Party Like it's 1992 (The Charlatans UK and Ride in Denver)

The Charlatans UK

Ride

When I bought a ticket for The Charlatan UK and Ride tour stop in Denver, it fell on the “why not” end of ticket purchases. At best, I barely knew both bands, with Ride more of a favorite.

As the show loomed, I felt like this could turn into a special evening of music. I wasn’t alone. The show ended up selling out, with the last 17 tickets selling that morning. The Odgen Theatre in Denver definitely felt at its 1,600-person capacity. The 70-mile distance from Colorado Springs never seems far when Denver gets tours that would never even consider the Springs. 

The bands rotated headlining slots during the tour. On the Denver stop, The Charlatans opened and Ride headlined. With the jangly chords of I Don’t Want to See the Lights, The Charlatans UK led off the evening on an energetic note. They played Between 10th and 11th, their 1992 sophomore album. They might have better records, but this record extended their reach beyond the Madchester scene of the early 1990s. 

The album has a swirling atmospheric flow that makes it move by fast. Even some of the breakout songs like Can’t Even Be Bothered and Weirdo swim past. 

 Singer Timothy Burgess came off as an odd character, not so much a frontman as a guy who rolled out of bed who walked directly onstage. In his mid-fifties, his voice sounded unchanged in the 30 years since the record’s release. 

The other band members barely came up for air, sticking to their instruments and mostly nodding when Burgess introduced them all before their last song. In that he was the only one who really spoke, he performed the frontman duties admirably. 

After slipping through the 40-minute album, The Charlatans charged through another 40-plus minutes of songs. Had the show ended here, no one would have been disappointed. But we had anticipation of another full set. 

While I enjoyed The Charlatans , Ride instantly made me glad they played the headliner slot at this show. They came on right at 11 p.m. With a crowd this gray (myself included), a band better come out blazing. 

 Ride intended to tour on the 30th anniversary of Nowhere sooner than the album's 33rd anniversary before the pandemic intervened. The Oxford band had not trouble mustering the energy to slay the crowd with its classic shoegaze album. 

 In its live incarnation, Nowhere sounded completely different. I had no trouble identifying the songs, but the fuzz and I am the Walrus haze of shoegaze came to the fore. The bass was punchy and more in the mix. 

The original album sounds more like Johnny Marr at times – not a knock, but this live iteration was more forward and dropped all Eighties feeling. 

As one crowd member shouted song titles, the band reminded him (I assume it was a somewhat drunk guy) that they were playing all of Nowhere and would get there. The band even acknowledged him after playing the requested song. 

Ride played a longer album (close to an hour in its original form and lengthened by some jamming), and dropped a few songs into its encore. Monaco came from an upcoming album. Going Blank Again earned two tracks – OX4 and Leave Them All Behind – and Lannoy Pointy from the Weather Diairies. 

A full-album tour around Going Blank Again was teased. As that was the Ride album I knew best in the 1990s, I would not mind another full-album engagement with the shoegaze veterans. 

Neither band sounded dated, so I would not call the show 90s nostalgia. Sure, the graying, white crowd knew these songs from a long time ago. But it’s hard to feel nostalgia when the bands act as if time hasn’t passed.  If either band wants to tour on any album they produced in any decade, I wouldn’t hesitate at a return engagement.

Ride again