"...So, yes, come the tail end of 1989, there was a mood of battered, hopeless optimism. As we took our huddled flight into the Nineties, a bolt from nowhere, from Oxford, overturned the inherent pessimism in that optimism and gave us something to believe in. Ride had tunes, noise, looks, style, confidence, everything. And they had youth: their two guitar-playing singers Mark Gardener and Andy Bell were both just 19, as was drummer Laurence 'Loz' Colbert. Stephen Queralt, the bassist, was an oldster at 21..."