolf. I like "Nowhere" for its subtle lyrics of despair: all that's left is you and me and here we are nowhere. Finally I like nowhere for the semi-silences preceeding the final two assaults, the first being relatively calm - all is relative - the second, absolutely fatal. "Nowhere" always provokes the same effect of astonished paralysis in the audience, yet it is always different as it's always improvised. Tonight Steve and Andy agree on changing the melody (indeed below that terrible noise there is a melody) and manage to bring some reassuring softness in the middle of the chaos as if they wanted to bring our consciences to a standstill. Satisfied with their experience, Ride then bring silence to their instruments in perfect harmony. I may repeat myself but "Nowhere" is a grandiose moment.
The shouting crowd makes it difficult to hear the next song, "Vapour Trail" and, for a change, the audience takes its revenge and astonishes Ride. As the song reaches its instrumental ending and the drums stop for a second, the Parisian crowd starts clapping their hands and Mark steps back with a smile on his face while Steve imagines a Queen concert! No doubt: seeing how they have been welcomed, in France Ride have become the next "Cure" and that means a lot. Think of the time when they'll play four dates in the Zenith...
The concert comes towards an end as "Mouse Trap", fast and nervous, drops its last note. Fortunately the encores are yet to come and once more, the shouting that raises from the theatre is louder than the guitars in the noisiest bit of "Nowhere"! The encores bring another surprise as the three titles played all come from the first EP. "Close my eyes" is first and leaves me mute with admiration: this track, written almost four years ago, has been reworked like "Drive blind" or "Nowhere", to become a new flashing epic. While Mark's unusual voice evokes a painful morning after a well drunk night, music becomes so heavy that I almost feel the metallic beams of the theatre weighing on my shoulders. Once the vocals have gone, the track develops into something bigger, Loz's rolling seems to announce the Last day of judgement while the lower and lower chords bring us down to a new nowhere: indeed, if "Nowhere" brings us into a void where feelings and memories fade away, "Close my eyes" brings us beyond a threshold of guilty and painful downfall. I want to close my eyes until I'm nowhere.
Conscious of the heavy atmosphere that fills the air, Andy then tries to lighten our hearts and announces the next song with a small melody. However, probably too stunned, the audience didn't react and "Chelsea Girl" jumps by cheerfully before Ride leave again. Yet they come back and, although I was expecting "Seagull" which they had played the night before in Rennes, they have decided to knock us down for real as they choose to end with "Drive blind". Therefore we are offered another rain of decibels before silence unfairly replaces that blissful noise. Dare I say that, despite the harm caused to our eardrums, this concert appeared much too short? Well, of course, as Steve replied "Yes, but you...".
PS: "Making Judy Smile" was written by a man of genius. Among the 15 tracks played and heard, it was the one that remained on my mind as we were driving back from Paris to Brussels. Machiavelic.
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Nancy: heat and soft madness. These are probably the two memories that will remain engraved on my mind after Ride's last concert this year. Heat in these former stables forming the Terminal Export venue which is sustained by wooden pillars cutting the room into a draughts board (not the best thing to see the whole stage). The ceiling is so low that the stage is only a few inches higher than the audience, otherwise the band would probably burn their hair on the spotlights. Heat from a crowd packed in until there is almost no space to breathe between the stage and the mixing desk. Finally, heat from a band that had decided to give the best of themselves for the ultimate date.
Was it the excitement of going back home? Probably. The concert in Nancy reminded me of the last night of scout camps when the pleasure of having fun one last time is mixed with the joy of seeing one's family the day after. It all started with Steve and Andy coming up on stage wearing strange hats: Steve had a high EMF-type cap whereas Andy was wearing what was probably one of Idha's soft felt bonnets which fitted exactly the upper part of his face, leaving only his nose and mouth visible. The effect was particularly loony when the guitarist jerked madly or when he tried to evoke some melancholy on a track such as "Time of her time". Mark and Loz were bare headed but they weren't going to stay out of tonight's madness. They chose their times on "Drive blind" with Mark rocking his guitar so wildly that he pushed down Loz's cymbals. However the drummer couldn't care less as for a while he had already been standing on his stool and, from up there, with his head almost touching the ceiling, he went on hitting the drums in a fit of dementia that reminded me of the crazy finale at the Aeronef, in Lille in 1991. As one of the crew members shouted after the concert: "We loved you tonight Loz".
As if Ride were not weird enough, Moose also played their part. During "Chelsea Girl", in the encore, here they came, waddling on like ducks queing to get to the pool, passing behind Steve, Mark, then diving into the astonished crowd - under Ride's amused eyes.
Despite this wind of madness (or perhaps because of it?), the concert was of excellent musical quality and to give a worthwhile ending to the tour, it closed on the Stooges's cover that may one day become one of Ride's classics: "I wanna be your dog", led by Andy at the end of "Chelsea Girl". After such a debauchery we expected another encore but the audience that night was the only disappointing part and instead of following on Ride's impulse, they slowly walked towards the exit door and didn't try to get Ride on stage again although numerous fans were expecting it. So "Nowhere" was not played that night but the concert had been strong and powerful enough not to regret it. Or rather, not to regret it too much.
The crazy night was over for Nancy but for Ride it would go on somewhat longer backstage where champagne was running until that cursed van drove them back to old Blighty to the sound of football anthems! The English invaders have gone. Too bad.
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