“Not for me”: The iconic concert David Gilmour was embarrassed by
No band can claim to have a spotless track record throughout their albums. Even if they are one of the more consistent bands out there, anyone has those records where they don’t hit the mark as well as they’d like or turn in performances that should have been left on the cutting room floor. While David Gilmour is more than happy to talk about when Pink Floyd’s records weren’t quite up to snuff, it’s strange to see him dismissively towards one of their live masterpieces.
Because despite being one of the biggest progressive bands in the world, Floyd does have a fair bit of trash in their catalogue. Some of the musique concrete pieces sprinkled throughout Ummagumma are downright unlistenable in spots, and even Gilmour didn’t hold back when he said that The Final Cut was among one of the weakest efforts that the group had ever made after The Wall.
Then again, can anyone blame them for having to work out the bugs? No band should ever have to deal with replacing a frontman like Syd Barrett, so up until they got to Meddle, it was almost expected that some of their tunes would become more than a little bit spotty as they tried to figure out who they were.
But after ‘Echoes’ pointed them towards the future, hearing them perform in the arena in Pompeii is among the greatest live experiences committed to tape. While the version of the 23-minute epic on record is fine, hearing them jam on the piece, descend into absolute chaos, and then pick back up again for the final verse is still one of the most impressive live renditions of any song.
And even when they play some of their old tunes, they sound miles better in a live setting. ‘Careful With That Axe Eugene’ may have been strange for its time, but hearing Roger Waters let out that guttural scream on the DVD while seeing volcanic lava rising is one of the most iconic images of the early 1970s.
That said, this is a show that looks at a band still in their 20s, and Gilmour did think he was in over his head in a few spots, saying, “I find it rather embarrassing. I’m sure it’s a lot of fun for many people, but not much for me. If I hear [the young me] speak, like in Live At Pompeii, I do find it excruciating because he was pretentious and naïve.”
Even if he was pretentious, it’s not like he didn’t have a few points, either. Looking back on the footage that they got in between the concert footage, the group were putting the finishing touches on Dark Side of the Moon, which managed to reshape the way that everyone thought about the idea of a concept album.
Live at Pompeii was certainly on the verge of something big, but even if Gilmour couldn’t see it, it hardly mattered. This was a band that had grown into musical inventors after years in the dark, and the decade would see them toying with how rock and roll could sound if someone tried thinking outside the box.
