Wednesday 19 June 2024
O2 Apollo Manchester
****
Early Pink Floyd imaginatively reinvented
Last Wednesday morning, the first tickets went on sale for performances in Manchester by a music legend/national treasure now in his eighties, Sir Paul McCartney. That evening, another musical institution – also in his eighties – Nick Mason, was in town with his band A Saucerful of Secrets. Mason said the first time they played in Manchester, Pink Floyd were on the bill with another music legend, Jimi Hendrix. That was in 1967, and Mason quipped that only three people in Wednesday night’s audience would remember that.
It would have been easy for Mason to have retired from performing years ago, and spend his time driving his collection of vintage cars. There are plenty of Pink Floyd tribute acts on the touring circuit, not least The Australian Pink Floyd who bring stunning musicianship and antipodean artwork to Manchester Apollo every year on their annual tour.
When Mason was curating the Pink Floyd exhibition Their Mortal Remains, which opened at the V&A in London in May 2017 and then toured Europe and North America, he began to worry that he could spend the rest of his life cataloguing his past rather than playing music. At the same time, guitarist Lee Harris (The Blockheads) had approached Guy Pratt who had played bass on several Pink Floyd tours after Roger Waters left. The result was a new band, called Saucerful of Secrets after The Floyd’s second album from 1968. Mason’s band started touring in 2018 and last came to Manchester in May 2022. Mason avoided comparisons with other Pink Floyd tribute acts by only playing less familiar music from the pre-Dark Side of the Moon era, sometimes playing songs that Pink Floyd rarely if ever played live. He also asked his band to improvise during live performances, rather than re-creating the original songs note-for-note. So the show was a mixture of improvisation and nostalgia.
The evening began unfashionably early at precisely 19.30, following a countdown of the kind used to launch a rocket (‘T minus 3 minutes and 3 seconds’… etc.) that introduced the band to the stage. The opening version of Astronomy Domine demonstrated the band’s intent not to replicate the original, with loose-limbed drumming, improvised guitar chords and an additional guitar solo. Pink Floyd’s second single See Emily Play included a new keyboard solo and an instrumental jam. A fascinating early highlight of the show was Remember Me, a demo which Pink Floyd performed at the Melody Maker National Beat Contest in 1965 (an early form of ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ for those who don’t remember it, but without the dancing dogs).
The band, still called The Pink Floyd, failed to reach the semi-final, losing out to The St Louis Union, Phil Hunter and the Jaguars, the Ravens and the Poachers. Mason quipped that this spectacular failure set back the band’s career by five years, although in reality by late 1970 they had their first UK number one with Atom Heart Mother.
Poignantly, Syd Barrett’s vocals original vocals were used, while the band added instrumental parts and backing vocals. Barrett’s family provided some lovely images of the tragic hero, whose story was told recently in the moving documentary Have You Got It Yet? The Story of Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd.
Another highlight of the first half also seemed to reference Barrett, the song If which included the line, ‘If I go insane, please don’t put your wires in my brain’. Guitarist and vocalist Gary Kemp (introduced by Mason as ‘New Romantic turned Kray brother turned Prog Rock God’) provided a gorgeous acoustic guitar solo while Guy Pratt added a melodic bass line and Beken brought a warm keyboard wash. Fierce drumming from Mason led to the Atom Heart Mother suite, starting with evocative slide guitar from Lee Harris, who also provided a thunderous solo in the funky section later in the piece. A brief reprise of If ended the song.
There was humour when Mason who took a spoof phone call from Roger Waters who used to play the gong in the live version of Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun. Mason told ‘Roger’ that he was just watching Coronation Street with some friends and had no idea where Roger’s gong was. The band played a magnificent version of the song; there was a new keyboard improvisation above the opening guitar riff, and the track was played at a slower speed – anthemic but still psychedelic. A new, almost middle eastern-sounding guitar solo was added then another extended jam. Pratt added a gong part before the song unwound itself with sound effects and waves of electronics from Kemp on guitar. A section that was almost musique concrète faded into silence before the opening theme returned. As the track ended, an audience member shouted a satisfied, ‘Oh, yeah.’ Well, exactly!
The second half, like the first, was introduced by ambient music and speech. We heard the infamous quote from a BBC TV interview in 1967 when Hans Keller asked Roger Waters, ‘Why has it all got to be so terribly loud?’ The opening song, which wasn’t so terribly loud, was The Scarecrow from Pink Floyd’s debut album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, played for the first time by Mason’s band on this tour, with its whimsical vocal line reminding us how strange some of Barrett’s melodies were, in songs that appeared simple on the surface. Fearless, from Meddle was introduced in a much jazzier version, with a languorous keyboard solo from Dom Beken. Childhood’s End from Obscured by Clouds featured a lovely, heavy blues guitar solo from Lee Harris. In Lucifer Sam, also from The Piper, Pratt and Gary Kemp almost locked horns as they faced each other in a heavy rock’n’roll version, whilst Beken added a bluesy Hammond solo.
But the highlight of the second half was the final song, Echoes (Meddle), first introduced to the band’s set on the previous tour. The distinctive piano note at the very start raised an immediate cheer; this was a majestic but vital version of a song that showed Pink Floyd beginning to move towards the rich style of The Dark Side of the Moon, while still embracing some of their early psychedelia. There was a stunning funky section where Beken on Hammond organ again and Kemp on delicate lead guitar Kemp duetted above superbly syncopated drumming from Mason. The song attracted a well-deserved standing ovation at the end.
The encore featured two songs. First, familiar swirling winds introduced a blistering version of the instrumental One of These Days (Meddle) in which Pratt’s bass descended into the stygian depths, and Mason’s stentorian drums seemed to be knocking on the gates of Hell. The concert ended with an enthralling version of A Saucerful of Secrets, moving from an avant -garde, almost King Crimson-like anxiety with skittering guitars and spidery keyboard lines – accompanied by Mason’s military drumming – to a calm, anthemic section, a secular wordless hymn, with a melodic bass solo from Pratt and a timeless guitar solo from Kemp. A stunning ending to an excellent evening.
Nick Holmes Music 