tributehub

Living here in the wonderful city of Belfast I am always aware of different motivations for following one choice/direction over another.
Take football for example.....strangely ?(!) people here usually support one Glasgow team or the other (Celtic/Rangers) not Hibs;Aberdeen or Montrose. Most follow English Premiership football but its teams like Manchester United;Chelsea;Liverpool and Arsenal they support not Wigan; Derby County;Leeds United or Accrington Stanley.
In music Westlife and Girls Aloud are very popular with the Australian Pink Floyd slightly less so.

I personally have no interest in Scottish football and I do support a Premiership team but it isn't one of the big four and I have followed them most of my life since 1970.  Iam not a fan of Westlife or Girls Aloud (although I accept they are,like Manchester United and Chelsea in Football, good at what they do) but I do like Pink Floyd and the Aussie Pink Floyd.

OK, I will get to my point...........While at the concert the other night in the Odssey,Belfast I was aware of different reactions from the crowd to different songs in the show. This made me think about the composition of the audience and how they might have come to be their.
Although a massive world wide success in the 1970's and 80's Pink Floyd wouldn't have been a household name before 'Another brick in the Wall' topped the UK and Irish charts. Some people probably bought it for the cute kids choir in the video!!.
Mention Pink Floyd to most people and its 'The Wall' or 'Darkside of the Moon' they talk about, some mention 'Wish you were here' and if they mention 'Animals', 'Atom Mother Heart' 'Meddle' ,'Obscured by Clouds';'Piper at the Gates of Dawn' or 'A saucerful of secrets' you know this is someone who knows their Pink Floyd.
When the concert started I felt the atmosphere was a bit flat in spite of the bands intro making my hairs stand on end and a tingle down my spine. it wasn't until 'Another brick in the Wall' that the crowd started singing and livened up. In the first half of the set the Wall numbers got the least response from my observation,apart from brick in the wall,and the Darkside stuff the most. Strange. Most people talked or went to the bar during 'Set the controls for the Heart of the Sun'.
Second half of the set and when everyone was more relaxed,possibly due to the amount of alcohol in plastic glasses they had consumed..........Guinness in a plastic glass its just not right........but again it was 'Gig' and other darkside material that the crowd responded to most apart from 'Comfortably Numb' and 'Run like Hell' which even Westlife/Girls Aloud fans would have enjoyed if they had been their(maybe some were).
So what kind of fans make up an Aussie Pink Floyd Audience??
Well in my opinion (and we are all entitled to one as long as we don't go out of our way to offend anyone) most here in Belfast are 'Dark Side of the Moon fans'. Some may have got into the Floyd by 'Brick in the Wall' but fans of the whole album didn't,in my opinion, make up the audience. The older pre-darkside Barrett/Waters stuff was least popular and least known so fans of this era were few in this audience.
I don't think you would have to be a Floyd fan at all to enjoy the Aussie PF as they are that good to watch/listen too both as a show and musically that you could still enjoy it,but it helps make your experience better. Music fans enjoy gigs and go see bands they only slightly know the material of,this must include tribute bands. 
In conclusion,lets say this audience,some knew a little,some knew a lot and some knew it all.

Only one song from the post Waters Pink Floyd era was played by the Aussies...'Learning to Fly' and that didn't get the same response either ~(In my opinion the weakest song in the set)
so they weren't all fans who had got into the band from 'The Wall' and followed them since.

I,being the sad git I am, knew every song and have all on CD (I recently sold most of my Pink Floyd vinyl collection on ebay.......some market for that out their) and enjoyed it all although as I stated before the songs from the Wall(not previously favorites of mine) stood out most and appeared fresh, full of life and exciting as if I was hearing them again with new ears.

So what,in your opinion,makes up your Aussie Pink Floyd audience,at the venue/venue's you go to??
It's probably safe to assume if your on a Aussie Pink Floyd forum site you have a bit more than a passing interest in the Floyd,their music or the best tribute band on earth (probably/arguably) so I guess we know what kind of fans you guys/gals are.

There you go, you just answered your own question.
              As far as I can see, the band will succeed in their mission if they attract an audience of semi Floyd fans who are so impressed by the skill and enjoyment of the bands performance that they go home happy to listen to anyting in the back catalogue that they've had no experience of before.....thus becoming more enlightened genuine Floyd fans.

Well I think you have covered it as Bigdog says........... If I can throw my two penneth in, I had 2 people with me in Dublin who knew the Wall inside out and were singing the words. But neither knew LTF or anything else for that matter, apart from the DSOTM tracks. So there are clearly Floyd 'Wall Only' fans.

The atmosphere was also flat to start in Dublin, but again due to people not taking their seats until the band started playing - that's just the Irish for you, you can't prise them away from the bar! And the second half was clearly fuelled by alcohol. For every show I have been to this year, the crowd reaction has been different, but I feel it's down to the area and the cultural differences we have in the UK. The south is reservered, the north normally kicks it a bit more. This reaction is the same regardless of what band I go to see.

The welsh are great audiences, they sing along and also spend a lot of money in the bar. So I don't think it's the music at all, it's the area the audience comes from.

GG

Theres loads of bars in Ireland  when i stayed in Wexford there were 45+ bars there, some small and some big. I could do with a Guinness right now

Guiness makes your poo black  :

:G