Some great news for many of you: Nick Mason's Saucerful Of Secrets are clearly loving life on the road, and this morning have announced a tour of Ireland and the UK visiting thirteen locations, playing a show in each, and on the whole taking the production to venues which they've not been to before.

For those yet to check them out (and if so, where have you been?!), Nick Mason's Saucerful Of Secrets brings together some familiar names, all great musicians: joining Nick are Gary Kemp and Lee Harris on guitar, Guy Pratt on bass, and Dom Beken on keyboards. Before coming together to form Nick Mason's Saucerful Of Secrets, Kemp was best known for his work with Spandau Ballet, Harris as having played guitar with The Blockheads (Ian Dury's band), Pratt needs no introduction, and Beken was principally known for his work with The Orb, and Transit Kings (with Pratt). The band play early Pink Floyd songs, concentrated on the period of 1967-1972.

Tickets for the thirteen concerts, which are really not to be missed, go on sale at 10am UK time, on Thursday 19th September, via this direct link at www.ticketmaster.ie for Dublin, and this direct link at SeeTickets.com for the UK dates, as well as other normal agents. The dates and venues are as follows:

• 29 April - The Convention Centre Dublin, Dublin, Ireland - TICKETS
• 1 May - Barbican, York, England - TICKETS
• 2 May - De Montfort Hall, Leicester, England - TICKETS
• 4 May - Mayflower Theatre, Southampton, England - TICKETS
• 5 May - St David's Hall, Cardiff, Wales - TICKETS
• 7 May - Royal Albert Hall, Kensington, London, England - TICKETS
• 8 May - Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool, England - TICKETS
• 9 May - City Hall, Sheffield, England - TICKETS
• 11 May - Symphony Hall, Birmingham, England - TICKETS
• 12 May - The Forum, Bath, England - TICKETS
• 14 May - Sage Gateshead, Gateshead, England - TICKETS
• 15 May - O2 Apollo Manchester, Manchester, England - TICKETS
• 16 May - The Usher Hall, Edinburgh, Scotland - TICKETS

Each date above links off to its individual show page, which should build into a record of each concert, a home for your reviews, pictures, and more!

This is a very special opportunity to experience Pink Floyd's celebrated and significant early body of work played live including songs from albums 'The Piper At The Gates of Dawn' and 'A Saucerful Of Secrets', through to 'Obscured By Clouds'. The band have been very highly praised by fans and the media alike for the quality and uniqueness of each performance - the Saucers clearly have a wonderful time performing together, and that comes across clearly in the music.

Last night, the 2019 Progressive Music Awards took place at the Underglobe in London (literally, under the Globe Theatre!). These annual awards, instigated by Prog Magazine, honour newcomers and established acts alike, along with other key individuals.

There were two key, Floyd-related awards given out last night - the first of these was Industry VIP, that was presented to Tony Smith. With a roster of top acts (including Genesis, and the various individuals/offshoot projects) he has also been Nick Mason's manager for some time, and Nick's Saucerful Of Secrets are under his wing too.

Talking of Nick, it was last night that he received his trophy as Prog God. This had been previously announced that he was due to be given the award at this year's ceremony, so all due preparation had been made. At the time the news broke, almost a month ago, Nick said: "I'm all in favour of recognition for drummers – particularly when it’s me – so I'm really delighted to be recognised as Prog God. It's hard to believe that it was over 50 years ago that the music we know as prog rock was born, and it's still being celebrated, played and developed in the 21st century. Long may it continue!"

As part of the Prog God announcement last night, a video was shown collecting highlights of his career to date, and included some of the recently shot live footage of the Saucers at London's Roundhouse (which looked great!). Nick did joke about hoping that he'd be winning "Best Newcomer" as well as "Lifetime Achievement" on the same evening!

The picture here is Nick during his acceptance speech, with comedian and host for the evening Al Murray (left) and Rory Bremner, which was posted on the Prog social media channels. The live stream they had running will hopefully be available to view on demand in due course; pictorial coverage and the full list of winners from the Progressive Music Awards 2019 will be printed in their special souvenir issue, which goes on sale from October 25 and will also be available to purchase, worldwide, online.

The combined wishes of all of us on the Brain Damage team, along no doubt with many of you reading this, go to Roger Waters, who celebrates his 76th birthday today!

Roger was born in Great Bookham, Surrey, in 1943, moving to Cambridge when he was two years old. It was there that he met, and became childhood friends with, a number of key people in the story of Pink Floyd.

Of course, Roger has been extremely busy over the last few years, having successfully taken Dark Side Of The Moon on tour in 2006, through to 2008. On completing that, he immediately started work on a new version of The Wall - which finally opened in September 2010. That tour was spectacularly successful, wrapping up in Paris for show number 217 in September 2013. Recordings of that tour turned into the film, shown in cinemas and released on DVD/Blu-ray and as part of a mammoth, Super Deluxe Edition.

More recently, he performed his highly acclaimed Us + Them world tour, which was filmed and will be in cinemas worldwide at the start of next month (with tickets now on sale), prior to (hopefully) a domestic release. He's also released his latest solo album, Is This The Life We Really Want? as well as overseeing the release of the late Nick Sedgwick's book about the band, and in particular, the 1974 tour of The Dark Side of the Moon, and this week appeared outside the UK's Home Office, performing Wish You Were Here on acoustic guitar with Andy Fairweather-Low, in support of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

We hope you have a great day, Roger. Many happy returns!

Just announced, and good news for those who have been meaning to get to the latest staging of The Pink Floyd Exhibition: Their Mortal Remains...

Due to overwhelming praise from Pink Floyd fans in Spain and those who have visited from around the world, the promoters announced today that the exhibition in Madrid will be extended for six additional weeks. It is now scheduled to close on October 27th, 2019.

Tickets for the extra six weeks are now available through www.pinkfloydexhibition.es.

If the Spanish staging is anything like past iterations of this exhibition (which originally opened at London's Victoria & Albert Museum in May 2017) it is a wonderful journey through the years of Pink Floyd's history, even incorporating related items from the band member's lives pre-Floyd.

To see instruments, equipment, props, posters, and so much more that have been key elements, is a joy, and is not to be missed! Hopefully once the Madrid staging concludes, the exhibition will be packed up and on its way to a new location. Details of that, though, are yet to be revealed...