Dreams burn down

It would be practically impossible to write for a magazine at the heart of Oxford's music scene for more than a decade and not be aware of the significance of Ride, at least locally.

1990's Nowhere and, to a lesser extent, 1992's Going Blank Again were both slightly before my time - and in any case in the early 90s I was distracted by what was going on across the Atlantic. By the time I took up residence in Oxford, Ride had been out of existence for ten years.

But the reputation of those early albums had been steadily growing and, on a personal level, I had belatedly discovered the delights of shoegaze. When they announced the decision to reform in 2014, it was tempting to trace it back to the boozy business meeting I'd witnessed at the Magdalen Arms the previous December.

The initial reunion tour, including a slot at Primavera, saw the band revisiting old favourites - but a new album, Weather Diaries, emerged last year. So when I went along to Tramshed on Saturday for a long-awaited encounter, I was expecting (or at least hoping) to be floored by the classics, impressed by the new material and generally left convinced that their semi-legendary status is justified.

Sadly, it didn't really work out like that - not that many other people (including the guy crying at hearing 'Vapour Trail' for the first time in years) seemed to care.