David Gilmour performing at the 2012 Douglas Adams 60th Birthday Party
Written by Matt   
Friday, 25 March 2022

11 March 2012 would have been the author Douglas Adams' 60th Birthday. To celebrate this event, Douglas's family and friends decided to hold a "virtual birthday party" in London, at the Hammersmith Apollo (formerly Odeon) which turned out to be a stunning, star-studded event with chat, comedy and music filling the evening. Our review of the evening can be found here. The event was staged in aid of Save The Rhino International.

For the musical part of the evening, there was quite the house band. Robbie McIntosh on guitar and vocals, Gary Brooker on keyboards and vocals, Jodi Linscott on percussion, Wix Wickens on keyboards, Margo Buchanan on vocals and guitar, backed by Dave Bronze on bass, and Paul Beavis on drums. Joining them later in the set was David Gilmour, who sang Wish You Were Here, which he played an acoustic guitar on, followed by Chuck Berry's Too Much Monkey Business with the Black Strat fired up, which he also used on the finale of A Whiter Shade Of Pale.

The show was filmed, but never released. However, one decade on, and to coincide with what would have been Douglas's 70th birthday, permission has been granted to release that stunning finale, which you can see here: