I'm sorry to say that I found this show somewhat disappointing.
It was the first time that I have seen this band, although I have seen several of the members playing in previous guises, namely with Think Floyd and Off The Wall, in which they impressed. Because of this Keats and I went last night with reasonably high expectations. Perhaps that was a mistake, but there you go.
First, the set list.
One Of These Days
Time
Learning To Fly
Coming Back To Life
Pigs
Echoes
Hey You
Run Like Hell
----Interval----
Shine On You Crazy Diamond
Astronomy Domine
Not Now John
Us & Them/Any Colour You Like/Brain Damage/Eclipse
----Band Introductions----
The Great Gig In The Sky
Wish You Were Here
Comfortably Numb
----Encore----
Another Brick In The Wall Part 2
The venue was quite good. It was level (i.e. no tiering) unreserved seating on a first come first served basis with ample room at the back to stand, which is what Keats and I elected to do. I estimate that there were between 400-500 people in the audience.
There were 9 musicians on stage - vocalist, lead guitar, lead guitar & vocals, bass guitar, drums, saxophones & percussion, keyboards, 2xbacking vocalists. Ben Appleby, the saxophonist, for reasons unknown to me, played the whole gig wearing a kilt!! There was quite a good lighting rig with strobes and lasers. There was a circular screen with images played onto it. The image/video content was quite poor I felt, very bland and unexciting really, and the bottom of the screen itself was obscured by the head and shoulders of the keyboard player, which was strange as there seemed to be no apparent space or height restrictions on stage. E.G. perhaps the screen could have been rigged 1 metre higher?
I like to think that I never criticise out of hand and I've no intention of starting now. Unfortunately though, I can only place the performance last night in the 'OK' catergory. The second set was definitely stronger than the first I feel. On the plus side of OK was the fact that I liked the vocalist, Andy Gibson. He has a strong voice in my opinion. Also, the band as a whole gave very acceptable renditions of Not Now John, the Us & Them sequence, Wish and Comfy (without any saxophone solo I'm pleased to say). On the minus of OK, in ascending order of irritation were,
The tendency of some band members to indulge in 'jamming sessions' between themselves.
A silly drum solo in Astronomy - it struck up quite unexpectedly.
After each band member was introduced they played a short 'solo' with spotlight on them while the audience applauded - very retro and not in keeping I thought.
The prominence of a crew member frequently buzzing around the stage during the gig and semi conducting the audience from the arena floor level side of stage.
The severely curtailed renditions of Pigs & Echoes. Pigs ran for approximately two thirds it's length and Echoes for less than half it's length. In both cases the songs were just tailed off in mid flow - truly awful I'm afraid. Better to not play a song at all than muller it like this in my opinion.
All the above is just my opinion of course and so, to be fair and to give a balanced view, I would say that based on their cheering and rapturous applause, by far and away the majority of the audience last night rated TSOPFS quite highly. This is also supported by the reviews on their web site (I did smile at the reference to TAPFS in this comment though)
"HAVING SEEN PINK FLOYD 4 TIMES IN THE LAST 30 YRS AND THE AUSTRALIAN PINK FLOYD, (NOT IMPRESSED) I WASN'T EXPECTING TOO MUCH IN I GRAVESEND BUT WOW HOW WRONG CAN YOU BE. IT WAS BRILLIANT EVERYTHING ABOUT THE SHOW WAS SPOT ON. THE VOCALS, MUSICIANS AND LIGHTS WERE PERFECT. I CAME OUT VERY FULFILLED, I HAVE BEEN BANGING ON ABOUT IT EVER SINCE. I HOPE THEY TOUR NEXT YEAR. THANKS FOR A BRILLIANT NIGHT. 5 STARS"
On the way home in the car Keats and I decided that we would go to another TSOPFS, but we'll leave it a while to see if they make any changes to the show.
