In my opinion tonight was David’s most creative effort.
He changed up the solo’s quite a bit and he is looking very comfortable on stage.
I would be surprised if most of the songs don’t clock in at their longest to date.
Sorrow was off the hook, he changed up the beginning of the Time solo, The Blue had to have had an extra 30 seconds to it etc, etc.Only problem is that if you weren’t on the floor (and I wasn’t) the sound was horrible. Low metal ceiling had the drums and bass bouncing back all over the sound.
Really hoping to get a recording off the floor just here this brilliant show with out all the reverb.
Thanks to fanofallfive
Above images thanks to Kim Hermansen
After an almost 4-hour-drive, I met with my friend Bernd near the arena at a giant mall with a lot of parking sites, where we could easily leave without a traffic jam after the show. We wandered around the mall, meeting other fans and friends and finally got something to eat to be prepared for the gig.
We entered the König-Pilsener-Arena at 6:30 pm (including a check of the ID card) and looked for the merch first. I thought about a black t-shirt with Dave and his guitar and the tour dates on the back, but decided to buy it after show together with 2 tour books (which never happend, as they were sold out after the show!). So we wandered around the arena and Bernd took some photos from various points of view.
After taking an intense look at the stage and the mixing desk, we came to our seats in block 1, row 10, right in front of Phil Manzanera. Perfect seats for a complete view of the whole stage, but also to see all the details.
It was 8:02 pm, when the lights were dimmed and a journey through the musical life of Gilmour and Floyd started. I won’t recite the well-known setlist (this time again with Coming Back To Life after Fat Old Sun in part 2 of the show), but will pick out some interesting things.
Settling the typical Gilmour/Floyd-feeling with 5 A.M., the next song Rattle That Lock made clear: The is will be a rock show with superb and overwhemling (and breathtaking loud) sound with Gilmour at his best, regarding his guitar-playing and singing. And this song was perfect for the return of Mr. Screen: the video of this song was shown!
Concering the videos on the round screen: For me, they distracted me in parts from the music, so I decided to concentrate on Gilmour and the other musicians instead. Besides the video for In Any Tongue, all others are already known (some for ages as Money and Us And Them), so I didn’t miss too much!
Talking about the visuals of the show, you can probably say, that Gilmour increased this in comparison to the On An Island tour some 9 years ago. There were stunning effects combining the screen lights and also from the sides and above the stage. 2 spotlights were handed manually by two stage-hands (hopefully free from giddiness), who were floating on both sides of the stage. Astronomy Dominé had a psychedelic rush of colours with a really intense sound and Run Like Hell (with the band wearing sunglasses) offered a storm of colour effects to an audience going wild.
Gilmour himself seemed to really enjoy the show and even danced on one occasion some seconds on stage. He was relaxed and handled the vocals perfectly (with only the chorus in In Any Tongue leaving to the background singers). And his guitar-playing – well, what can I say? It never seemed to be better!
The highlights for me were, besides the visual aspects, on the musical side: To my surprise, even the new songs, what I didn’t like so much on the new album (A Boat Lies Waiting and The Girl In The Yellow Dress) were fine for me. The jazzy The Girl In The Yellow Dress had quite an interesting video, that is included in the bonus material of the new album. The best song from Rattle That Lock is (besides Faces Of Stone) without any doubt In Any Tongue (you could easily say Comfortably Numb part 2), that is THE perfect LIVE song.
From the “old” stuff, especially High Hopes (with the accustic ending), Fat Old Sun with a furious guitar-solo at the end and Sorrow with David turning your stomach upside down with his guitar sound, were really impressing and worth every single second.
During the final song Run Like Hell, the fans were on their feet and rushing to the stage, but the security still tried to get everyone back to their seats. After standing ovation form the audience, the band came back to start the clock intro and video for Time and Breathe Reprise.
Could there be a Gilmour show without Comfortably Numb? No, of course not! So the final song of the evening was this tune, for which his name will be written into the golden book of unforgettable musical moments of glory in last 50 years. What a song, what an emotion, what a guitar-solo! I was really moved, seeing pictures of Syd and Rick before my eyes and also of my dear friend Ingo, a long-time floydian collector, who died in 2011. I had tears in my eyes to be honest …
Summing it all together, I have to say: This was a prefect day, with friends, old and new, and a incredible show, that I will remember for ever. An emotional journey, that makes it hard to come back to real life.
Thanks to Hans-Jürgen Müller
Pictures from Oberhausen show, taken from 7 Row front. The sound on the floor was very crisp and extremely loud.
David was terrific and in my opinion in a very good mood. His voice is very strong and you could really feel how much fun he had playing. He was even dancing around during Fat Old Sun. There was one very small glitch at the end of Sorrow, the lights went off 1 to 2 measures to early but the reaction of the light crew was immediate.
Presenting the band he said that the 2nd keyboard player was new to the tour and that this was his first show with the band (I am not sure if I understood correctly).
He also remarked in a humourous way that this was a special evening as we were the first to hear the new songs from the CD which has been published Friday…
This time Polly was apparently not around taking photographs.
At the end of the Encore he said the usual ‘Thank you very much ‘ adding ‘may be we’ll see again One of these days’ !
On the other hand the local organizers were in my opinion not up to task providing public transport after the show for those who did not come by car. Only the regular buses and trams were running which were absolutely overcrowded and it took us more than 1 hour to evaquate the premises by public transport to Oberhausen Main Station!
Review & above pictures thanks to Jean Klein
Seeing David Gilmour was a dream come true. My first memory of his goes back 20 something more years ago when Pink Floyd played at the Earls court.
His voice and distinctive guitar style and sound appealed to me immediately. I’ve watched The Pulse video cassette! dozens of times, but had never seen the live performance. Until yesterday.
Oberhausen show was simply magical! My friend and I flew from Prague and have enjoyed this trip very much. The set list didn’t change from the previous venue and here’s what the band played:
First set: 5am, Rattle That Lock, Faces Of Stone, Wish You Were Here, A Boat Lies Waiting, The Blue, Money, Us And Them, In Any Tongue, High Hopes.
Second set: Astronomy Domine, Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Fat Old Sun, Coming Back To Life, On An Island, The Girl In The Yellow Dress, Today, Sorrow, Run Like Hell
Encore: Time / Breathe (reprise), Comfortably Numb.
The sound was terrific and visual part astonishing as you would expect. David and his stellar band gave everything and have played their hearts out! Words like excellent or perfect are still too far from how great it really was!
With the new album released just the day before the concert took place, David funnily said: ‘imagine how lucky you are” as a reaction to the fact we can listen to those songs as first after the official release.
New songs were accompanied with well known old bits and received fantastic reception by the audience. It’s impossible to point out any highlight of the night as standing ovations were present almost after each song. Plus all remained standing after Sorrow till the complete end to support the band with clapping and singing throughout the last four pieces. Shivering atmosphere!
Also, there were several little things that resonated and attracted my attention for some reason, for instance that David didn’t sing a chorus in In any tongue and let his backing singers do the job, which Bryan and Louise did perfectly well! But he actually was whisteling the opening melody himself.
Then, Guy Pratt’s jumping during Sorrow as he did on the original Pulse DVD, David’s funny little dance during Fat old sun, Jon Carin’s great singing on Comfortably numb (remember his excellent perfomance of Dogs on Roger’s In the Flesh live DVD?) and of course David’s “There is no pain…” which I was waiting for 20 odd years…
Plus, seeing Mr. Screen on stage again with the well known animations was a nice surprise and it was kind of like going back to where it all had started for me.
To conclude, David is my guitar hero and I truly love his music. There are thousands of guitarists out there, but only few can create an atmosphere. And there’s only one who’s the best at it – David Gilmour, the voice and guitar of Pink Floyd. Seeing him was a dream come true. Thank you David!
Review thanks to Vlado Marcinek. Pictures thanks to Martin Slavik
Finally, time for David’s only tour date in Germany. Having missed out on ticket sales the first time around, I was grateful for a second chance a few weeks later when they freed up additional seats on either side of the stage. Whilst not the best spot, I would have paid to hear him play live from behind a curtain. On the day, I found myself in another country with an 850km drive to the venue but no matter, I got there at 6.30pm. Enough time to wander over to the arena, have a gawp at three stretch limos’ worth of people strolling up the steps to the VIP entrance and see a few dozen others in a cordoned-off area by a sign that read ‘Backstage Lounge’. I showed my ticket at the barrier (where they checked the printed name against my passport), grabbed something to eat and drink, jostled my way through to pick up some merchandise then took my seat with half-an-hour to spare.
This was the first indoor concert of the little tour, starkly different to some of the previous outdoor Roman amphitheatre-like venues, so presumably tonight would not be the smallest crowd so far. The König-Pilsener Arena holds around 12,500 though with this being an all-seating show, there looked to be fewer people there tonight than that.
I’d picked up the new album which had come out the day before so was at least a little bit familiar with the new songs – they launched straight into the first three of them which came across well, then David addressed the crowd, I’d forgotten that he had learnt a bit of German when younger. They then got things really moving with a nice rendition of Wish You Were Here. The playing was tight and the sound quality good, once I managed to ignore the distracting echo hitting us from the back of the hall. At least from where I was sitting.
When I saw him on the On An Island tour, David had played around with a few things, such as the semi-acoustic version of Shine On and the extra jamming on Money. For tonight’s show they kept things close to the originals though with longer extended solos which was fine by me. The whole production was larger-scale than in 2006, the most obvious addition being the classic Floyd circular behind-back projection screen with its rotating multi-coloured lights. Fantastic!
The first half seemed to go by quite quickly so I thought it was going to be a fairly short show but the passing time was deceptive and in the end they played for over two-and-a-half hours. My personal highlight from the first half was Us and Them, not least because it made me think fondly about the late, great Richard Wright.
Astronomy Domine after the interval was brilliant with the inky animation helping take us back to the The Pink Floyd Sound of the 1960s. Shine On (parts 1-5) straight after that was also excellent with each new phase of David’s playing getting appreciative cheers from the crowd.
For some reason I’d been a bit anxious before the gig that they might not play the ‘extra inserted track’ Coming Back to Life which was added because of an enthusiastic Italian crowd the week before but I needn’t have worried, we had made enough noise to get them to include it. I was quite worried by David’s voice during Coming Back To Life as it was definitely giving out but he recovered and got through all the rest of the show without major problems.
There were a few other little hiccups, especially during Sorrow when David opened with the wrong note and played a few notes in quick succession before finding the right one, then at the end when the lighting folks mistimed the final spotlight and had to backtrack and switch back to the main lights for another bar or two. The Time encore was well played though I wonder whether the wrong guitar settings were used for the solo, to me it sounded unusually ‘clean’ for the song. No matter, still great to hear those familiar notes live again. As usual, Comfortably Numb finished it all off brilliantly with John Carin doing a great job singing Roger’s parts and capped off by David’s extended live solo which brought the house down. A couple of thank yous and farewells with a group bow captured on camera by a guy standing behind them and they were gone.
Now a familiar whinge but it would have been nice to have heard something from David’s first two solo albums or another very early Floyd piece but hey, I’m just happy that David is touring again and gladly take whatever we’re given. Perhaps a later date will include a special additional something that also makes it onto a DVD sometime.
A new venue for me, a fine concert with great musicians and superb lighting, though I quickly realised that I haven’t been to enough gigs lately and had forgotten the first rule of driving to gigs – pick a parking spot near the exit! The hour-and-a-half wait before I started moving wasn’t really what I wanted after a full day’s driving and another 250km to go before getting home. However, still buzzing from the show and with a couple of Floyd and DG albums turned up in the car, I soon got over caring too much about having to wait.
P.S. For those in Germany (so probably also other countries in Europe): I don’t want to spread false rumours but the guy seated next to me, who said he’s been to about twenty Floyd-related gigs since 1977, told me that a friend of his knows John Carin as well as one of the tour sax players… anyway, he was told that they are thinking of playing more German dates next year. Take it with a pinch of salt perhaps but you heard it here first, folks!
Setlist:
First half
5am
Rattle That Lock
Faces Of Stone
Wish You Were Here
A Boat Lies Waiting
The Blue
Money
Us And Them
In Any Tongue
High Hopes.
Second half
Astronomy Domine
Shine On You Crazy Diamond
Fat Old Sun
Coming Back To Life
On An Island
The Girl In The Yellow Dress
Today
Sorrow
Run Like Hell.
Encores
Time / Breathe (reprise)
Comfortably Numb.
(The show ran from 8pm-11pm with about a 20-minute interval)
Review & pictures thanks to “ET”
Nice show, but more or less the same as before. The german audience is not so enthusiastic, so no choirs and clappings Like in Verona.
Dave played professsional, did a small dance in Fat old sun.
The solo in comf nunb seems the longest to me I’ve heard on that tour. The band smiled at each other, wondering when Dave will stop. At the end the band united for a bow, laying their arms around their neighbour.
Funny that no announcments were made, lights down and off we go. Sorry no pictures, I had my old phone with me.
Thanks to Abnormaler
Thanks to Torsten
Thanks to Vlado Marcinek