Roger Waters on the last real Pink Floyd show: “I won’t be unhappy with that”
It’s safe to say that we will never be seeing the progressive titans Pink Floyd on the live stage ever again. Although David Gilmour is more than happy to do what he sees fit in his solo career, he admitted years ago that the touring life of the band is officially retired, settling into his later years making solo records and putting together a song under the Pink Floyd name if it’s for the right reason. For Roger Waters, the last moment the real magic was captured onstage was at Live 8 in the 2000s.
Then again, Waters had been an estranged part of Floyd for a long time, years before they had even thought of coming back together for a good cause. There had been great music since The Wall on albums like The Division Bell, but there was always something missing whenever you saw Gilmour playing guitar without Waters by his side.
Granted, there was probably a damn good reason why they had to split. The work on The Final Cut felt more like a Roger Waters fever dream than anything else, and by trying to separate themselves from their old leader, A Momentary Lapse of Reason almost went too far in the other direction by sounding closer to a David Gilmour solo record.
While the foundations seemed perfect for Gilmour and Waters to reunite at the original Live Aid, it was never going to work out with the multiple lawsuits still hanging around their necks over the use of the name ‘Pink Floyd’. When Bob Geldolf motioned for the band to reunite after over two decades for Live 8, though, the tensions had admittedly eased up between Gilmour and Waters.
That didn’t mean that everything went off without a hitch. Waters had motioned for the group to perform ‘Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)’ for the occasion, but Gilmour ended up putting his foot down about playing only the setlist they had prepared, thinking that a song about not needing education wouldn’t fit the theme of the show.
Looking back on that final show, Waters was convinced that it would be the last time that any semblance of Pink Floyd was onstage together, telling BBC, “I think Live 8 was probably it. And Live 8 was so beautiful, and Rick obviously was still with us then. If that’s the way we draw a line under Pink Floyd, so be it. I won’t be unhappy about that.”
Despite Gilmour and Waters being the two faces of the band, the real iconic lineup would be silenced when Richard Wright passed away in 2008, but that didn’t mean the members could play together again. During a performance spot on Roger Waters’ The Wall tour, Gilmour actually came out onstage for a show, singing his vocal part and playing a note-perfect solo to ‘Comfortably Numb’.
Given where both men are in their lives these days, it doesn’t look like a Pink Floyd reunion is something either of them wants to do. I mean, when Waters released his bold reimagining of what Dark Side of the Moon would sound like in the modern age, it was practically him stomping on the legacy that both of them had built up together.
