WhoIsWho

 

Live dates Europe

FIRST HALF:
Castellorizon, On An Island, The Blue, Red Sky At Night, This Heaven, Then I Close My Eyes, Take A Breath, Smile, A Pocketful Of Stones, Where We Start.

SECOND HALF:
Shine On You Crazy Diamond (parts 1-5), Wearing The Inside Out, Dominoes, Fat Old Sun, Breathe/Time/Breathe reprise, High Hopes, Echoes. ENCORE: Wish You Were Here, Comfortably Numb.

March 29th, 2006:
the sun wil be eclipsed by the Moon!
And what do you think is the best and only European place to see that magical moment? Indeed a small Greek island off the Turkish coast, called... Castellorizon or Kastellorizo!
Does that sounds familiar to you? Yes of course; Castellorizon is the central theme David Gilmours album breath out.

Sun Eclipse.
www.kastellorizo.org.

First half: Breathe/Time/Breathe (Reprise), Castellorizon, On An Island, The Blue, Red Sky At Night, This Heaven, Then I Close My Eyes, Smile, Take A Breath, A Pocketful Of Stones, Where We Start.

Second half: Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Wearing The Inside Out, Fat Old Sun, Arnold Layne, Coming Back To Life, High Hopes, Echoes.

Encores: Wish You Were Here, Find The Cost Of Freedom (with Crosby and Nash), Comfortably Numb.

Intro I

Intro II
Monday morning we visited the National Gallery, seeing some old masters from the past ... During lunchtime we had a break listening to a string quintet playing Bach, Vivaldi & Ravel... so it became a real cultural day. The Royal Albert Hall was bathing in the sun Monday afternoon, just seeing a glimpse of John Lord and a lady entering the Hall.

A Review:
Standing in line with 6 fellow countrymen... chatting about David Gilmour, the great venue. A small world indeed. Seated at the third row in the arena... wouw... the lights dimmed and the intro of "Breath" filled the majestic Hall.
David on a lap steel guitar, applause. And Davids voice and guitar playing were as superb as suspected, great. The sound was extraordinary breathtaking, a great "thank you" to the Belgian architect Andre Parmentier & Prins Albert (who was the initiator to build this hall).
The clocks recorded by engineer Alan Parsons filed the air; "Time" with excellent vocals by Richard, pounding drums by Steve and some lap steel guitar playing by Jon. David used his spectrum like Dali used his brushes to give an outlet to his artistic brain with a psychedelic color palette. Getting more color by every brush-stroke over his Fender using the vibrating air as his canvas.
"Hope Richard will sing Arnold Layne" too", were my thoughts. "Breathe Reprise" followed. This "Dark side Of The Moon" intro worked really well. The first images could be a great set for a painting of Rembrandt, nuanced shades of black, dark...
A great applause and David announced that they would like to play the whole "On An Island" album now, so another applause. So the band left the stage and the tape of "Castellorizon" made us even more aware how splendid the acoustics are from the famous monument. Jon joined as first deluding Mediterranean panoramas from his keyboards. The rest of the band followed and David carved his unmistakable landmark out of his guitar... fabulous.
Graham Nash & David Crosby joined on the title track. Apparently David forgot some lines.. or was his brain just a few seconds filled with the beautiful music and therefor diverted? I don't know but it was funny.
A blue laser filled the hall on the next song, amazing.
Great applause and even more applause when David started to play sax at "Red Sky At Night". He plays sax like he plays guitar with that same trademark, unbelievable.
Two amazing soaring solo's at "This Heaven". The Rhythm Section was real groovin' tonight, Guy dancing around and Steve's playing was perfect in balance. Phil assisting on rhythm guitar and sometimes with a solo, was great too. Rick did an excellent job on keyboards & organ assisted by the talented smiling Jon. The band had fun, laughing, giving signals and a lot of eye-contact with looks that had a lot of mutual appreciation and respect in it. It seems to be that there was space for improvisation. Specially David did give a way some inimitable fingerprints.
The use of a cumbus, lapsteel guitar, the black stratocoaster, Dick Parry on sax, Robert Wyatt on cornet & the band on miscellaneous instruments made "Then I Close My Eyes" to a classical interlude. Bach would be proud on that if he had wrote it.
Guy with his standing bass on the new single "Smile", a wonderful lullaby. Polly had to do the backing vocals, I guess. She deserved it to be in the spotlights.
Marc Brinkman and his staff did an hallucinated job at the rocker "Take A Breath"; strobo's, colorful lightning switching to total darkness, the use of mirrors, rainbow colors, deep blue, passionated red, "Vincent van Gogh's" yellow and just simple blinded white (sunglasses up!). The lightshow was different as I witnessed in Amsterdam.
With wonderful versions of "A Pocketful Of Stones" & "Where We Start" they ended the first half and they already achieved the world cup final. The crowded could take a breath after this intimate superb first half and think they needed it.

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David came back on stage with his Stratocoaster, alone... so it had to be "Shine On You Crazy Diamond". A splendid performance, great playing on his Strat. and a "delay peddle"... and a great kick of of the second half. Crosby & Nash framed this painting with their harmonized vocals.
Back to the early days with "Wots...The Deal". Not my favorite Pink Floyd song but David and his mates made it real big!
Three songs of "The Divsion Bell" made clear that Davids songwriters abilities can easily compete with the early "Pink Floyd" skills. I was very pleased with Rick's singing in the wonderful "Wearing The Inside Out". He has a typical English distinguished way of pronouncing, muttering / singing the lines. The full band backing him at the "chorus". And Dick Parry played an awesome sax solo.
"Coming Back To Life" followed, "High Hopes", with an impressive solo on the lap steel, followed by a classical acoustic guitar. Phil Manzanera had a great "look through" guitar, nice. Does David needs visual effects? No I think not. This is just pure music de lightness from a rock band and guess it will be exposed on dvd or whatever the future brings, in the National Gallery, just like the Rembrandts, van Goghs, Michelangelo's who are hanging there already. Madness in the house and standing admiration of a jelling and clapping audience.
The cheerful and polite crowd went crazy when they heard the first tunes of "Echoes". Absolute madness! A phenomenal live masterpiece. Rick Wright did an outstanding job on his organ and freaked out. The band tumbled down at an illuminated spiral staircase in a complete brilliance crafted disciplined anarchy of arranged chaos. I saw this before but this version was an absolute master stroke!
Fantastic lightshow and again different as the Amsterdam gig. Hope they'll recorded this eruption on the dvd.

Encores.
"How I wish Wish You Were Here" was a sing-a-long from the crowd, David could have stopped with singing, everyone was in tune and knew the lines. They did it on a nice and gentle way. I like this.
A cappella version of "Find The Cost Of Freedom" with only David Crosby, Graham Nash & David. Lovely voices they've.
"And now let me introduce; David Bowie". The crowded went really mad as a hatter... "Arnold Layne" sung by David Bowie! That sung suited him well with his remarkable pronounced vocals and yeah this was fun. Althrough I was hoping on "Arnold Layne" done by Richard, but no this was bloody marvelous. Will see Ricks version on the DVD, or who knows maybe we can catch them live somewhere this summer. A revive sixties pop-psychedlica on his best, with a thanks to the great Syd Barrett.
Of course "Comfortably Numb" was the last one... again with David Bowie doing Richard part of the vocals. Fun on stage and the audience was pleased as well...

Simple Brilliant no more no less.
This gig will echoe in my brain forever.
Simple Brilliant.

Please forgive me my rigmarole, hope you liked it anyway ;-)
Nick from the lovely South of the Netherlands.

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Pictures from Davids weblog, Andy Saltiel & 'Brendon Doran & Mark Reed' at
www.brain-damage.co.uk/.
Thanks!
And me!

More pics at the Dutch www.floydstuff.com,
more reviews at davidgilmour.musicblog.co.uk/ & www.brain-damage.co.uk/.

May 31 - London, Royal Albert Hall

Picture by Brendon Doran & Mark Reed.

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Picture by Brendon Doran & Mark Reed at
www.brain-damage.co.uk/.

Tuesday the 16th of May:
David Gilmour has just confirmed some additional live shows, which are at open air venues with capacities of between 4,000 and 8,000. More dates will be added, but the first three are:

July Thursday 27th Austria Nr. Linz Clam Castle

First half: Breathe/Time/Breathe (Reprise), Castellorizon, On An Island, The Blue, Red Sky At Night, This Heaven, Then I Close My Eyes, Smile, Take A Breath, A Pocketful Of Stones, Where We Start.

Second half: Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Astronomy Domine, Dark Globe (Syd Barrett), Fat Old Sun, Coming Back To Life, High Hopes, Echoes.

Encores: Wish You Were Here, Comfortably Numb.

Same setlist, a heavy storm came down during SOYCD & Astronomy Domine.

Breathe, Time, Breathe (Reprise), Castellorizon, On An Island, The Blue, Red Sky At Night, This Heaven, Then I Close My Eyes, Smile, Take A Breath, A Pocketful Of Stones, Where We Start.

Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Wot's... Uh The Deal, Fat Old Sun, Arnold Layne, Coming Back To Life, High Hopes, Echoes.

Encores: Wish You Were Here, Comfortably Numb.

Note:
Shine on had apperently a great intro with wine glasses....

Setlist: Breathe, Time, Breathe (Reprise), Castellorizon, On An Island, The Blue, Red Sky At Night, This Heaven, Then I Close My Eyes, Smile, Take A Breath, A Pocketful Of Stones, Where We Start.

Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Wearing The Inside Out, Astronomy Domine, Fat Old Sun, Coming Back To Life, High Hopes, Echoes.

Wish You Were Here, Comfortably Numb.

Posted by: LukaszBuchnajzer at August 27, 2006 01:55 PM

The concert was great! The orchestrations worked out really well - they were playing also on High Hopes, A Great Day for Freedom and Comfortably Numb.
Leszek Mozdzer (Polish pianist, you can hear him on 'On an Island') was also present on 'Smile' and 'A Pocketful of Stones'.

The concert was recorded so let's now wait for the release.

Posted by: jigsaw at August 27, 2006 04:18 PM

What a great way to end the tour, Poland got the right band for their celebration. It's nice to see other countries standing tall, while we here in America are falling down and can't seem to get back up. However, I do think all this hate and anger over here will get old, and we will have our day of change.

Music to me has always been a little more than just some wonderfull noise that made me feel good. It is a backdrop or a way of bringing across what is being said in the lyrics. Music like art is another means by which we all tend to inrich our lives. Music in it self can not change the world, but there are alot of great musicians who have been an inspiration to alot of great leaders.

Fearlessly, but reasonably.

Posted by: Stephen Barnhart at August 27, 2006 05:10 PM

This is from the David Gilmour's website www.davidgilmour.com:

Saturday 26th August 2006

Gdansk – What A Memory!

The last show of the David Gilmour Summer Tour 2006 was everything it promised to be, and despite some rain throughout the day, the sky cleared for the concert itself. The huge stage with its six suspended screens was able to accommodate David's band with ease, plus the 40-piece orchestra conducted by Zbigniew Preisner, who occupied a position on Stage Right. As usual, the first half of the show included all of the On An Island album, but the added textures of the orchestra made it a unique performance, thankfully caught on film by documentary director Gavin Elder and a small crew.

It was an evening of high spots, with the added impact of the six screens carrying images of the individual musicians, which added a close-up intimacy to Marc Brickman's visual sorcery. Special moments would include the authentic liquid oil psychedelic lightshow for Astronomy Domine, and the rock and orchestra rendition of High Hopes, but the surprise of the night was the hoped-for live debut on this tour of A Great Day For Freedom, in which the combination of orchestral accompaniment and the setting was especially poignant.

Just when anyone thought that Comfortably Numb couldn't possibly be any better, the closing song of the closing show, again with orchestral accompaniment, brought the concert to a thunderous, triumphant close.

It was a great day for music, but a sad day for music lovers, as the David Gilmour tour of 2006 came to a close.



Gdansk

 

 

Live dates: USA & Canada

 

 

See this page: places to be part two.