David Gilmour: Live In Gdansk

DAVID GILMOUR: LIVE IN GDANSK (2008)

1) Speak To Me; 2) Breathe; 3) Time; 4) Breathe (reprise); 5) Castellorizon; 6) On An Island; 7) The Blue; 8) Red Sky At Night; 9) This Heaven; 10) Then I Close My Eyes; 11) Smile; 12) Take A Breath; 13) A Pocketful Of Stones; 14) Where We Start; 15) Shine On You Crazy Diamond; 16) Astronomy Domine; 17) Fat Old Sun; 18) High Hopes; 19) Echoes; 20) Wish You Were Here; 21) A Great Day For Freedom; 22) Comfortably Numb.

General verdict: The closest thing to «Pink Floyd at 60» that there is, and what a wonderful thing it is, too.

The only two reasons why this live album is not officially a «Pink Floyd» live album are: (a) the lack of Nick Mason, whose functions here are performed by Steve DiStanislao, and (b) the inclusion of On An Island as played in its entirety, albeit in slightly reshuffled order. Neither of the two factors seems particularly important to me, though. For one thing, Steve is an excellent drummer with a great feel for Floydʼs material, and there is not a single moment on here which would make me go, "oh, this really sucks without Nick"; meanwhile, Rick Wright definitely is here, and his personal touch is very well felt on all of the tracks. For another thing, well, On An Island is conceptually, stylistically, and spiritually just as Pink Floyd as The Division Bell was, which is to say, well, not very much Pink Floyd, but if they slapped the moniker on that one...

...anyway, this is a really stupid and superfluous discussion, I simply had no better idea of how to start off the review. What really matters is that the On An Island tour, which took place from March to August of 2006, opened an entire new page in the life of David Gilmour and, perhaps, even in the lifeline of Pink Floyd as a general concept. Not coincidentally, the first date of the tour was March 7, precisely the next day after David had turned 60; and those who had the luck to witness any of those shows were probably much closer to the revelation that I had to have much later — namely, that it actually takes time for much of Floydʼs material to ripen up to perfection. Or, to put it another way, that Pink Floyd were blessed with the opportunity to write great music when they were young and live long enough to perform it when they got old.

Live In Gdańsk is actually a combined package of two CDs and one DVD; the latter contains much, but not all of the show, and so a better video pick would arguably be Remember That Night, from the May 2006 concert at the Royal Albert Hall. And there are two reasons now why watching this experience makes more sense than just listening to it. One old — Floydʼs fabulous light show — and one new: Gilmour and Wright now visually look almost like a couple of Olympian gods or, at least, demi-gods, with the wisdom of ages imprinted on their faces and reflected in their demeanour to such an extent that I seriously feel some sort of Ancient Greek vibe running through me for all of the showʼs duration.

Nevertheless, even the audio on its own is remarkable. For one thing, never as of yet in the history of Pink Floyd have their recording engineers managed to capture the sound in such utter clarity — even P.U.L.S.E. sounds muffled and distant compared to the sharpness of guitars and keyboards on these recordings. Of course, this is merely a sign of the times (you should expect a 2006 soundboard recording sound clearer than a 1994 soundboard recording), but given that the quality of Daveʼs and Rickʼs playing has absolutely not suffered in the meantime, this means that, for instance, ʽHigh Hopesʼ and ʽTimeʼ flat-out murder their predecessors. Including material from On An Island in its entirety was probably unnecessary — other than showing the world just how much this material means to Gilmour at this period in his life — but even so, and even with almost each song extended by a minute or two to allow Dave more opportunities to stretch out, most of the songs strike harder than their studio counterparts, with even juicier guitar tones and even rawer feeling than in the studio.

The rest of the setlist, too, tries its hardest not to make the whole thing follow in the steps of the 1988 and 1994 records («endure our latest shitty album to be compensated with our greatest hits live»). There is no ʽMoneyʼ (!), no ʽUs And Themʼ, no ʽAnother Brick In The Wallʼ, and no ʽRun Like Hellʼ, though there still is a large chunk of Dark Side, and I guess that the audience would demand their money back without ʽWish You Were Hereʼ or ʽComfortably Numbʼ or ʽShine On You Crazy Diamondʼ. But there are a couple of big surprises: ʽAstronomy Domineʼ makes a welcome return from the P.U.L.S.E. tour, with Dave and Rick having just as much of a blast, and then Gilmour resuscitates ʽFat Old Sunʼ, which, as I already wrote in my earlier review, is quite predictable since it is arguably the one song from his Floyd days which is the closest in spirit to the overall mood of On An Island.

Despite all these goodies, one thing and one thing only makes this tour an absolute must for any music lover — ʽEchoesʼ. In all honesty, while I have always admired the original song as well as the live version on Pompeii, it was not until seeing and hearing what they have done with it on Remember That Night that I came to truly realising its Gargantuan powers. The differences are purely technical: for the first time ever, ʽEchoesʼ is capable of receiving a grandiose sonic treatment, with all the proper amplification and sound mixing that it requires to serve as this mammoth musical allegory of Creation. The climactic «phantom of the Opera» bits benefit particularly well from these technicalities — in the past, you had to strain your imagination a bit to find yourself entangled in this cosmic thunderstorm, but now you are pulled in all by yourself, as the instruments reach sonic heights that were previously only hinted at. The funky dance in the middle, with Rick sending out organ snowballs and Dave chasing them with guitar lightning bolts... the «seagull» ambience... the slow build-up towards the reprise of the main theme... this is now the par excellence version of ʽEchoesʼ for me.

The main lesson to be taken away from both ʽEchoesʼ and the show in general is how to make time work for you rather than against you, which is typically the case with aging rock artists. For a while, it seemed like «Dave Floyd» suffered from the same problem: mixing inferior material from their obviously less inspired, less innovative, less «toothy» records with perfunctory renditions of the old classics that did not really give the impression that their hearts were totally in it — you could almost read the «is it really OK if we do these songs without Roger?» thought on the anxious faces of his bandmates back in the day. But with this tour, itʼs like all those problems are magically gone. Perhaps it was the brief Live 8 reunion with Roger that helped, or, more likely, it is just that when you turn 60, you really have nothing left to prove — and it also goes without saying that some of these songs, like ʽTimeʼ, for instance, acquire a much deeper, much more personal meaning as actual time goes by.

Even ʽShine On You Crazy Diamondʼ, which is not delivered here perfectly (David does some unnecessary tinkering with the vocal lines), ends up cutting deeper than usual, especially if you remember that Syd died on July 7, 2006, right in the middle of Davidʼs tour. All the themes of loneliness, rejection, depression, etc. somehow feel so right now, coming from these people, that never even once, while listening to Live In Gdańsk or watching Remember That Night, did I get the faintest impression of «cash grab» or «capitalizing on nostalgia». On the contrary, this entire tour feels like a healthy and satisfactory profit on an investment made thirty years ago — I will not go as far as to say that these performances cancel out Floydʼs original live shows, because nothing can fully compensate for the lack of creative freshness and youthful edge; but I will say that if there is one band in this world that stands to gain rather than lose from old age, it is Pink Floyd, in whatever shape it comes.