Though it’s been almost 23 years to the date of the first and—prior to last week’s reunion show—only time that I saw Ride live and in the flesh, that show at the sadly long gong Academy concert hall still reverberates in my memory like the everlasting effect of being bombarded by their shoegaze-glazed wall of sound. Ride was the soundtrack to my first couple years of college and that live appearance still sticks out amongst the hundreds of shows I’ve seen since. As such, their appearance in Brooklyn last week—their first gig in the Big Apple since the one I saw so many years ago—was no doubt tinged by a certain amount of nostalgia, but the Oxford four-piece quickly reveled that they had gathered no moss in the intervening years and that the songs from the handful of records they made in their heyday are still singularly superior to the contemporary dross that’s been compared to their generation.

Just as they did in 1992, Ride opened with “Leave Them All Behind,” the leadoff track from the band’s second full-length, Going Blank Again. But while the track’s prodding bassline, cracking snare, and surging guitar lines were a suitable intro, it was with the subsequent blast of “Like a Daydream,” from their Play EP, that the show began in earnest. That song’s crushing tidal waves of guitars were truly riveting, and the cut’s several pregnant pauses left one with the feeling of hanging in midair. “Polar Bear,” from Ride’s magnum opus, Nowhere, was just as spellbinding, but this time the swirl of guitars gave the feeling of levitation, an appropriate sensation given the track’s celestial subject matter.

As the set progressed through highlight after highlight, notably “Seagull” and “Cool Your Boots,” the sheaths of distortion lifted only ever so slightly so that when they got to “OX4,” it’s shimmery melody seemed like the rainbow at the end of a beautifully violent storm. In truth, it was the midway point of a set that could have extended into the wee hours of the morning if I had my druthers. “Paralysed,” also seemed like a parting of the seas, but only in the context of its own tempest. Of course, perennial favorite “Vapour Trail” stood out, but it was “Drive Blind,” during which all four members went on a noisy tangent before returning to the song proper to close the set without missing a beat, that was the grand finale. As you’d suspect, they returned for an encore, and “Mouse Trap” was a blissful spiraling of pop hooks and distortion. “Chelsea Girl,” the leadoff track from their self-titled debut EP, appropriately finished the set as the band kicked it into overdrive one last time, their guitars still humming as they exited the stage. Too many years had passed since their last appearance for the show to ever be long enough (I would have liked to have heard something from the criminally overlooked Carnival of Light), but I suspect this one will stick with me for some time to come as well.