Wish You Were Here - The Pink Floyd + Solo Thread

[liebzz]

Obscured By Clouds - this was not what I was expecting. I was sort of expecting something in the range of Meddle and/or Dark Side of the Moon but this was very different. The two instrumentals to start were alright, The Gold’s in the... and Wot’s...Uh the Deal were also pretty good. I liked the Mudmen instrumental. Childhood’s End, Free Four, and Stay were also pretty good. Seems like there’s a lot of reliance on extended fade outs that annoyed me, and the album doesn’t seem to hold together much despite the songs being relatively strong. I walked away from this feeling kind of meh. Not bad, not great.

[liebzz]

Dark Side of the Moon - gave this a fresh listen now after decades of familiarity with it. The same effect persists with this album despite hearing it probably hundreds of times: it is a singular statement hypnotic enough to transport you fully away from whatever is happening around you. All consuming at points and carefully crafted so that you can barely tell when one song ends and the next begins. Really it’s one song played out over 43 minutes in multiple movements. There’s not a single moment in this where you wait for a song to end or think that anything was put out of place. In that respect, the album is a perfect descent into madness that they would never capture again nor had they perfected before. There are plenty of great Pink Floyd albums but none are pieced together as phenomenally as this.

As an aside, yes, it works with the first half of the Wizard of Oz (2nd lion roar people). The Great Gig in the Sky (Dorothy’s House spinning in the air), and Money (cash machines as she steps out of the house and that whole dance routine perfectly synchronized to the bass) are still proof positive to me that this was deliberate. I debated this with folks many times and remain convinced that at the very least it’s an incredible coincidence.

[liebzz]

Wish You Were Here - it’s been quite a while since I last heard this and wow is this great. While the songs are strung together, they more or less find their individual identities here anyway and they are all monsters. Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I-V) is just classic Floyd. The height of a band simultaneously hypnotic while at the same time throwing down some serious chops. Welcome to the Machine is really great and on this listen I could visualize the Stranger Things logo since that theme song is at least “inspired” by this on some level. Have a Cigar I had previously considered the weak link if there was one and I was wrong about that. It’s just sitting amongst epic company. Wish You Were Here is still stunning despite hearing it a million times on the radio. And the long form finale of the remainder of Shine On... is excellent though a touch long. They really had a great stretch in this time period.

[liebzz]

Animals - this is next in the run of great Pink Floyd albums. It starts and ends with the sparse Pigs on the Wing, but everything in between is every kind of excess you gotta love about this band. Animal sounds to match the song names, big epic jams and song run times, and a whole lot of Roger Waters base with synthesizers. Dogs, Pigs (Three Different Ones), and Sheep are basically coequal hanging out on this record. You can definitely tell when one starts and the next ends, but as per usual it’s hard to reach back and distinguish them at the end of the listen. It’s just all sort of continuous great rock music.

[Wendy Carlos's Twin]

My personal favorite early Floyd album is the "More" soundtrack. I like the variety of material, which is mostly quality and I like the general "warm" feeling of it.

[liebzz]

The Wall - other than Dark Side of the Moon this is the most celebrated album of theirs, and there’s a lot of great songs here...but it’s a bit up and down and sometimes the songs suffer for the sake of the concept. While I do love Run Like Hell and get the tie in on The Trial, I would have been happy if this album ended at In the Flesh (without the question mark). I think the first half, with the exception of a little unnecessary connective tissue, is exceptional, as is Hey You, Comfortably Numb, and In the Flesh (both iterations) - they certainly establish Gilmour more and more as the guitar hero he is. Young Lust reminds me they could have been a window shaking rock band any time they wanted to. Ultimately, I might have found this a little long and overly ambitious for my tastes, but I certainly appreciate why people love it.

[liebzz]

The Final Cut - the last album of the Roger Waters era. The sound to me is very similar to The Wall, as well as the concept, but for some reason it doesn’t work for me at all. I don’t care about any of the songs on this album. They are not necessarily bad, but they don’t do anything for me in either direction. Whatever happened in the feuding between The Wall and this album, they were done as the band at that point. I know I have three more albums to listen to, but this iteration of Pink Floyd to me was spent. They also seemed to nearly abandon the hypnotic sound that made them great and focus instead on song structures that just didn’t seem to make a push of any kind. Just sort of bland. (See I am not always positive).

[liebzz]

A Momentary Lapse of Reason - predominantly that is exactly what this was. Most of it sounds like the soundtrack to an 80s action movie, complete with misplaced electronic-y sounds during the love scenes and hanging blues chords while our hero contemplated the meaning behind it all.

I think Gilmour had the right idea of refocusing on the music and less on conforming to a specific concept, but most of it comes off flat, in large part because of the lack of Roger Waters’s bass. And really, the impression of Pink Floyd’s heyday for me was sonic textures build around that bass, not filler tracking to back Gilmour’s guitar. It instead also comes off like a backing track a subway busker might use to give texture to his instrument.

All that said, Learning to Fly is pretty good just from years of osmosis hearing the song, and The Dogs of War mostly works. Yet another great artist/band that stumbled their way through the 1980s.

[surfndestroy]

A Momentary Lapse of Reason... Learning to Fly is pretty good just from years of osmosis hearing the song, and The Dogs of War mostly works. Yet another great artist/band that stumbled their way through the 1980s.

I also like On The Turning Away and Sorrow. The album definitely sounds dated but I really like it, much more so than The Division Bell. The only song I don't like is Terminal Frost, it's a harbinger of things to come unfortunately.

[liebzz]

On the Turning Away was actually alright and an oversight not to mention it as a highlight - Sorrow has good moments gassed by awful ones. I kept going “oh, this is pretty good” followed by “wait...no!” and back again.

[liebzz]

The Division Bell - I would count this as a slight upgrade from A Momentary Lapse of Reason, but only to extent that they moved into some weird combination of blues stuck in slow motion and adult contemporary music. When they were at their best, the rhythms were hypnotic and you could feel intoxicated and lost in their music. I am mostly just waiting for this to end. A shell of their former selves. I had heard this was an excellent album but I just don’t hear it. Keep Talking was the only song I got to the end of and thought it was pretty good.

Correction: High Hopes was pretty good too.

[liebzz]

The Endless River - this is a really boring album, folks. I mean, Side 2 seemed pretty good, and Allons-y (both parts) was good, but otherwise i am not into this. It isn’t the lack of vocals as much as the lack of any direction, just sort of ambient stuff to fall asleep to. A sad way for a once great band to go out.

Overall, I would say that Pink Floyd is sort of a mixed bag for me. They came out of the gate strong, struggled to find their way without Syd Barrett, then when they got legs they were some of the best album composers ever, and when Roger Waters left they never again recovered. Again, just my perspective since I know some people are huge fans of it all.

Essential Albums: Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Meddle, Animals, A Saucerful of Secrets

Also very good: The Wall, Atom Heart Mother, Piper at the Gates of Dawn, More

Worth a listen: Ummagumma, Obscured By Clouds

Not for me at all: The Division Bell, The Final Cut, A Momentary Lapse of a reason, The Endless River

[LetMeSleep]

Pretty fair reading of it, liebzz.

A dozen or so of us just did a song tournament and listened to everything. Out of interest, what would be your top 5 tracks?

[liebzz]

Pretty fair reading of it, liebzz.

A dozen or so of us just did a song tournament and listened to everything. Out of interest, what would be your top 5 tracks?

From this journey: Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun, Echoes, Fearless, Time, Shine On You Crazy Diamond (strong honorable mention for Dogs, Hey You, Wish You Were Here, Welcome to the Machine, Us and Them)

[LetMeSleep]

Pretty fair reading of it, liebzz.

A dozen or so of us just did a song tournament and listened to everything. Out of interest, what would be your top 5 tracks?

From this journey: Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun, Echoes, Fearless, Time, Shine On You Crazy Diamond (strong honorable mention for Dogs, Hey You, Wish You Were Here, Welcome to the Machine, Us and Them)

Those were the finalists. You would have fitted in nicely.

[liebzz]

Yeah, there was a lot of music I had never heard before this - but I am happy to see that I am not alone in my observations.

[AndySlash]

roger has indicated he plans on touring the u.s. again next year. not the us + them show, but something different, and probably even more political in message than the last one. we'll see if that bears out, but i know i'll be going if he does simply because one day sooner than later i won't have the opportunity to see him again.

July 8 – Pittsburgh, PA @ PPG Paints Arena
July 10 – Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center
July 14 – Detroit, MI @ Little Caesars Arena
July 17 – Toronto, ON @ Scotiabank Arena
July 21 – Quebec City, QC @ Videotron Centre
July 23 – Montreal, QC @ Bell Centre
July 25 – Albany, NY @ Times Union Center
July 28 – Boston, MA @ TD Garden
July 30 – Washington, DC @ Capitol One Arena
August 1 – Cincinnati, OH @ Heritage Bank Center
August 5 – New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden
August 11 – Raleigh, NC @ PNC Arena
August 13 – Orlando, FL @ Amway Center
August 15 – Miami, FL @ AmericanAirlines Arena
August 18 – Nashville, TN @ Bridgestone Arena
August 20 – Atlanta, GA @ State Farm Arena
August 22 – Milwaukee, WI @ Fiserv Forum
August 25 – Minneapolis, MN @ Target Center
August 27 – Chicago, IL @ United Center
August 29 – Kansas City, MO @ Sprint Center
September 2 – Denver, CO @ Pepsi Center
September 4 – Las Vegas, NV @ T-Mobile Arena
September 10 – Los Angeles, CA @ STAPLES Center
September 14 – Vancouver, BC @ Rogers Arena
September 16 – Edmonton, AB @ Rogers Place
September 19 – Tacoma, WA @ Tacoma Dome
September 21 – Portland, OR @ Moda Center
September 23 – Sacramento, CA @ Golden 1 Center
September 25 – San Francisco, CA @ Chase Center
September 30 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Vivint Smart Home Arena
October 3 – Dallas, TX @ American Airlines Center

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/musi ... ll-941431/

A little over a year after wrapping his monumental Us + Them Tour, Roger Waters will return to the road this summer for a North American tour summer dubbed This Is Not a Drill.

He will present an all-new show, this time in the round. The trek, which finds him performing in arenas, kicks off July 8th in Pittsburgh and makes its way west and central before ending in Dallas on October 3rd, exactly a month before Election Day in the U.S.

Tickets for the tour go on sale on January 31st at 10 a.m. local time. For more information on tickets, visit the artist’s website.

Waters discussed the tour in a video announcement that featured him rehearsing “Comfortably Numb,” “Sheep,” his solo song “The Powers That Be” and others with his band.

“As the clock ticks faster and faster and faster down to extinction, it seemed like a good thing to make a fuss about it, so that’s why I’m going on the road,” he said. “To be blunt, we need to change the way we organize ourselves as a human race or die. This tour will be part of a global movement by people who are concerned by others to affect the change that is necessary. That’s why we’re going on the road. That’s why speak to each other in pubs. That’s why this conversation should be on everybody’s lips, constantly, the whole time, because it’s super important. So I hope you’ll all come to the shows. This is not a drill.”

The timing of the tour to Election Day is no accident. Waters’ last trek was politically charged, with imagery mocking Donald Trump and his dangerous rhetoric set to hits he wrote for Pink Floyd. He used songs like “Money” and “Us and Them” to demonstrate the ways he sees the powers that be ripping people apart and reminding fans that people can work together toward an ideal future.

“[The new tour] will be even more political than Us + Them was — political and humane,” Waters told Rolling Stone in 2019. “We were listening to songs and looking at setlists today. We were talking about, what should we call it? I shouldn’t be giving this away, but I don’t give a shit because it will probably all change, but imagine the iconic helicopter that normally comes before ‘Happiest Days’ and ‘Brick 2’ — that noise that we all know and love — and imagine a megaphone, somebody abused this device before, I know — but, ‘This is not a drill.’ I thought that could be a good title for the show: This Is Not a Drill. The ruling class is killing us.”

As for the content of the tour, Waters said it would be something new. “It will be no-holds-barred,” he said. “My work is to think, ‘Well, how can I make rock & roll more interesting or theatrical or exciting or visual or musical or whatever?’ That’s what I’ve spent the last 50 years doing, expressing myself.”

[diesel]

thanks, I was just wondering how the new tour would be different from Us+Them.

[LetMeSleep]

Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets have announced that they will be releasing Live at the Roundhouse, a concert film showcasing the band’s May 2019 performances at London’s Roundhouse. There will also be a one-night-only screening of the film in select theaters before its release.

Beginnings
Interstellar Overdrive
Astronomy Domine
Lucifer Sam
Fearless
Obscured by Clouds
When You’re In
Remember a Day
Arnold Layne
Vegetable Man
If
Atom Heart Mother
The Nile Song
Green Is the Colour
Let There Be More Light
Childhood’s End
Set The Controls for the Heart of the Sun
See Emily Play
Bike
One of These Days
A Saucerful of Secrets
Point Me at the Sky

https://live365.com/blog/nick-masons-sa ... oundhouse/

[McParadigm]

2020 Diary Entry;

Picture yourself as you lean on the port rail
Tossing away your last cigarette
Picture your finger pushing the doorbell
Picture the skull and crossbones on the doormat

Picture a seat on a private plane
Picture your feet nailed to the floor
Picture a crew who are clearly insane
Picture no windows, picture no doors