One day I was browsing through my dad’s record collection and came across an album with a black cover. It had a prism with light refracting through it. I was probably six or seven years old and had no idea The Dark Side of the Moon was one of the most iconic collections of songs ever to be released. I also didn’t know that the incarnation of the band that recorded that album had played their last show together a couple of years earlier. Since then, I have seen each of those ten songs performed many times. Once by Pink Floyd (without Roger Waters) in Oakland, which happened to be my first unchaperoned concert and the only one I camped out in front of a record store for tickets, and multiple times by Roger Waters on his various tours. I even flew to London to see that classic line-up perform their only show in my adult life, for Bob Geldof’s Live 8 benefit concert (Listen Here!). It was likely that concert would be a one-off, but it was solidified as their final show together by Richard Wright’s death a few years later.
Having been born in 1977, I count myself lucky to have been to two Pink Floyd shows, especially one with David Gilmour, Roger Waters, Nick Mason, and Richard Wright sharing a stage, but I’ve always felt I was missing out on those early years.
Enter Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets. The brainchild of Lee Harris, Mason’s band also comprises the man himself on drums (the only member of Pink Floyd to have played on every album), frequent Floyd collaborator Guy Pratt on bass and vocals, Spandau Ballet’s Gary Kemp on guitar and vocals, and Dom Beken on keyboards and “all the other sounds we can’t make ourselves.”
Saucerful of Secrets is essentially a cover band, but two aspects of the live performance set them apart from Brit Floyd, Australian Pink Floyd, and countless others: Nick Mason’s presence and the setlist. This project, sanctioned by Gilmour and Waters (one of the very few things they can agree on these days), focuses on pre-Dark Side material. Out of the twenty-one songs performed on Thursday night, I had only seen five of them live, including at the one Brit Floyd show I saw at Red Rocks.
So, how did it compare to other Floyd and Floyd-related shows I’ve attended over the past thirty years? Let’s break it down the way we would most performances: sound, visuals, energy, and song selection.
The sound was on point. It was one of the loudest shows I’ve ever witnessed at the Paramount Theatre, and the mix was perfect. I couldn’t help but think how epic it would have been at a venue like Red Rocks, but the Paramount allowed the audience to get lost in the songs. They surrounded us like a warm psychedelic hug; it was epic in every way.
The visuals were, ummm, fine. I mean, what am I going to say after witnessing real Pink Floyd shows with the giant circular screen and flying pigs? Or Roger Waters shows where “The Wall” is built and torn down. There was nothing Nick Mason and his new friends could have done in the Paramount Theatre to compete. The beginning of the show was relatively dull from a visual standpoint. It was one of my least favorite shows to try to photograph. Things got more interesting as the set progressed, with more and more songs accompanied by corresponding visuals on the big screen, but the venue just looked like a giant lava lamp most of the night, which I guess isn’t the worst thing.
The energy came from Gary Kemp and Guy Pratt. They were the central point of focus for the entire performance. Nick is pushing 80, so he’s earned the right to just be there. He’d stand up every so often and offer anecdotes about his time with Syd and complain that Roger never let him sing or bang the gong, but mostly he was just there to play the drums and represent the Pink Floyd of the past. Lee Harris kept to himself stage right, and Dom kept busy with all his sound toys. Gary was having a lot of fun and kept things exciting in a cheesy ’80s kind of way, but Guy irritated me. He did not like when people applauded too early, and he had a problem with someone in the front row. That someone must have been talking because Guy constantly tried to shut them up. We couldn’t hear whoever was talking, though, so it was Guy who became the distraction he was trying to avoid.
The song selection is why I attended, and it was the highlight of the night. I can’t say I like the early stuff more than the material from Dark Side, Wish You Were Here, Animals, and The Wall, but I like it as much, and I hadn’t seen it performed live. “Fearless,” “If,” “The Nile Song,” and especially “Echoes” were all at least on par with anything I’ve seen Waters and Gilmour perform in the past.
As time passes, we lose more and more of the greats, so no matter what flaws the show might have had, it was still a privilege to see Nick on stage bringing those classics to life. There will never be another Pink Floyd, so any piece that still exists must be held onto until the very end.
Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets – October 19th, 2022 – Paramount Theater (Listen Here!)
Setlist: One of These Days, Arnold Layne, Fearless, Obscured by Clouds, When You’re In, Candy and a Currant Bun, Vegetable Man, If, Atom Heart Mother, If (Reprise), Remember a Day, Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun, Astronomy Domine, The Nile Song, Burning Bridges, Childhood’s End, Lucifer Sam, Echoes, See Emily Play, A Saucerful of Secrets, Bike
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