Nick Mason Live (1 reply)
Although Oxford is a way from Devon, I couldn’t make any of the other dates. My job doesn’t easily allow me to get away early And therefore Bristol can be a problem to get to when midweek, as it was, which is the closest place he played to me - but because the Oxford gig was a weekend, it enabled me to get here.
The new theatre isn’t that new, it’s quite an old theatre, but it’s really nice inside with tiered stalls and several circles. I wasn’t right at the top, but I was in the next one down. I was towards the front of the back half section. Either way the view was a good one. The problem with theatres is it can be a gamble of whether the sound is good or not. I needn’t have worried, the sound was brilliant.
The bank came on stage on time to start the first set. The first track was Astronomy Domine closely followed by Arnold Layne and See Emily Play. Of course all three of these songs are by Syd Barrett the founding member of Pink Floyd. Nick talked about how they wanted to remember him. in 1965, the band recorded a track called remember me. It was essentially a demo. Dom Beken the keyboard player, took the track and managed to extract Syd‘s vocals. This was no easy feat because the track was recorded in one go with no separate tracks. It was a complete mix on four track in mono.
The result of Dom’s hard work meant the band played the track live, called Remember Me, and effectively Syd sang it. It was quite special actually. It was also a superb choice to remember Syd!
The band then took us into the tracks Obscured by Clouds and When You’re In. These are the first two tracks of the album Obscured by Clouds.
Guy Pratt then introduced Remember a Day. This was a track that Rick Wright wrote aged 23 and Guy made a joke about Rick looking back even, though he was quite young at the time. Either way is a great track.
Then we had If and Atom Heart Mother and If reprise. Atom Heart Mother wasn’t received very well by Floyd fans, however the band did an excellent job of making it really accessible tonight. The original is an orchestral piece. Obviously there was no orchestra at the gig, but the band really rocked it up and did an excellent version, I really enjoyed it.
Talking of rocking it up the next track was the Nile Song which gives a good excuse for rock guitar. Nick then said that the following song was the song that he would’ve liked to have used the gong more on. Famously he had a gong behind the drum set in the old days, and sure enough there was one tonight too.
However before the track started, there was a fictitious phone call to Roger Waters, where Roger was apparently asking where his gong was. It was a bit silly but was quite funny at the time. The track being introduced was the wonderful Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun - and it finished the first set.
The second set started with another Barrett track The Scarecrow. This was followed by Fearless. This track is off the Meddle album. We were then back to Obscured by Clouds and the track Childhoods End. Lucifer Sam was next, here Kitty Kitty! The second set was finished with an incredible version of Echoes.
The track was the whole of one side of the Meddle album and essentially was largely an improvised piece by Dave Gilmour and Rick Wright. It was fantastic to hear Nick’s version, which was different from the original. This version was quite rocky in a lot of places. It was the highlight of the show for me.
The band returned for an encore and stayed with Meddle for One of These Days. Again this track was nailed. The encore was completed by the title track off Saucer Full of Secrets, Floyd’s second album.
And we were done. What a brilliant night. It’s fantastic to hear these early Pink Floyd tracks given a new lease of life, and new energy. I really enjoyed it, and hope to see the band again in the future.
I met Dom and Gary Kemp afterwards too!