Pink Floyd drummer makes previous sound current at Royal Oak Music Theatre – Press and Information
There are some who would think about a Pink Floyd, or Pink Floyd-related, live performance with out songs corresponding to “Cash,” “One other Brick within the Wall, Pt. 2” or “Comfortably Numb” to be a disappointment.
However when drummer and co-founder Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets and techniques hits the stage — because it did Friday evening, Oct. 7, on the Royal Oak Music Theatre — it’s a chance for some important discovery.
Relatively than the enduring glory days of the 70s, the British quintet’s focus is on the sooner a part of the story, music from 1967-72, previous to “The Darkish Aspect of the Moon.” It’s largely extra experimental and fewer conventional — and at instances, sure, tougher for the listener. However over the course of two hours and 10 minutes, plus intermission, on Friday the Saucers (as Mason calls the group) once more demonstrated that this physique of labor not solely has benefit however is the very basis of the multi-platinum successes that got here later.
And the repertoire established that the Pink Floyd of yore and the Saucerful of now might hit with direct photographs, too, whether or not it was the melodic mid-60s Britpop of “Arnold Layne” and “See Emily Play,” the “dumb-ass rock ‘n’ roll” (as bassist Man Pratt put it) of “The Nile Tune” or equally punchy rockers corresponding to “Lucifer Sam,” “Bear in mind a Day” and “Sweet and a Currant Bun.”
“It’s taken awhile, however we’re actually happy to be again,” the 78-year previous Mason advised the Royal Oak crowd from behind his drum equipment early within the present. Saucerful’s first metro space present was throughout April of 2019 on the Fillmore Detroit, however Mason additionally spoke about “good recollections” of taking part in in Detroit since 1968, together with a Grande Ballroom date the place the flash pots have been “over-enthusiastically filled with gunpowder,” which blew out some followers’ eardrums in addition to “each speaker we owned.”
Friday’s present was explosive otherwise, because the group breathed new life right into a well-aged batch of songs, with modest visuals that mixed historic Floyd footage and pictures with psychedelic blobbery on a rear-stage display screen. Guitarists Gary Kemp (previously of Spandau Ballet) and Lee Harris had loads of room to stretch out on largely instrumental opuses corresponding to “Obscured by Clouds,” “Atom Coronary heart Mom,” “Set the Controls for the Coronary heart of the Solar” and “Saucerful of Secrets and techniques,” whereas an plain spotlight was “Echoes,” the side-long, 21-minute tour from 1971’s “Meddle” album that options tones and themes that will later pop up on “The Darkish Aspect of the Moon.” Saucerful delivered the epic with hot-wired grandeur, Dom Bekan’s keyboard textures holding the sonic pastiche collectively even in its most meandering passages.
There have been loads of different treats all through the evening, together with “Vegetable Man,” a music Pink Floyd had neither completed nor performed reside again within the 60s however that Mason and the Saucers was a signature of their tribute to the late Floyd founder Syd Barrett. Pratt, in the meantime, launched “Bear in mind a Day,” written by Floyd’s late Rick Wright, as “poignant for me to sing,” as he was as soon as married to Wright’s daughter and the keyboardist “was my son’s grandfather.”
There have been lighthearted moments as nicely. Mason spoke about “Arnold Layne” being banned by the BBC due to lyrical content material (a couple of transvestite who steals girls’s clothes) however that the boomers within the theater crowd “are previous and mature sufficient for us to play it;” he additionally revealed that “Sweet and a Currant Bun” was equally banned, noting that it’s unique title was “Let’s Roll One other One.” Mason additionally quipped about lastly with the ability to play gong on “Set the Controls…” after former Floyd bassist Roger Waters “refused to let me contact it” when the band was first performing the songs.
And Pratt took his personal mild, good-humored shot by referring to the 1971 compilation “Relics” as a favourite as a result of it was a inexpensive possibility than different Pink Floyd albums on the time.
Saucerful rode the present residence with idiosyncratic “Bike,” capping one other gorgeous evening of revisitation for some, revelation for others. Dwelling up to now, on this case, by no means felt extra current.
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