PINK FLOYD & ROGER WATERS (Thanks for all Bobby! Part II)

PINK FLOYD is since I remember one of my favorite Rock Bands. Meddle, The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Where Here, Animals, The Wall… The music of Pink Floyd is synonymous for absolute perfection. The band has always had a very special character; during their peak of popularity they nearly never gave interviews and it was very rare to read about them in the press. Nevertheless all the mentioned albums were best-sellers and their concerts were always sold out.


After their first line-up in the sixtees (Syd Barret († 7th july 2006) – Guitars/Vocals, Roger Waters – Bass Guitar/Vocals, Rick Wright († 15th December 2008) – Keyboards/Vocals, Nick Mason – Drums), band leader Syd Barret was, due to drug problems (LSD) and as consequence unstable personality, substituted by his friend David Gilmour to play the lead guitar. Roger Waters took over the leadership of the band and after “The Dark Side Of The Moon”, he composes most themes and is controlling more and more all aspects of the group. Little by little the relationships between the members of the band start to get in trouble, Waters and Gilmour seem to be like two cocks in the henhouse.

In the inner-sleeve notes of his album “In The Flesh”, Waters says (about the audience in football stadium rock shows):

“The connection is lost. I particularly felt this loss after the success of Dark Side Of The Moon. On subsequent tours it felt very much as if just about everything human and important – the quality of performances, as well as the fact that relationships between the members of the band had broken down – was ignored or neglected simply because there was suddenly so much money involved, and because our lust for the concomitant acclaim was so great that genuine creative endeavour, and the authentic pleasures that accrue from it, and thus devolve to everyone else, were put on hold. The Wall, which I wrote during that time, is probably still my most thorough and articulate statement of these concerns.”


During the making of THE WALL in 1979, the conflict explodes and Rick Wright is fired, acting during The Wall Tour as an employee (note: curiously Wright was the only one who earned money for the tour as it was a financial disaster due to the high costs). Waters composes all themes for the last Pink Floyd Album, “THE FINAL CUT”, where he is the lead singer on all songs except “Not Now John” where Gilmour sings just a part.

Relationships get worse and the band got split in 1986. Waters focuses on his solo career thinking that the rest of the members will be unable to continue without him. In 1987 Dave Gilmour and Nick Mason launce with Pink Floyd the successful “A Momentary Lapse of Reason” and the trials start between them and Waters concerning the use of the name PINK FLOYD, that the band finally wins and Roger achieves the concession rights for icons of the concerts like the flying pig and the rights of The Final Cut and The Wall, except for the songs in which Gilmour participated in its composition.

Since those times the relations between Roger Waters and Pink Floyd have been completely broken.

During all these years, millions of Pink Floyd fans still had the slightest hope that the band was going to meet some day for a concert or a new album. Unfortunately various statements of Gilmour and Waters aborted any speculation.
Until the year of 2005, when the former leader of the BOOMTOWN RATS Sir BOB GELDOF made a final effort to reunite PINK FLOYD for the LIVE 8 Concert to be held in London. Incredibly Waters & Gilmour this time both said YES.



24 Years after their last concert, in particular ROGER WATERS and DAVID GILMOUR and to a lesser extent RICK WRIGHT and NICK MASON overcame their pride and played together again on july 2 2005 in Hyde Park against hunger in Africa performing the songs "Speak to Me", "Breathe / Breathe (Reprise)", "Money", "Wish You Were Here" and "Comfortably Numb".

About the benefits of the concert, David Gilmour declared:

“Though the main objective has been to raise consciousness and put pressure on the G8 leaders, I will not profit from the concert. This is money that should be used to save lives.”

Unfortunately this unique occasion will not be repeated; the beloved Richard Wright suddenly passed on December 15th 2008 from a short cancer at the age of 65.

Waters stated after Wrights' dead:

“I am very grateful for the opportunity that Live 8 afforded me to engage with him and David [Gilmour] and Nick [Mason] that one last time. I wish there had been more.”