A New Review of some of my
most appreciated Musical
Friends;
members from Pendragon, Mostly Autumn, Magenta, The Reasoning and others....
A Review of the first gig at the Royal Albert Hall;
here! Including Pictures!!!
Have Fun!
And the Monday gig was simple brilliant... with
David Bowie singing Arnold Layne & Comfortably Numb!!!
unbelieveable. Graham Nash & David Crosby were there too, of course...
check this.
Tuesday night Mica Paris did Great Gig In The Sky!
Nick Mason joined the last evening and played Wish You Were Here!
David Gilmour’s third album ‘On An Island’ will be released worldwide
on March 6th, 2006 (his 60th birthday!).
Produced by David, with Phil Manzanera and Chris Thomas, the album features orchestrations by renowned Polish composer Zbigniew Preisner.
David’s unique vocal and instrumental talents are to the fore, but ‘On An Island’ also features many very special guests: David Crosby and Graham Nash sing harmonies, Robert Wyatt plays cornet and percussion, Caroline Dale contributes on cello, Guy Pratt on bass and Alasdair Molloy on glass harmonica. Pink Floyd’s Richard Wright guests on Hammond organ and vocals.
Of the album’s ten tracks, all music is written by David Gilmour, with lyrics by writer Polly Samson, (they collaborated on lyrics on two songs), while three tracks are purely instrumental, with David’s expressive guitar to the fore. ‘On An Island’ sees David’s full range of instrumental ability, including his performances on piano, bass guitar, percussion, bass harmonica, Hammond organ and his recording debut on the saxophone. Other contributors include Jools Holland, Phil Manzanera, Georgie Fame, Andy Newmark, B. J. Cole, Chris Stainton, Willie Wilson and Rado ‘Bob’ Klose on guitar.
David has commented “It's my best and most personal work. Making it with my musician friends has been a positive experience on so many levels.”
Released on EMI Records, the album is the first solo release from David since 1984's "About
Face". Following the release of "On An Island", David will embark on a European and American
tour during the months of March, April and May 2006.
"On An Island" is produced by David, along with Chris Thomas and Phil Manzanera.
Orchestrations are by the renowned composer Zbigniew Preisner and were recorded at Abbey Road
Studios in London.
The title track teams Gilmour with David Crosby and Graham Nash - three of the greatest voices in contemporary music. Richard Wright, Robert Wyatt, Jools Holland, and Guy Pratt also feature on the album.
The first of a series of dates for
Dave Gilmour's Spring 2006 Tour, to coincide with the release of his new album are announced:
This will be David Gilmour’s first European tour since Pink Floyd’s triumphant Division Bell tour in 1994 and his first public performance following this Summer’s Pink Floyd appearance at Live 8. He commented:
“I’m very much looking forward to this tour and making music with the great musicians in the band. I’ve had a fantastic time making ‘On An Island’ and really want to perform tracks from it, along with my more familiar repertoire. I’m rather hoping that with this tour announcement people will believe me when I say, honestly, this is the only band I plan to tour with!”
Marc Brickman, lighting genius who has worked with Gilmour on many Floyd tours, will design the lighting for the intimate venues chosen for this tour.
(Places To Be).
Ticket Information for all the concerts will be at:
www.davidgilmour.com.
Or for the US & Canada; National ticket website:
www.ticketmaster.com/
Local Ticketmaster phone number: 213-480-8700.
The venues known so far are of a similar size to his 2001/2002 dates, which should mean a nice, intimate performance.
We will keep you informed as further dates emerge.
Nick France, Chucco Merchant, David & Caroline Dale at the Meltdown gigs in 2002.
David Crosby, Graham Nash &...
Musicians
Besides David Gilmour on saxes (he learned to read notes and play saxes a few years ago
together with his son), guitar (a Les Paul, as well as various Fender Strats, a
Gretsch Duo-Jet, plus several acoustics and lap steel guitars), piano, tympani, bass harmonica, cumbus
(a Turkish stringed instrument) and vocals
these people are involved:
Orchestral arrangements:
Conducted by Robert Ziegler
Orchestra recorded at Abbey Road Studios by Simon Rhodes
Orchestral Leader David Juritz
Strings contracted by Hilary Skewes, Buick Production Ltd
Recorded at Astoria, Abbey Road, British Grove, Gallery Studio and at home
And today you can see David's
AOL Session online, so you could watch that on a really tiny screen if that tickles your fancy - like so many of the concert videos you keep telling us about recording on your mobile phones.
As well as short interviews and behind-the-scenes footage, you can view the entire set, which includes four songs from David's new album ('On An Island', 'Take A Breath', 'Smile' and 'This Heaven') plus two Floyd classics ('Comfortably Numb' and 'High Hopes'). That's not to be missed.
Listen out for an interesting titbit about David's 'new' guitar strap, trivia fans.
Have a good weekend.
Taken from Davids weblog.
David at the AOL sessions.
Pictures by Pieter van Hattum, more at:
music.aol.com.
Grahma Nash & David Crosby appeared at the NY shows and the two shows in LA>
Saturday 1st April 2006 Single Release: SMILE.
David's next single. It will be Smile in the UK & Europe, available as a 3-track commercial single and downloads. Lead track will be an edit of the album version, and bonus tracks will include the commercial release of Island Jam, so there will be no more need to plead with friends to check out the shelves of the US Best Buy chain.
The animator who worked on the TV ad for On An Island (see it on the On An Island page), has developed the animated wire man, to incorporate him into the clip for Island Jam. You will be able to see a new version of the clip around the single release, which is in May to coincide with David's UK tour.
Saturday 18 March.
At www.sonicbond.com you can pre-order his previous solo
albums too. They'll be remastered, the release date will be 10th of April.
Of course you can buy "On An Island" there too, 11 English pounds, fair isn't?
performed The Great Gig In The Sky tonight with David at The Olympia Theatre in Paris. Sam was in town to perform with Jools Holland & His Rhythm and Blues Orchestra and, on hearing Sam was in town, David invited her to join him onstage.
Et voila! They rehearsed it at the soundcheck, brought the house down in the show, and Sam duly scooted across town to knock 'em dead again with Jools.
Bravo Sam! Bravo David! C'est si bon! (Wish I Was There!).
At the Olympia with Sam Brown.
Thanks to Cromer Frank!
As you saw yesterday, On An Island is
sitting comfortably at Number One in the UK
Album charts, ahead of label-mate Corinne Bailey
Rae (sorry Corinne!).
As predicted, the International Charts are rolling
in too, and here are the votes of the International
juries:
ITALY – Number One!
NORWAY – Number One!
GERMANY – Number Three!
We expect to have the US Chart on Wednesday,
and many more before then, so stay tuned (and
keep telling your friends)!
On An Island is also the top-selling
music album via iTunes in the UK.
DavidGilmour.com Site Statistics: Just The
Facts, Ma'am.
In February we had 444,848 visitors to
the site (up from around 300,000 in January)
– so we must be doing something right.
David's birthday message on Fan
Fare generated over 1200 comments, and
the persons who provide the messaging platform
tell us that, to the best of their knowledge,
this is an all time record for equivalent blogs.
The On An Island promo clip (original
short version) has now received just short of
175,000 viewings. Thanks to directors David
Mallet, Nick Morris and Polly Samson, plus producer
Dione Orrom. Oscars, here we come..!
A great interview at the Mojo Magazine + a cd full of 60-ies music
Thursday 9th March 2006
On An Island runs hot and Gold!
David's new album On An Island is becoming a sales phenomenon – and is already Gold in the UK, Canada, and Poland!
Such is the excitement around release that some retailers have had to re-order from the first day of release, and others have already sold out. Gold status has already been reached in the UK, Canada, and Poland – home country to On An Island orchestrator Zbigniew Preisner.
Early sales indicate high chart entries across Europe and in the USA, where an aggressive campaign by Sony BMG Records has enlisted the help of main dealers, including the Best Buy chain. Sony BMG allowed Best Buy an exclusive on the CD version of the non-album track 'Island Jam', which had been available as an audio download to more than 100,000 viewers of this site over Christmas. Because of that, it wasn't thought to be contentious, but Best Buy have reported much higher than anticipated demand, so if you want an 'Island' with 'Jam' on it, you'd better move fast.
Wednesday
8th March 2006
Live On An Island – the first LIVE
airing!
The LIVE version of On An Island from last
night's recorded concert at the Mermaid Theatre, London,
was aired at around 5:45PM UK time on the BBC Radio
2 Johnnie
Walker show tonight.
'Listen Again' via the BBC Radio 2 Web site.
This Saturday: David Gilmour Live from the Mermaid gig!
Entiry live on BBC2, tune in!
Monday 13th February 2006: Live concert for BBC Radio 2
David and his full live 'On An Island' band will be playing a special concert for BBC Radio 2 on Tuesday 7th March for later broadcast. Entry will be by ticket only, issued by the BBC.
Full details of how to obtain tickets will be revealed exclusively on Radio 2's Johnnie Walker drivetime show on Monday 20th February, so make sure you tune in.
WARNING - ONLY BUY TICKETS FROM OFFICIAL OUTLETS!!!
Promoters Harvey Goldsmith Ltd. have obtained the following statement from the Royal Albert Hall:
“Sale of tickets to the public are limited to four per person and cannot be exchanged, refunded or re-sold.
Any tickets sold by the Royal Albert Hall which are found to have been re-sold will be cancelled. Tickets will not be sent out until one month before the performance and the fact that tickets may not be re-sold will be clearly printed on the face of the tickets. Where we have sufficient details about the tickets that are being re-sold, we notify the customer that we are cancelling the ticket, refund the purchase price, cancel the original tickets and then put the seats on sale again to the public.
We would strongly caution people against purchasing tickets from sources other than the Royal Albert Hall Box Office and authorised agents, as tickets purchased from these sources may be refused entry”.
The Albert Hall has staff that scan eBay for tickets that are being offered for sale, so there is a very real possibility that your sought-after pair of David’s London show tickets from eBAy may be invalidated.
At the moment, the Royal Albert Hall is the only venue that we know to operate this policy, but this may of course change in the future.
Wednesday 8th February, 2006: Dick Parry to join 'On An Island' tour.
We are pleased to announce that saxophonist Dick Parry will be joining David on tour.
Dick played the famous saxophone solos on such acclaimed Pink Floyd tracks as 'Money', 'Us and Them' and 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond', as well as touring with the band several times since the 1970s. He also performed with David in London and Paris in 2001 and 2002, as well as playing with Pink Floyd at the historic Live 8 show last July.
Please see the Features page for more information and fan reaction.
Tuesday 7th February, 2006: A special package for all
Well, there is no 'Special Edition' of 'On An Island' for starters. And that's because it's already quite special.
The packaging is going to impress you. Designed to look like a book with a cloth spine and silver foil lettering, it has hard covers and 20 colour pages which include album lyrics. This is the same packaging for every CD, so they're clearly all 'special'. If you see anything else offered online, please don't be taken in by it and please don‘t part with any extra cash.
We will be exclusively revealing the packaging in a short while, starting with a teaser, of sorts, tomorrow.
Following on from David's success in Guitarist magazine's Fender poll, we are delighted to report that 'On An Island', after just five days, has entered the US Classic Rock chart at Number One. Classic Rock isn't normally too keen on new songs, so this is certainly fantastic news.
Thank you to everyone who wrote in congratulating David on topping the Guitarist poll. He is very flattered.
Friday 27th Jan 2006: Band members confirmed for ‘On An Island’ tour
David Gilmour has assembled a brilliant band of world renowned musicians, who will join him to play the sell-out 25 date ‘On An Island’ tour. The tour, David’s first since the record-breaking 1994 Pink Floyd Division Bell tour, starts in Europe in March, goes to North America in April and returns to the UK at the end of May. ‘On An Island’, the wonderful new album, is released on 6 March 2006.
The musicians in David Gilmour’s band are:
Phil Manzanera - Roxy Music guitarist and co-producer of ‘On An Island’
Rick Wright - Pink Floyd’s keyboard player
Guy Pratt - bass player with Pink Floyd and Roxy Music Jon Carin - keyboards and longtime player with Pink Floyd
Steve DiStanislao - drums, recently played with Crosby & Nash Dick Parry - saxes.
The band practising.
thanks to Polly Samson for the wonderful pictures, more at
www.davidgilmour.com.
Monday 23rd Jan 2006: Formats clarified.
Just to clarify certain erroneous reports that have appeared elsewhere, the worldwide CD format
of ‘On An Island’ will be a single CD. There are no current plans for any multi-disc versions.
The album will also be released on vinyl, in a single-LP format.
Smile
will be a new song on his album. Smile was played at the Meldown gigs too.
You could here snaps of the song in the TV Show "Three Men In A Boot", when they, the comedians
Dara O’Briain, Griff Rhys-Jones and Rory McGrath, visited the "Astoria",
Davids floating home studio.
The Lyrics you find here.
Rumour has it that drummer Stevie Di Stanislao will be touring with David. He is the
drummer for David Crosby's band, CPR. David
Crosby, of course, sings on the title track from David's new album, 'On An Island' with
Graham Nash. Stevie has also worked with guitarists Joe Walsh of The Eagles and Carl
Verheyen of Supertramp, so some strong connections there.
Sam Brown
is on tour herself, so we will miss her lovely presence...
Watch his latest jam session "Island" at
his site!
The track is ‘Island Jam’, featuring David with Paul ‘Wix’ Wickens on keyboards,
Guy Pratt on bass, and Ged Lynch on drums --> 23 December;
sorry they deleted the clip on Dec 27th....
GILMOUR INVITES POLISH MUSICIANS TO WORK ON NEW ALBUM
called ON AN ISLAND.
Yesterday's issue of Poland's most reputable newspaper, Rzeczpospolita, reported that David Gilmour has invited famous Polish musicians to work on his new album.
We have been aware that David has been hard at work, first in London's Abbey Road Studios, then in his own Astoria houseboat studio, on new material, for the last couple of months or so. This is from impeccable sources close to the musician. The article in Rzeczpospolita gives a little more detail on progress, and here's a translation of the story for you...
Zbigniew Preisner was aked to co-produce and to do orchestral arrangements
on David Gilmour's new solo album. Leszek Mozdzer is involved too. Preisner said that they had already recorded some music in Gilmour's own studio in London.
"Probably it will be David's solo album, but it is not out of the question that it could be a new Pink Floyd album. They will be deciding together later - Gilmour, Nick Mason and Richard Wright" said Preisner.
"It was so amazing to meet this great master. It's a great honour to share a table with Gilmour, not to mention working with him in the studio" said
Mozdzer. Another Polish engineer, Rafal Paczkowski, will be involved in orchestral session
recording for the project.
Zbigniew Preisner is Poland's leading film music composer and is considered to be one of the most outstanding film composers of his generation (more through this link). Leszek Mozdzer (more through this link) is one of the greatest keyboard talents on the Polish music scene today.
Our thanks to those who wrote with details of this story, in particular Marek Grzesiak, who also provided this translation of the article.
The late Michael Kamen & David, another screenshot from the DVD David Gilmour In Concert/ The Meldown Gigs 2002.
Questions.
Would he do a duet with Kate Bush on his new album? NO! Maybe live?
Covers: "Always You" with Phil Manzanera and at the U.S. shows "L'Efant" with Lionna Boyd?
(Please David give her a kiss from me, she's a lovely lady with a good heart).
Who're the singers on his album and tour, Sam Brown is on a tour herself... Apparently there are no female backing vocals on this tour --> Sam Brown
did Great Gig In The Sky at the Olympia 16 March!
With which song he will honour his great friends who have passed away the last years
("Sacha" ?)(In fact the song Castellorizon is a hymne to his lost friends)
What are his best of albums from 2005?
Would he make a link to Unicorn too?
Will Kate St John & Nick Laid Clowes join in? (Dream Academy).
What is on his cd player? See some of the aswer at the facs at his site.
What does mean "Gnothi seauton" for him?
What does mean the words "Michael, Tony have ever after..." (in the booklet)? Two friends, Tony Howard & Michael Kamen, died a few years ago.
Wil he have a party at 29 March at
Castestllorizon, when the sun is eclipsed by the moon?
and more and more....
Left to right: Claire, Alfie and Robert, Lucho, Polly and David Gilmour, Rhett Davies,
Phil and Paul. (May 2005, at Phil and Claires wedding).
Ideas, text and some pictures from:
Davids great Weblog, really awesome, & www.davidgilmour.com,
the official site, build by http://bluish.com.
(Down to earth Web Builders, with great sites; Kate Bush, Storm Thorgerson,
John Cale and more.).
Thanks!
David is chairman of Crises, a organisation for homeless peoples, please take a look at
http://www.crisis.org.uk/.
David Gilmour’s third album ‘On An Island’ will be released worldwide
on March 6th, 2006 (his 60th birthday!).
The title track teams Gilmour with David Crosby and Graham Nash - three of the greatest voices in contemporary music. Richard Wright, Robert Wyatt, Jools Holland, and Guy Pratt also feature on the album.
Home, home again.