The tour David Gilmour dismissed as a waste of money: “Not good value”
Living the life of a rock star is far from the most practical thing from a financial perspective. As much as people like the idea of being a wealthy musician travelling around the world, the cost of everything from studio time to paying the promoters to the different stage designs is always going to artists in the one place where it hurts the most: their wallets. Although most musicians know what it’s like to be a penniless artist trying to make ends meet, David Gilmour knew enough later to realise when someone was throwing perfectly good money away.
Then again, a lot of people don’t realise how much they are screwing themselves until after everything goes up in flames, or their noses. While a lot of bands end up picking up some nasty habits along the way to sustain themselves, Gilmour always tried to keep a level head about everything, never shying away from getting stoned but also knowing the dangers that can come from drugs when looking at Syd Barrett’s condition worsening over time.
Once Pink Floyd grew into their new form after Dark Side of the Moon, though, things started to get a little tense when Roger Waters started dictating what the stage design was going to be like. He was perfectly within his right to air his preferences for what his lyrics should represent, but when getting to The Wall, their rock show became their own warped version of musical theatre, complete with building a massive wall onstage and then having to tear everything down by the end of the night.
Making that kind of leap would have cost them millions of dollars to put on even for a few nights, but once Gilmour left Waters behind in the 1980s, he could still see other people throwing money away. After all, this was the new age of excess, and that meant the age of MTV, catering to some of the most lavish designs for everything from videos to live performances.
And while many people like Madonna and Michael Jackson benefited greatly from their images plastered on MTV, David Bowie had been showing everyone how it was done since the Ziggy Stardust days. He was a natural of the medium by the time he got to Let’s Dance, but if Never Let Me Down proved that he could be fallible, the stage show was the first time people realised that Bowie could jump a few sharks onstage as well.
Even though this had one of the most grandiose rollouts of the 1980s and even had a concert film made about it, Gilmour thought the entire tour was unnecessary, saying, “Things are very expensive, and it’s very easy to misdirect your money. Not to put other people down, but David Bowie’s Glass Spider business set – you know, that glass spider thing on the top seemed like a fantastic waste of money, you know, ’cause that was quite an expensive show – it was just not, not good value for money.”
It’s not like Gilmour wasn’t coming from a genuine place, either. He knew the fantastic light show that came with most of Floyd’s best concerts, but even for all the times that they went the extra mile to simulate a plane crash during performances of ‘On the Run’, they would always make sure that what they were doing was cost-effective, even if it did still take a massive piece of their budget.
Then again, a little bit of excess was never going to stop someone like Bowie. While ‘The Starman’ did look back on this period as his way of channelling the same pop sensibilities as Phil Collins, it’s hard to think of the massive amount of money he would have needed to break even making this kind of stage show.
