Back in college I had the opportunity to to have one of those quintessential rock and roll experiences and of course I jumped on it. It was second semester freshman year when our local radio station exploded with the news that Pink Floyd was coming to town. This was HUGE for me (as it was for millions of others) and I immediately resolved to get tickets any way I could and set about plotting what I considered a surefire way to secure access to the show. I figured out where the nearest Ticketmaster outlet was, convinced a friend of mine with a car to drive me down late Friday night, and then started trying to get friends to join me . . . needless to say, in the middle of winter in Pennsylvania, I didn’t have much luck, but stuck to my guns and saw the plan through on my own.
When he dropped me off in a parking lot in downtown Bethlehem PA about midnight, I quickly found out I wasn’t the only one with this idea as the line was already about 100 people long, the temperature was about 10 degrees, there were snowbanks lining the parking lot that was beginning to resemble a refugee camp, and we had about 12 hours to wait. Despite some pretty hefty discouragement from my friends, I waved them goodbye and settled in for an adventure. After chatting with a few folks, the cold began to set in and I realized that there would be no sleep happening as I warmed my toes under the exhaust pipe of a much more well prepared fan’s car. The night dragged by slowly, my gallon jug of water froze solid, and the line got steadily longer. When daybreak finally came, things started to get a little pushy as those of us who had camped out all night, fought for space in line against freshly showered and warm newcomers who crowded their way in with little regard for our perseverance.
When all was said and done, a friend joined me at about 8 am with heavy socks, an extra sweatshirt, some food, and warm beverages that helped the last couple of hours pass more quickly. Finally, I made way into the ticket booth just as they were announcing that the first show was about to sell out. Wait a minute, the FIRST show? Little did I know they had just announced a second show which was going to go on-sale when the first sold-out. Sadly, my 500 level nose bleeds for night one were bested by a fellow parking lot camper five people behind me who walked out of the booth proudly holding two seats twenty rows from the stage for the the second show. Hey, at least I got to see one of the most legendary bands of all time, and have a story to tell, right?
While admittedly that was a lot of set-up, it serves to explain a bit about my history with Pink Floyd. So when Mr. Nick Mason himself announced he’d be rolling through The Paramount Theatre on Thursday night in March, 25 years after that long night in a parking lot in Pennsylvania, I had to go see what it was all about.
My first introduction to the storied catalog of Pink Floyd was – appropriately – by way of the supremely psychedelicPiper At Gates of Dawn, so when I learned that Mason and his band would be focusing on early Floyd material, I was even more excited. I’ve obviously seen Pink Floyd play the hits and I’ve seen Roger Waters do Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall so the prospect of seeing songs culled from the early days of the band, and played by the only member of Floyd who was featured on every album, was enticing to say the least.
From the first notes of the take on “Interstellar Overdrive” that opened the show, I knew we were in for a treat and when the band followed that up with “Astronomy Domine” and surf-rock influenced “Lucifer Sam” I was transported back to my high school best friend’s house where we spent a lot of time listening to Piper.
The oft covered “Fearless” brought the first real thunderous ovation from the crowd as it’s anthemic hook reverberated through the room and then we dove into the instrumental oddity of the title track of Floyd’s 1972 Obscured by Clouds and the throbbing metal laced “When You’re In.” The first track from the band’s namesake album came next as “Remember A Day” warmed the room with some sunny psych-pop and then we visited “Arnold Layne” and the “Vegetable Man” as early video footage of the Pink Floyd members played above the band.
After quipping that “Vegetable Man” was never finished because they “ran out of Syd,” Mason then paid tribute to the man who made all the early Floyd albums possible, the one and only Syd Barrett. Fittingly, one of the show’s highlights followed as the band tenderly turned to a memorable version of “If” that featured an exploratory ride through “Atom Heart Mother” sandwiched into the middle.
At this point I have to say I was impressed, as what we were witnessing was much more than a cover band, these guys were intimately familiar with the material and pouring their hearts into it as a mesermizing multimedia light show shined above them. The only complaint I have is that I wish they would have dropped the canned banter and stale jokes from the set as they really didn’t add anything and only served to pull us from the trancelike state that the show was capable of inducing.
The second half of the show featured a take on the obscure “The Nile Song,” More‘s “Green Is the Colour,” and the bass heavy “Let There Be More Light” as a pastel rainbow pattern of light danced around the stage. The bittersweet “Childhood’s End” opened the door for a personal favorite, “Set The Controls for the Heart of the Sun” and Mason finally got to hammer on the gong that had hung behind him all night.
The final three songs of the main set kicked off with a pair of Barrett gems in “See Emily Play” and a song that I recently got my daughter hooked on “Bike” before the unmistakable bass line from “One of these Days” shook the room and finally brought the entire crowd to their feet.
After a brief encore break, the band returned with an obligatory, but dazzling, run through of “A Saucerful of Secrets,” a tip of the hat to longtime Floyd keyboard wizard the late Richard Wright, and the relatively unknown standalone single “Point Me At The Sky” that appropriately features the lyrics “it’s goodbye.”
As we filtered out into the night, my friends and I agreed that this is a show worth checking out for any fan of early Pink Floyd, or really, any fan of the psychedelic rock that the band pioneered, but we were also glad that we hadn’t spent the night in a parking lot in freezing temperatures to secure the tickets.
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