I had a very interesting and different evening last Saturday. There was a Pink Floyd tribute band in town, for one night only, visiting the Malvern Theatres as part of a UK tour. They got some very good reviews online, the tickets were very reasonably priced, and there were still a few seats left, so even though psychedelic rock is not really my type of music, I thought I’d give it a go.
I went with a hard-core Pink Floyd fan, who had seen the real band live in concert many years ago, and who was extremely impressed with the musicianship of the tribute band. Apparently, they were note perfect. I couldn’t comment about that on much of the programme – they played the entirety of the Animals album, which I’d never heard before, so I had no idea how it is meant to sound. But they also played all of Dark Side of the Moon, which I’m more familiar with, as well as bigger Pink Floyd hits like Shine on you Crazy Diamond and Comfortably Numb. And on the songs I knew, if you shut your eyes you really couldn’t tell it wasn’t the original band playing.
The bass player was clearly channeling Roger Waters, the lead guitarist sounded exactly like David Gilmour, and even the round screen showing somewhat surrealist projections was apparently very authentic. The band got a standing ovation during the encore (which was Another Brick in the Wall), and it was very well deserved. It was a really enjoyable show.
