Pink Floyd Tribute Acts
A strange thing happened the other evening – I watched two Pink Floyd tribute acts on my TV – back to back and not a single song overlapped between the two. That the tribute acts featured two original member of the band is almost moot – both were hugely entertaining performances.
The first, of course, is the new Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets (NM-SOS) live album, featuring Guy Pratt, Gary Kemp (yes the Duran Duran one), Lee Harris, and and Dom Beken. Their “Live at the Roundhouse” concert has been released on a variety of formats, including double vinyl (I spend my life telling people not to buy concert albums on vinyl – and then went ahead and bought this one) and Blu-Ray. The band play classic Pink Floyd material, prior to the Dark Side of The Moon – 7 albums worth (though this includes the horror studio album component of Ummagumma). And boy is this concert fun – the guys are clearly having a great time, and some of their arrangements – “Atom Heart Mother” – for example are really original and entertaining. A lot of the pre DSOM Floyd stuff is heavy on noodling – the snoozefest that is “Live in Pompeii” is an example – or filler (most of “Meddle,” in particular the abominable “Seamus”) – but there are lots of catchy pop songs (“Childhoods End” See Emily Play” “If”) and engaging instrumentals. I watched the whole Blu-Ray in one sitting – and then turned on Sky TV to discover that they were showing “Us & Them” – the concert movies of Roger Waters’ most recent tour.
If you get to go to a Roger Waters concert, be aware – it will be visually stunning, sound fantastic and feature a set list to die for. You will also have to tolerate Roger’s relentless resentfulness for his father’s untimely death (he is 77 now)* and various sanctimonious politically aware offerings – with which you may or may not agree. It is worth the discomfort. “Us & Them” is awesome – I have only seen the TV version but I’m sure it is the same as the Blu-Ray – just spectacular – and – hello – there is Jonathan Wilson pretending to be David Gilmour (I prefer each and every one of Wilson’s solo albums to anything recorded by Roger Waters in the past 35 years). Compared with NM-SOS, everyone is very serious (except Roger who always seems to enjoy himself on stage) – but they are playing to a gargantuan arena in Amsterdam versus the almost cosy Roundhouse in London. I could just sit and listen to the music and watch the backdrops on the screen without ever seeing the (very uptight looking) band.
With David Gilmour intermittently doing his own Pink Floyd tribute act, it makes you wonder how hard it would be to get the 3 remaining Floyd members together for just one concert (yes I know they did Live-8), a bit like “Celebration Day” by Led Zeppelin. Considering the number of shared musicians that they have used over the years, it would be pretty easy to pull off.
Of course, the ultimate Pink Floyd tribute act was the 1987 version (featuring Mason and Gilmour – Rick Wright was a paid musician at the time) – of Pink Floyd! They released two concert movies – Live in Venice (which was great) and “Delicate Sound of Thunder (DSOT)” – which was a mess. Thankfully, DSOT is about to be re-released – with a full re-editing and audio re-mix. This was in the Later Years box-set – but nobody I know either bought it or could afford it [I’m hoping that they will debundle the components like they did with the Early years – so that I can buy it piecemeal – spending the same amount of money for an inferior product but convincing myself that I am not a spendtrift]. Apparently it is stunning.
*The last concert version of “The Wall” was ruined by recurrent cutting away from the concert to interview segments of Roger being miserable. I don’t know how many concert DVDs/Videos I have bought that do this – there are loads: music industry please – stop fucking up the concert and release the bloody documentary separately – we just want to hear the music. Rant over.
audioexchange 
I was at the show and it was indeed great. Saw him 3 times and for me this was the best, both in terms of variety of the set list and performance. The tracks from Animals were unforgettable. Hence though the Dr numbers again say: squashed I had to order it anyway.
In general, never been such a fan of the live shows of the Floyd. Ultimately these are not really Pink Floyd for me. I am just a sucker for live at Pompei for the same reason.
Speaking of live shows, on the 23th of October Sony Music should release Pearl Jam’s MTV Unplugged. Not sure whether both vinyl and cd are available. the latter for sure.