Any decent rock band values the show as much as the studio. After months of persevering to get the correct take, you can finally perform songs to the public. Pink Floyd has gone through many painful adjustments in their live presentation, but Nick Mason still thinks Live 8 was their greatest. Despite being one of the most famous rock bands, they did surprisingly little onstage. They may have grown up in the 1960s, but by the time they got their stride as a prog band, they went mad with graphics. Syd Barrett’s strange sights vanished. Now it was time for the brilliant lights that felt like a kaleidoscope, which has become the standard for arena concerts. The Wall was the pinnacle of that movement, but David Gilmour had better things to do than oversee Roger Waters’s play.
After the tour, Waters felt he was the brains behind every Pink Floyd song, but after The Final Cut, no one agreed, so Gilmour took the remainder to finish the album. Even with the enormous screens and dazzling lights, songs like ‘Comfortably Numb’ felt absent. Which made their return sweeter. Few wanted to kiss and make up so soon after the last time since Pink Floyd felt right to finish Live Aid. If it meant improving the world decades later, why not? Mason told eonmusic, “I always said that I think in some ways it was one of the best gigs we ever did, just because everyone knew about the fact that there was a sort of war going on [between Roger Waters and David Gilmour], and yet everyone was able to go, ‘do you know what, this is more important than differences of opinion, the band, or music, or whatever’”.
While the band would argue for the rest of their career, the show almost went wrong. In the rehearsal tape, Gilmour and Waters’ wounds haven’t totally healed. Mason laughs when they quarrel, as if he’s a marriage counselor watching them vent. Still, watching the tape is spectacular, especially with Richard Wright in the band playing his signature keyboard parts to songs like ‘Wish You Were Here’. Though fun, it was best to experience it in the moment. Gilmour and Waters are unlikely to perform together again given their good relationship.
