So last night I witnessed a pretty special gig. Nick Mason is in town, he has a band called Saucerful of Secrets, and they only play pre-TDSOTM Floyd tracks. I’d known about the gig for a while but tickets were initially $170 which I was never going to pay. It seems many people also didn’t, they’d dropped to $99 by the time I got mine on a whim last night. They played at the Forum, which is comfortably Melbourne’s best small music venue (2,000 capacity), and it was pretty awesome to see an OG Pink Floyd member in such an intimate venue. I was mildly skeptical before the show, as I knew Nick wouldn’t be singing and was concerned it’d just be an expensive tribute show with some ordinary other musicians, but the band is actually pretty cool… Guy Pratt plays bass and sings, and he’s played on Pink Floyd tracks and done live shows with the band for decades, and the other ‘frontman’ is Gary Kemp, from Spandau Ballet. Kemp effectively takes Gilmour’s place, and Pratt Waters’ (though it’s kind of a disservice to say that for Pratt, who is so warm and likeable, the complete opposite of Waters). So yes, it is a tribute show, but you’ve got an original member and two frontmen who know the material inside and out and are incredibly huge fans of Floyd. Their interplay and stage presence is a delight. Pratt shares that Remember a Day is played for Rick Wright, who was the grandfather of his child. He also gets really pumped up seeing a bunch of fans in the front rock out to Atom Heart Mother. He also tells the story of loving The Nile Song, and how he proposed it to Gilmour for his last tour. “I suggested we play The Nile Song and he suggested I join another band.” Kemp excitedly tells the crowd, “we grew up thinking these were the best albums ever made. Now we KNOW these were the best albums ever made!” (I know nothing about Spandau Ballet but he is a fantastic performer, good-looking rooster, I imagine he was a bit of an icon back in the day. He jokingly bemoans the lack of Spandau Ballet t-shirts in the crowd until he spots a woman wearing one.) They open with One of These Days, just so good. It’s really cool to see Mason up so close, and hitting those iconic beats in songs like that and Echoes, which I know so well, behind a huge drum kit and in front of a gong. I don’t actually know early Floyd that well apart from Meddle, but it’s a brilliant show from start to finish. (Lee Harris (from a band called Blockheads, who also came up with the idea for the band) on co-lead guitar and synths/keyboardist Dom Beken, from The Orb, round out the band.) At a few points throughout the show Mason stands up and offers some insights into some of the songs they’re playing, like half-finished Syd Barrett-led offcuts like Vegetable Man, and stories behind tracks like Candy and a Currant Bun. He’s a bit wobbly, clearly very old now, but also really humble and very funny. In one of his story sections before Set the Controls, he’s talking about he’s excited to play the gong, because it was always Roger’s thing and he wasn’t allowed to, and then his phone rings, and he answers it and goes “oh, Roger, hello! No I haven’t seen your gong mate… no idea where it could be… what am I up to? Oh nothing much… actually, I think I saw David take you gong. Maybe give him a call. Ok, bye…” It was so fucking great, and it was stuff like that that made the pretty exorbitant price tag totally worth it. Set the Controls is absolutely majestic, the If-Atom Heart Mother-If reprise section of the show is utterly outstanding. The close out the main set with Echoes, which was just phenomenal. I’m so glad that I can now say that I’ve lived and seen that live in person, played by a fantastic band featuring a member of Pink Floyd. The way Lee Harris recreates the high-pitched squeals with his guitar is magic, I had no idea that was a guitar. The build-up to the solo (played by Kemp) was transcendent. The pings by Beken were magic. What a fucking incredible song, one of the best ever made. The encore of See Emily Play and Saucerful of Secrets is brilliant. I’d have loved to also hear Cymbaline, Interstellar Overdrive and Careful with that Axe, but it was a stellar show, and you can see it really means a lot to Nick, he spends a lot of the show beaming with pride. Really glad I went.
One of These Days
Arnold Layne
Fearless
Obscured By Clouds / When You’re In
Candy and a Currant Bun
Vegetable Man
If / Atom Heart Mother / If
Remember a Day
Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun
Astronomy Domine
The Nile Song
Burning Bridges
Childhood’s End
Lucifer Sam
Echoes
See Emily Play
A Saucerful of Secrets
Bike
Relics/The Early Years 4
Obscured By Clouds 4
Meddle 3
Atom Heart Mother 2
Saucerful of Secrets 2
Piper at the Gates of Dawn 2
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