Seen by many as Water’s two fingered salute to the band that still to this day makes him a pretty packet of royalties, Goodbye Mr Pink Floyd is a live bootleg concert compilation album recorded in Canada in 1987.
The album features Waters performing Pink Floyd faves from Wish You Were Here, Dark Side of the Moon, Animals, Final Cutand The Wall with only Radio Waves and The Powers That Be from his solo album Radio K.A.O.S (which doesn’t feature on the music project).
Probably just to show Waters era Floyd was a golden age. Seeing as he wrote most of it.
When I was 17, the former acquaintance now known as Shitbag said to me:
“Pink Floyd don’t make any CDs anymore. You’ll not find this in HMV so don’t go looking”
So naturally I went looking, opening up a whole new world to me. I’d been aware of Pink Floyd for several years up to that point, but mostly only for their work The Wall. But as we learnt in Animals, there was a lot more to the band. Indeed, much later works like A Momentary Lapse of Reasonand Division Bell just proved that there was still a lot to be produced and earlier albums like Atom Heart Motherand A Saucerful of Secretsproved there was a lot more to discover.
Darkside of the Moon was the second Pink Floyd album I bought. At the time a lot was going on in my life. It was also a time when the new millennium was approaching and with it esoteric disaster, spiritual end times and a new age of yogurt weaving, tofu knitting and miso misery was dawning.
There was also a total eclipse of the sun that was to be visible from the British Isles and Cornwall was to be the best spot to view it from. So, to avoid the crowds I planned an excursion to the nearest westerly point my girlfriend and I could reach without breaking the bank. Having bundled the tent and the king size duvet into the Citroen AX, all that was left was to make a mix tape for the car as entertainment.
Driving through rural Wales with the album on the car stereo blaring out in time to every twist, turn, 60mph stretch, open road and chicane it was uncanny. Culminating in coming down the hill into the picturesque village of Aberdaron on the western Llyn Peninsula just as Pink Floyd broke into Eclipse was possibly on of the most inspiring and thought provoking moments of my life. It was as if the album was written for the journey, the experience and the event.
Synchronicity at its best. Although next time I’ll try the whole experience again while watching Wizard of Oz and see how that works out.
I also have Dark Side of the Sky. A live recording of a performance of this album, but I see little point in writing a separate entry for it.
This is another compilation where the core idea works but the choices of tracks don’t.
Curiously, it appears that 70% of the artists featured on the album have previously featured on this project, so if you’ve missed those entries you’ll find that the links take you to those articles.
Anyway, Classic Rock: Symphonic Rock has a relatively good mix of tunes really but not ones I’d have chosen to highlight how rock can be symphonic. It’s a little too…. “twee”…for my liking. There are far better bands that could have featured on this compilation. There’s no Queensryche. No Meatloaf. The Yes option is pretty much mundane and the inclusion of Clannad, of all bands, confuses me no end. Clannad are not what I’d call rock for a start.
I don’t know what it is about pissed off rock musicians. They whinge and moan about society and how hard it is and how corrupt and awful people in power are. Then they jump on their yacht and sail off into the sunset to their mansion in Cuba or somewhere.
Being a bit of a Floyd fan I was recommended Amused to Death by my hippy friend Blair who always had a good music recommendation that would tickle the old conspiracy tentacles.
Waters moans about the influence of media and television on society and war.Saw him live once though. Think the smile on his face at the end of the concert said the most. It was a kind of “Thanks for your money suckers!” look.
Maybe I miss the point. Media only has the power it has over people because we let it. These days, with the power of media in our own hands, we perversely continue to suckle on the teats of our media mummies rather than actually getting out and making our own media. Like writing a blog. Or making a film. Or singing our own songs. None of which will necessarily make you a living unless you’re really good at it, have the right face and you know the right people.
If you like being angry and helpless to do anything, this is the album for you. If you don’t like being angry, do something about it.
Seen by many as Water’s two fingered salute to the band that still to this day makes him a pretty packet of royalties, Goodbye Mr Pink Floyd is a live bootleg concert compilation album recorded in Canada in 1987.
Stegzy's Music Project 