Our thanks to Theatrice Westbrook for very kindly sharing recollections of an evening in Irvine, California, in June 1984, when David Gilmour played at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre as part of his About Face tour that year:

Chef André Wiederkehr, a friend of my co-worker and friend Karen, got tickets and they had a couple extra. They invited me and other coworker/friend Brian and gave us a ride. Pink Floyd wasn't really Brian's cup of tea. He was more New Wave, outrageous… he turned me on to John Waters and "Pink Flamingos"! But ironically after a group of us saw Berlin in concert in Hollywood earlier, he told me LA was too much, he couldn't wait to get back behind that Orange Curtain (the more conservative Orange County, California)! Go figure.

Brian had his leg in a cast, but refused a wheelchair and walked from the parking lot to our seat on crutches. (He took up the wheelchair offer after the concert.) We had great seats in the lower section, closest to the stage.

David Gilmour's first solo tour. Roger Waters had also begun his first solo tour during the middle of this tour (and more Floyd acrimony would lay ahead). Before the show, André and I went to the restroom; I came out first. Through the fence I saw a guy in jeans and a red Pendleton talking with crew or someone. He looked like a trucker. I looked at his face from profile, it was David Gilmour, 20-25 feet away, with very short hair. I about shit myself. André came out of the bathroom, talking. André was a super hardcore European Floyd fan from Austria. (Translation: Hardcore fan.) When I pointed out David Gilmour, he stopped in his tracks, staring, speechless. We both stared for a couple minutes before returning to our seats.

No opening act. A beautiful Summer eve, a little warm. I had both solo albums and hoped he would play my favourite track "There's No Way Out of Here" (he didn't). But I was not disappointed. The new album, "About Face", was more "radio friendly", with more guest players (Jeff Porcaro was the drummer). The stage was much more scaled down than on Floyd tours. (Part of the show is visible in the US-only 1984 home video release "David Gilmour Live.") The band played cuts from Gilmour's two solo albums along with a couple of Floyd tracks.

The stage darkened and a deep synth pulsated in syncopation with lighting on the lip of the stage and around the edge of the stage risers. This signalled the opening song "Until We Sleep", the first of 5 new album cuts. The band was on it. Loud and clear. I thought I recognized the second guitarist who looked like Mick Ralphs, noted this imposing bald drummer, and a lady on percussion who looked like she was pregnant.

The next song was the Pete Townshend/David Gilmour song "All Lovers Are Deranged", which slammed in the same fashion as the first, and with an ending that presaged the intro/outro of Pink Floyd song "Sorrow" (from the 1987 album "A Momentary Lapse of Reason"), as it shook the whole amphitheater.

Back in 2015, Tim Davies wrote an exclusive piece for our website about his work for Pink Floyd.

The article, which revealed some of the initial ideas under consideration for use on the cover of the Floyd's 1987 album, A Momentary Lapse Of Reason, also talks about how his adaptation of a photo of a girl sitting on the side of a bath ended up on the One Slip cover.

"I took some oil crayons and paint and scribbled over the figure, almost totally covering the figure, but leaving enough to show a rather impressionistic figure which would be perfect for [Blue Matisse, a French pop-group!!

"Feeling pleased with my work I returned to the studio in Goodge Street, London. I spread the images out and Colin seemed very pleased with the results. We planned to show them to the group and their management in the next few days. The next day when I arrived at the studio all the images were gone. Colin told me that Storm [Thorgerson] had come to the studio with one of the musicians from Pink Floyd, possibly David Gilmour who was around a lot then. They saw the sketches and grabbed them for the singles cover image. Colin had told Storm they were for "Blue Matisse", and Storm had replied "Not any more!" I am really proud to this day that a little piece of my art has made it onto a Pink Floyd record cover."

Fast forward to the end of last year, and one of Tim's original artworks for this project (all created in the same sort of way) was discovered in a charity show in the UK by Leigh Dorling. He contacted Tim, who replied back and kindly authenticated the piece of art. Leigh reached out to us as he felt we'd be interested in this follow-up to the story from 10 years ago. Thanks Leigh, and a very nice find!

 

Thanks for letting us know, Leigh, and thanks for the pictures of the artwork and the authentication!

We were recently made aware of an ambitious website, 500songs.com - A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs. This podcast series, available either via the website itself, or via Spotify, Apple Music, etc., looks to take a deep dive into key pieces of music.

This brings us to episode 157, which takes a good look at See Emily Play. It gives a 74 minute analysis of the song, and the development of Pink Floyd in those early days.

Our thanks to Martin Lawson for letting us know about this interesting episode, which you can hear in full here:

With the end of the year looming, it's a good time to look back at what 2024 gave us.

There's been a lot of different releases that we've all experienced over the months, and it is interesting to look back at what there's been in a busy year. In March there was the Mark Knopfler's Guitar Heroes release of Going Home (Theme From Local Hero), which included David Gilmour amongst around 60 musicians.

April saw the lovely looking crystal clear vinyl of The Dark Side Of The Moon, with UV artwork. Later that month, Roger Waters released a picture disc of his Redux version of TDSOTM as part of Record Store Day.

May brought us the Animals 2018 Remix on Blu-ray and on digital platforms, bringing the 1977 album to life in multi channel gloriousness. This was presented with new artwork from the launch of the Animals 2018 remix, showing how Battersea Power Station is used these days for such promotions.

June saw the start of the 35-date Set The Controls tour from Nick Mason's Saucerful Of Secrets, thrilling audiences in the UK and Europe, and getting better and better as a band. Let's hope that there's more next year!

The DVD, Blu-ray and digital release of Have You Got It Yet? The Story Of Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd was released in July, following the 2023 cinema screenings.

Of course, in September, we saw the release of the hotly anticipated Luck And Strange from David Gilmour, which was accompanied from later that month with live shows in Brighton and London, England, Rome, Italy, Los Angeles and New York, USA. Dates in Rome were filmed with the aim to release at some point, and once we have details of that, we'll let you know! David also contributed a guitar solo for Ice-T's band Body Count on their cover version of Comfortably Numb (a very unexpected collaboration!). David's team have also edited together footage from each city of the tour to construct a live version of The Piper's Call, released as a pre-Christmas treat.

Finally, to conclude the year, there's been another release of a bunch of live Pink Floyd concerts to be found on platforms such as Spotify for a limited period. There's thirteen gigs in total, all from 1974, and definitely worth checking out...

Out as a special, pre-Christmas surprise today is David Gilmour's The Piper's Call Live Around The World, recorded at The Brighton Centre, Rome's Circus Maximus, London's Royal Albert Hall, LA's Intuit Dome and NYC's Madison Square Garden. So, elements taken from each city that was lucky enough to get dates on David's 2024 tour.

You can stream or download the song at the various normal places, such as Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon Music, iTunes Store, etc.

The song was edited together by Charlie Andrew and Matt Glasbey to form one seamless track recorded throughout the Luck and Strange tour. The video below premieres today (Friday, 13th December) at 4pm GMT / 5pm CET / 11am ET / 8am PT:

Just published on YouTube is a new interview with David Gilmour, conducted by Rick Beato during the Madison Square Garden concerts in New York City. The nearly hour-long chat with David finds him in expansive mood, explaining how the new album, Luck and Strange, came together and he also talks about the recent concerts.