Ride and The Charlatans UK are two seminal Britpop bands celebrating anniversaries. In the case of Ride, the band’s debut album Nowhere turned 30 in 2020, and the quartet have been celebrating in a series of post-COVID concerts. For The Charlatans, the band’s sophomore record, Between 10th and 11th, turned 30 in 2022.
The bands visited the USA together on their joint Between Nowhere Tour in 2022, but they missed a few cities, including the Washington, DC metro area. The Britpop giants now return, however, with a date at The Fillmore Silver Spring on Wednesday, Jan. 17.
Ride have always been a band capable of seeing hidden depths others couldn’t. When the world was going baggy, they floated out of Oxfordshire art schools in 1988 on a sound like scorched clouds. It would become known as shoegaze, but Ride’s primordial blaze of noise, like Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, and The House Of Love, had a savagery and elegance that transcended the Home Counties waftiness that would emerge from their vapour trail.
Their early run of EPs and Top 20 debut album Nowhere made them the alternative sensation of 1990 and Creation Records’ first major success story; its Top Five follow up Going Blank Again (1992) — featuring the monolithic Leave Them All Behind and the head-spinning Twisterella — was a celestial torrent of noise and imagination like none other of its era. Even though Britpop blindsided Ride and the band split acrimoniously after two more albums (1994’s psych rock Carnival Of Light and 1996’s scattergun Tarantula), their standing as leftfield sonic giants remained undiminished.
Ride reformed in 2015 to play Coachella, Primavera and a package of other high-profile festival dates, welcomed like prodigal sons.
Watch the official music video for “Vapour Trail” by Ride on YouTube:
Over the years, The Charlatans UK have notched up 13 Top 40 studio albums — three of them number ones — alongside 22 hit singles, four of them Top 10. The rollercoaster highs have been accompanied by some shattering lows, any which one of them could have felled a less resilient band, from nervous breakdowns to near bankruptcy and the deaths of two founder members.
Somehow, they have not just carried on but adapted and transformed. The classic Charlatans sound – driving Hammond organ, Northern Soul and house-influenced rhythms, swaggering guitars and Tim Burgess’s sunny yet somehow yearning vocal – is instantly recognisable. And in spite of everything they have been through their music is now more relevant than ever, The Guardian described their last album, Different Days as “one of their best ever.”
The Charlatans of course are coming to The Fillmore Silver Spring to perform Between 10th and 11th in full.
Watch the official music video for “Weirdo” by The Charlatans UK on YouTube:
The Charlatans UK
Ride
The Fillmore Silver Spring
Wednesday, Jan. 17
Doors @ 7pm
$39.50 GA/$89.50 VIP
All ages