Nine kiwi’s with bordering on obsessional respect for the latter day sonic experiments of one of the world’s most popular, ‘difficult’ bands. It’s an interesting combination that on the face of it fills one with scepticism and excitement, curiosity and circumspection, all at the same time. I must admit, my expectations were undefined at best, and after being told that on their last tour these guys played the entirety of The Wall and Dark Side of the Moon, these expectation were given every excuse to rise a little. Only in the space of the last 24 hours has I begun to come to terms with the fact that Floyd were NEVER going to tour again now, and that my dream of seeing, even an aging Pink Floyd awash in psychedelic lights and theatrical hyper-drama was well and truly dead. In fact this was made more depressing by the knowledge that Roger Waters had only recently come to Australia on his obligatory one-in-twenty-year celebration of everything Dark Side and beyond, and that this wasn’t going to happen again any time soon. All of these serendipitous facts kept pointing with sledgehammer fingers towards the possibility that The Pink Floyd Experience was going to rip apart Thebby. Well unfortunately, it wasn’t all that and despite quite a few moments of, well, guitarific genius, for it felt as if we were all gathered around a beat up car radio (with astonishingly, amazing sound) lolling along to a Triple M interpretation of Pink Floyd’s recorded output.
Nothing stops talent though (except maybe bad taste, and when it comes to Floyd no matter who you are you’re genetically configured from the get-go to believe that the band is either tasteful or tasteless), and I can’t be held back from lauding the skills and abilities of these Floydian soldiers. Darren Whittaker’s guitar playing was nothing short of spectacular and was the one instrument that truly channelled it’s inspiration, in David Gilmour. Perhaps regurgitating Gilmour isn’t as difficult as it seems as he was famous for relentlessly writing and charting every note of almost every guitar solo, but forget that. On this night solos were consistently performed with the clarity and tone of purity that Gilmour has mastered like no-one. Every solo was without a note, conspicuously out of place and was positioned so perfectly in the mix that the gig sometimes appeared to be only a sequence of events designed to contextualise a collection of Floydian guitar heroics. Mention must also go to Stan Gratkowski who’s marvellous and hauntingly accurate vocal mimickery skills (perfecting both Gilmour and Waters) were perfect for the band’s over-devotion to The Wall and reinterpretation of the Animals classic Dogs.
Watching the gig a few rows back, continually being impressed by the array of light effects and theatrical visions swirling around behind the band, I was pushed into a void that brought thoughts of hope and belief in the potential of the ingredients on stage. This was further strengthened by an impressive, if completely disjointed early set list which randomly took medley slabs from the majority of the CBS albums. Pigs on The Wing and Dogs from Animals, Welcome to the Machine and Have a Cigar from Wish You Were Here, a flurry of songs, majorly taken from the first record of The Wall were all done well, utilising the by-rote style of these celebrators of all things Floyd. But then things went strange in all the wrong ways. The concert began to suffer, not via the abilities or the competency of the band members but by the strange almost highly unacceptable turn the set list took. Before the band took the stage at the beginning of the night, a swirl of Floyd samples came through the speakers, punctuated most obviously by the legendary “ding” of the masterpiece, Echoes. This excited me, give me Meddle in any form and I go into an allergic reaction, overwhelmed by the genius of what is all around me. But it never came. Instead we were treated, to a WAY too long collection of Momentary Lapse of Reason songs. Now I am a sucker for this David Gilmour solo-cum Pink Floyd album, but I also acknowledge, that in the context of Floyd it is not very good at all (i.e. crap), it isn’t Pink Floyd (no Roger Waters, get real) and any characteristic it has that is remotely entertaining is not repeated on any other Floyd release. Maybe On the Turning Away is a great choice. It mixes it up and is yet another excuse for a few minutes of Gilmourian homage, but for the life of me I cannot understand how Pink Floyd fans (as these guys clearly are) could then choose to play Dogs of War (they may not discriminate, but I do), Learning to Fly and then the killer, the stab in the face What do you want from Me. I mean, Division Bell is a joke; critics have used it often, as one of the great examples of why some records shouldn’t be made. Surely a run through of Echoes would have been so astronomically better than this lacklustre 20 minutes. Surely those albums could have been if not entirely, at least mostly ignored for the sake our ears and our deep, deep, love of Floyd.
But this was a short lull in context of the 3 hour show we witnessed. Shine on You (Parts I-IV) came around to fix the pain brought about by latter-day Waterless Floyd. The miasma was thankfully finally flushed away by the second side of Dark Side, including a ripper run through of Brain Damage and Eclipse, coming around to soothe the soul. Finishing the gig with an encore of more guitar focussed heroics via Run Like Hell and an epic Comfortably Numb was a necessity.It provided the final punctuation point on a gig that despite being slightly painful for a few minutes, still impressed me, and wowed me and moved me at different times.
These guys are incredibly talented. This talent is then channelled through one of popular music’s most innovative, interesting, challenging and impressive bands. I get the nasty feeling though, that I got them on the wrong night. This group with the right set list could burn places down, and more importantly make you forget that Floyd are no-more, for good. When they played classic Floyd, there was passion and excitement all over the place, when they played Momentary Lapse of Reason songs it was clear that this was exactly what they were suffering from. I wait for the next time this talent, desire, respect and ambition are moulded together again, hopefully without the need to play songs they think people want to hear, and instead play the songs that Pink Floyd would want us to hear.
