Mason puts it beautifully: “I realised I had a problem when I had to get my ballet shoes re-pointed. I’d spent twenty years tip-toeing between Dave Gilmour and Roger Waters”. So he’s put his own band together and gone out on tour.
I was aware of Mason’s band last year when he played the Roundhouse, but I don’t like the venue and I wasn’t convinced of the idea of Floyd stuff without Gilmour or Waters, so gave it a miss. Until the reviews began to appear and I kicked myself. They’re playing only early Pink Floyd material; meaning nothing after ‘Obscured by Clouds’. Then a second run of dates were announced but I missed them going on sale and kicked myself again. Put my name down on Scarlet Tickets and Twickets and waited for a ticket to show up. None did.
Then, by way of a Facebook group conversation I was invited to join another Facebook group – ‘London Prog Gigs’ – a bunch of middle-aged men who go to too many concerts. My people! And there I saw a poor bloke repeatedly posting that he had a spare Nick Mason ticket. Thus I found myself on a Friday night in Camden in the rain, waiting for the man. Who turned out to be very nice, and thus I had myself a ticket.
The support band was McNally Waters – being a singer and keyboard player respectively, plus guitar bass and drums. Imagine The Band fronted by Nick Cave. Not sure why they wasted time on a drum solo, but otherwise it was a great set.
John Larry McNally & Harry WatersThe intro tape was about 10 minutes long. Various atmosphere and FX sounds played in quadrophonic over our heads. At one point spaceships blasted at each other, or maybe it was sparrows with laser cannons, but it was better than incidental music.
As the battle ended the lights dropped and the band came on stage. I couldn’t have named any of them, but the bass player and one of the guitarists looked familiar. After a while, I realised the bass player was Guy Pratt – Gilmour’s touring bass player since Waters left Floyd and session bassist for everyone and their dog. And the guitar player… bloody hell – it’s Gary Kemp from Spandau Ballet!?! He was very good – sang and played very excellently and was obviously having a lot of fun. The rest of the band were Lee Harris on guitar and Dom Beken on keyboards. Plus of course, Mason on drums and occasional banter. He’s quite funny, quite disarming and still plays thunderous drums.
The music was, indeed, old stuff. A bit too many Syd Barrett songs for my taste, but we got a whole bunch of the long psychedelic workouts like ‘Astronomy Domine’ and ‘Set The Controls…’. If ‘Relics’ is your favourite Floyd album, then this is the band for you as they played almost all of it. Lee Harris delivered a fine selection of Gilmour-style solos and it all sounded very Floyd.
What they didn’t do, and I would have liked to hear, is deviate from the originals. I’d have liked them to jam a bit, but I guess you need the Floyd members to do that and that ain’t going to happen again. In all, it was a great night and it was a pleasure to hear the old material played live, but I couldn’t quite shake the feeling of a tribute band. That said, I’ll probably go to the next tour, ‘cos they were still very good. And they play ‘The Nile Song’!
Lee Harris, Guy Pratt, Nick Mason, Gary Kemp & Dom BekenVideos
There's loads on the web, but here's a few from the night I went.
One of These Days
See Emily Play
Astronomy Domine
