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.
I wonder if your statement also applies to recent live Roger Waters.
ReplyDeleteYou've captured my feelings exactly -- David's gotten better with age. His guitar playing is less cautious, especially on Echoes and Astronomy Domine where I feel he really lets loose. Maybe it's the fact that, unlike Pulse, he's not trying to keep exact time with a projected movie and synchronized light show, or maybe he doesn't feel the pressure to deliver a note-perfect performance, but I listen to this live album definitely more than Pulse of Delicate Sound... The one benefit of having On An Island in its entirety is that it saves me the trouble of buying the studio version. And given how lively these versions are, I doubt I ever will. I haven't yet listened to Live in Pompeii. With the exception of the songs from the newest album, I'm not sure if I need to hear yet another version of Comfortably Numb, High Hopes, or Wish You Were Here. My one enduring disappointment with Dave is his long-standing disinterest in playing anything from Animals. While I get that it is very much an angry Roger album, Dave did co-write Dogs and to this day it contains some of his best guitar playing and I'd love to hear Dave let it rip live rather than the army of faceless axemen Roger brings out on stage for the song.
ReplyDeleteLive in Pompeii has some amazing guitar playing (especially on Sorrow and CN, but In Any Tongue and Faces of Stone also come across incredibly well - the whole show has a darker tone, as did the RTL album), but David's voice sounds very rough. I especially don't get why he kept doing Coming Back to Life, which relies a lot on the ethereal vocal. Supposedly the Royal Albert Hall performances from later in the tour where much better vocally...
DeleteAs for Pulse, that album was mixed in Q sound an with added reverb to make it all sound more seamless. The DVD gives a better impression of what the live show was actually like.
Waters was good backing up Clapton with his finger bass chops.
ReplyDelete"there is not a single moment on here which would make me go, "oh, this really sucks without Nick""
ReplyDeleteThat's because David avoided Money, OOTD and Run Like Hell... those songs in 2016 definitely made me miss Nick and his brutal fills.