Yeah iYup, I was not surprised but I was a little stunned at just how well Animals fits today. Obviously it’s a sociopolitical commentary on 70s Britain, the burgeoning years of Thatcherism and all that, but my goodness it’s still so relevant today. Dogs is the ultimate, it was a shame to not get Sheep but he couldn’t play everything. Pigs though really was stunning. I’m sure you’re aware of him using it as a brutal anti-Trump treatise but it really comes to life in a live setting. The massive screens that run all the way down the arena, transformed into Battersea Power Station, are all displaying pics of Trump as a pig, with a Klan hood on, with a tiny penis, it’s a fucking riot. I’ll post some pics later on that I took on my phone. ‘CHARADE’ and other lyrics on the screens. Even the song’s own lyrics have turned around to be super relevant…. “Hey you, Whitehouse!” is Mary Whitehouse, but it kind of blows you away to realise that bang, it’s now the White House.
Not just Animals, either…. I was quite blown away by the enduring humanity of Us and Them as well. He’s named the tour after the song, and I’ve always fucking loved it dearly, love the sax, love that it contains significant contribution from Wright (my favourite member). And those second, fourth and sixth verses (“forward, he cried, from the rear…”, “haven’t you heard, it’s a battle of words…”, “out of the way, it’s a busy day…”) are simply spellbinding. But yeah, it was quite poignant how relevant this track is as well. It was backed with a ton of concurrent war imagery, which made it really powerful. I was taken by the line, “listen son, said the man with the gun / there’s room for you inside”, with the imagery, it kind of made me think of a soldier on the front lines, reaching out to a helpless civilian, there’s room for you in here, you’ll be safe. Just beautiful.
Few other things from last night that I wanted to add. Mostly around the post-concert glow. It happened when I saw U2 back in May last year, the next few days, weeks, I was just caught up in this beautiful U2 glow. How nice does it feel to fall in love with an old friend all over again? Like you gents I’ve not really listened to much Floyd in recent years but right now I’m blaring their music at work (hungover, lol). It made me think of the Interference glory days, when we used to spend so much time picking apart everything there is to know about Pink Floyd. And so I’ve been diving back into all of that yesterday and today, and I’d forgotten how fucking fascinating their story is. There’s so much to it. Syd, the progression from meandering psych and prog into a band of note, WYWH being one of the most touching tributes ever… I mean heaps of bands have had members come and go, but how many bands write such a touching album about a former member who’s gone insane? How about that time when Syd rocks back up at the studio asking to play again, fat and bald, and it brings the band to tears? And then how the band starts to fall apart in the coming years, Roger Waters getting ever more pissed off at the world, taking more and more control until Gilmour essentially just became a session musician, The Wall, Wright getting fired, The Final Cut, Waters leaving/getting forced out and then Gilmour takes the reigns. And then they just fucking hate each other, so much so that it made a reunion seem an impossibility, until Live 8 brought them back together. But then Wright does and that’s it. Man. It’s just all so fascinating.
The lyrics to Wish You Were Here, the song, are absolute magic. My favourite line is “could you tell a green field / from a cold steel rail…” the imagery, and the way he sings it, just magic. Dave you once described it as transcendental beauty and that’s spot on.
And I love how music is also strongly tied to place and time as well. As he was playing Welcome to the Machine and WYWH I was instantly transported back to a race track in country Victoria, 15 or something, drunk on shitty bourbon that dad had bought me, listening to the album.
Ahhhhh
so jealous. Will have to chase down a DVD of it.
THIS.....
