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Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2005 7:30 pm

No, I'm not talking about the Ringling Brothers Circus. In the category of Circuses, Cirque de Soleil is the greatest.

But in the category of "Rock Concerts", the greatest show is the Australian Pink Floyd (http://www.aussiefloyd.com/) concert that I saw last night here in Colorado Springs. These guys have been around for several years, but this is the first time I've had a chance to see and hear them. They are doing a set of encore performances from their 2005 tour aroung the country and played here at our Pikes Peak Center that is normally used by our Philharmonic Orchestra.

I had heard that these guys did a "note perfect" recreation of the entire catalog of Pink Floyd albums. What I wasn't prepared for was just how good these guys really are. This wasn't just some taped "copy" of Pink Floyd...this was a real, live concert with the energy that you'd expect. Yes, they are "note perfect", but still in a "live" sense. It didn't come across like it's a mechanical reproduction at all.

Because, what is "Pink Floyd" anyway? For me, is the classic run of albums: Dark Side of the Moon, Wish you Were Here, Animals, The Wall. These are epic "story" albums, and not just a collection of individual songs. Neither Waters nor Gilmore can approach the quality of classic Pink Floyd in their solo careers. Gilmore misses the dark edge of Waters lyrics and his distinctive voice, while Waters misses the voice and guitar work of Gilmore.

A classic test is "Comfortably Numb" from The Wall. The contrast between the two vocal tracks gets trashed whenever they try to do it without the full Pink Floyd. At his "In the Flesh" concert, Waters does a decent job and has someone with the proper voice qualities to handle the Gilmore role. But in "The Wall: Berlin" concert, Van Morrison does a horrible job as a guest vocalist (although Joni Mitchel deserves the credit for trashing a Floyd song the worst). In Gilmore's solo concert, various guests who seemingly have never heard the song before also trash it.

And yet, with Australian Pink Floyd, it's just perfect. Even just a month or so after the wonderful Floyd reunion at Live 8, the Aussies come across just like the original.

True, it's not "real" Pink Floyd...but it's the "dream" of Pink Floyd. The Aussies give us what we'd expect to see if Floyd ever did a true reunion tour (which just won't happen I'm afraid). You don't even need to close your eyes...the stage setup, the special effects...the bass player and one of the guitarist even look like Waters and Gilmore.

Pink Floyd has always been about more than just the four musicians. The Aussies bring in a sax player who is just as good as the guest player used on "Money" or "Shine on you Crazy Diamond". The two vocalists are wonderful with the backgrounds, and the African American woman belted out the solo vocal from "Great Gig in the Sky" with all of the emotion of the original, note for note. It was amazing.

The keyboardist didn't get much of a chance to shine on his own, but certainly handled his part well. The fact that I never noticed any errors in the background synthesizer effects means that he was doing his job, and his few piano solos were right on.

The drummer was just spectacular. He had the power and emotion that is rarely seen anymore, and yet could handle the nuances needed for tracks such as "On the Run". In fact, his drum work during this sequence just before "Time" is better than any I have heard from any of the later solo concerts from either Gilmore or Waters.

Reproducing an album as layered as "Dark Side of the Moon" in a live concert is always a challenge. Even the original Floyd uses taped effects, such as for the background voices at the end of "Money" or at the end of "Eclipse". The Aussies don't even do this...they do *all* of the vocals live. It was amusing to see one of them doing the background laughter on "Brain Damage", or adding the lines such as "I certainly was in the race" to "Money". Something I have never seen before.

I really can't say enough good things about this group. If you are a fan of Pink Floyd, or just like their music, it's worth seeing the Aussies if they are ever in your area. I was fully expecting to be disappointed...expecting a decent rock band with a lot of taped effects to make them sound like the original. I wasn't expecting such talent.

Now, if these guys have the same talent writing their own songs, we are going to be in for a real treat. I'd be very interested to hear any of their original creations.

It's no wonder that Gilmore himself is a big fan of these guys (they played at Gilmore's 50th birthday). It's amazing that they got the rights to play these classic songs and still make money on them (the copyrights must have expired, or they must have gotten official permission).

Go see them...they are the greatest.

Wizard Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 1551 Location: Australia

Lol, it's funny that after the last 6 years living in aussie, I never once have heard of the aussie-pink-floyd... and I like floyd!

I guess when they return, I'll hafta find out when they're doing live gig's back on their home soil *grin*.

You may call me a blasphemous, but I think Pulse is my favourite ... I've always been more partial to live performances than studio recordings (for all artists)... you get more emotion from the musicians, and they are prone to showing off so you get some kickass guitar solo's etc.

Aww, checked the tour dates and they're overseas til easter or so with no dates posted for aussie performances *sulk*.

Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2005 5:50 pm

Looks like the Aussie-Floyd moved to the UK when they got "big". It's kind of ironic that they don't tour much in their own home country. Definitely check them out if you ever get a chance. And their DVD is quite good too.

I learned that we *did* have a different bass player at the Colorado Springs concert. The original bass player named Colin couldn't make the US tour, so they have a stand-in named Ian.

Well, after listening to the DVD with Colin and comparing it to the live performance from Ian, I liked Ian much better. Ian's voice is much closer to Water's original. Ian's rendition of "Fletcher Memorial" was just perfect. Colin's performance on the DVD wasn't as good from a vocal standpoint. I think Colin's bass guitar work is a bit better. Then again, the DVD is a year old.

What's a bit disturbing is that I posted this opinion on the AussieFloyd.com discussion forums, saying how impressed I was with Ian. Well, they censored my post and deleted it! Just because I said that I thought Ian was better than Colin. I guess they are really sensitive to honest feedback on that site. If I was one of the band members, I'd be really annoyed to learn that honest feedback had been deleted from the web site. How are they supposed to improve if they get shielded from feedback like that?

So, I've posted my opinion to *this* website where it won't get censored. I don't want to take anything away from the band...their music is great. But I'm a bit peeved at their web site management right now.

And yes, I'm looking forward to the "Pulse" DVD release coming up this Christmas!

Wizard Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 1551 Location: Australia

I guess that makes sense, if I was to make it big, I'd probably move to the UK too hehe, well, Scotland... in a nice drafty castle.

Woo, you mean they are finally releasing the Pulse DVD? That's awesome! I've got the VHS but I haven't had a video player for about 5 years now, hehe.

That's a bit rough with the censorship, you sure it was deleted? Some of those sites you have to wait for a mod to check the post for swearing/etc before they allow it to appear on the boards? I wonder if you can email Ian directly and inspire a revolution ;)

Hehe.

Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 4:36 pm

I was definitely censored. I wrote the webmaster and got a reply back explaining exactly why I was deleted. I was deleted because I said "Ian is MUCH better than Colin", even though I prefaced that with "no disrepect intended" and added that I had only seen Colin on a year-old DVD. I sent back a pretty rough reply to the webmaster about how annoyed I would be if I were a member of the band and found out the webmaster was censoring feedback on the site.

Anyway, yeah, I'm looking forward to Pulse. According to Amazon, it comes out late December, but might be in time for Christmas.

Posted: Thu Jul 13, 2006 5:51 pm

For those who are interested...

After being disappointed with yet another delay at Christmas, the Pink Floyd Pulse DVD has *finally* been released! Don't know why it took them another 6 months, but I got my copy from Amazon yesterday and it's great! Excellent video and sound quality, and some nice extras.

Wizard Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 1551 Location: Australia

Yes! I was going to post here saying the same, I got my copy for my birthday on Saturday, so the house was rockin' that evening Very Happy