Роджер Уотерс / Roger Waters

Roger Waters Opera to Premiere in Rome on November 17
By Ben Mattison
04 Aug 2005


Ça Ira, the new opera by rock musician Roger Waters, will be performed live for the first time at the Santa Cecilia Auditorium in Rome on November 17, the Italian news agency ANSA reports.

The world-premiere performance will feature the Rome Symphony and its chorus. Waters may be the conductor.

Ça Ira is set during early years of the French revolution; characters include Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI, and Marie Marianne—"the Voice of Liberty, Reason, and the Republic." It uses a circus as "a central theatrical framing device and metaphor," according to a statement released earlier this year.

The libretto was first written, in French, by songwriter Etienne Roda-Gil and his wife Nadine to mark the bicentennial of the revolution in 1989. Waters began work on a score at the time, but stopped when Nadine Roda-Gil died of leukemia. In 1997, he took up the project again and completed an English translation.

"Although it's rooted in the history of the revolution, its philosophical slant is, I suppose, contemporary as well," Waters said. "It's more than just a history of the French Revolution, it's a piece about the human potential for change."

Waters was a founder of the band Pink Floyd, with which he helped create the "rock opera" The Wall, among other bestselling albums.

Sony BMG will release a double-CD recording of the opera featuring baritone Bryn Terfel on September 27.

http://www.playbillarts.com/news/article/2598.html

ПОДРОБНОСТИ ПО ПОВОДУ ПРЕМЬЕРЫ ОПЕРЫ

in Full Blown!

First full live performance of Ca Ira announced

___ Italian news agencies are reporting that the full opera Ca Ira will be performed in Italy this November. Ticket details as we get them. Roger Waters joked that he may conduct an event later this year.

ANSA) - Rome, August 4

An opera composed by former Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters will have its world premiere at the main auditorium of the new Music Park here on November 17, organizers confirmed . The opera, 'Ca Ira', will be performed in the main Santa Cecilia Auditorium by some 100 elements from the Rome Symphony and 80 members of its chorus, including children. Waters himself may conduct . A chorus of children was one of the key elements in one of the landmark 'concept' albums Waters wrote for Pink Floyd, 'The Wall' in 1979. Waters, who was the driving force behind the British progressive rock group in its hey day of the late 1970s and early '80s, began work on the composition in 1989, during the bicentennial celebrations for the French Revolution .

Ca Ira, which roughly means 'So It Will Be', is in fact set against the backdrop of the French Revolution . This is Waters' his first foray into classic opera. A double CD of the work is set to be released in September . Waters rejoined the other members of Pink Floyd for the first time since 1981 when they performed in London for last month's Live 8 global concert . He split with the group over creative differences with guitarist David Gilmour, who then took over Pink Floyd . Rome's Music Park is a performing arts center designed by award-winning architect Renzo Piano, whose works include the Pompidou Centre in Paris and Osaka Airport in Japan, the world's largest . It has three concert halls and a 3,000-seat outdoor amphitheatre, as well as a hanging garden modelled on the mythical gardens of Babylon .

http://www.rogerwatersonline.com/roger_waters_news/5th082005.htm

В сентябрьском номере Mojo на развороте будет опубликованы черно-белые фотография участников Pink Floyd того периода, когда группы еще и не существовало. На фото изображены Сид Барретт, Роджер Уотерс, певец Крис Деннис (Chris Dennis) и гитарист Боб Клоуз (Bob Klose). Фотография будет опубликована впервые. Автор фотографии Себастьян Дженкинс (Sebastian Jenkins) подтвердил подлинность фотографии. "В то время группа мало для меня значила. Я просто снимал, а потом фотографии оставил", — сказал Дженкинс. На этом фото изображена группа во время выступления на частной вечеринке в 1964 году. Более точная дата неизвестна.

Новый номер журнала Q уделил крайне мало внимания концерту Live 8, однако все же упомянул при этом о воссоединении Pink Floyd и Роджера Уотерса. Что примечательно: несмотря на то, что о группе написано немного, все же журнал опубликовал ранее неизвестную фотографию участников группы, прощающихся с аудиторией (хотя эта фотография и похожа на все остальные). Журнал приводит слова Ника Мейсона, который сказал, что объединение прошло «удивительно цивилизованно», пока группа расположилась на диванах за сценой. Также в номере опубликована фотография Дэвида Гилмора с Джейком Ширсом (Jake Shears), участником Scissor Sisters.

Ведущая английская букмекерская контора William Hill начала принимать ставки на события, связанные с Олимпийскими Играми 2012 года, которые пройдут в Лондоне. В том числе принимаются ставки и на то, кто будет возглавлять хит-парад синглов в Великобритании в первую неделю Олимпиады. На втором месте среди фаворитов идут Pink Floyd, ставки на которых принимаются из расчета 50 к 1. Видимо, предполагается, что к этому моменту группа выпустит новый альбом или хотя бы сингл. Букмекеры, как правило, люди информированные, и их рейтинги в основном соответствуют действительности, так что все может быть. Лидирует же в этом списке группа M People и ее вокалистка Хизер Смолл (Heather Small).

По материалам: Brain Damage

Pink-Floyd.ru/

"Comfortably Numb" нагоняет тоску?
Интересующимся каверами на композиции Pink Floyd сообщаем, что Брюс Хорнсби (Bruce Hornsby) недавно выпустил в США DVD под названием "Three Nights on the Town". В него вошла запись исполнения Брюсом композиции "Comfortably Numb" в середине его собственной песни "Fortunate Son". В конце он рассказывает публике историю, как был приглашен для исполнения песни Роджером Уотерсом на Guitar Legends Festival, и как это навеяло на него тоску, вдохновившую на написание "Fortunate Son".

О том, что песня "Comfortably Numb" нагоняет тоску написано и в книге Тома Рейнольдса (Tom Reynolds) "I Hate Myself And Want To Die". Композиция занимает 14-е место в списке 52 самых депрессивных песен в истории музыки.

Книга представляет собой достаточно ироничный взгляд на известные песни, которые автор называет депрессивными. Среди них песня Селин Дион (Celine Dion) "All by Myself", "Mandy" Барри Манилоуса (Barry Manilows) и "Love Will Tear Us Apart" группы Joy Division. В предисловии Рейнольдс написал: "Я расскажу историю, которую никто не хочет услышать". Сюжет альбома "The Wall" он охарактеризовал следующим образом: "Есть такая рок-звезда, которую звали Pink. И есть большая стена. Вот, в общем-то, и все".

А вот что думает он о "Comfortably Numb": «Классическая траурная рок-песнь появилась на печально известном громадном опусе “The Wall”, единственном альбоме, который вы никогда не сможете слушать из-за его цельности, если только у вас нет трубки для курения травки размером со швабру. В "Comfortably Numb" басист Роджер Уотерс изображает скользкого доктора, который пичкает лекарствами измученную рок-звезду Пинка, за которого поет гитарист и певец Дэвид Гилмор. Тревожные упоминания об уколах и галлюцинациях с большим количеством кораблей, и Уотерс, поющий как безумный Питер Лорр (Peter Lorre). Потрясающее забивающее гитарное соло Гилмора в конце избавляет нас от желания закопать себя живьем.»

Самой депрессивной песней автор считает композицию группы Newsong под названием “The Christmas Shoes”.

Записать свою версию "Comfortably Numb" решила и американская певица Дар Уилльямс (Dar Williams). 13 сентября в США и Канаде выходит ее 6-й альбом "My Better Self", на котором кроме композиции Pink Floyd будет кавер-версия песни Нила Янга (Neil Young) "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere". 19 сентября пластинка выйдет в Европе, Австралии и Японии. В записи "Comfortably Numb" участвовала также певица и гитаристка Ани ДиФранко (Ani DiFranco). В Интернете уже можно прослушать ее фрагмент.

По материалам: Brain Damage, Guardian Unlimited, Dar Williams.net

Перевод: Dina

Pink-Floyd.ru/

PINK FLOYD - LIVE 8 NEWS UPDATE

Just over a month after the headline-making reunion of Pink Floyd with Roger Waters, we have a couple of Live 8-related news items for you.

Firstly, specialist amp manufacturer Hiwatt have got some interesting coverage of their performance, with particular focus on the custom amp (the DG-103 signature head) that David Gilmour used during the performance. They also use one of our pictures (full version here) on their home page. Check out www.Hiwatt.com.

We've also been contacted by our friends over at AOL.com. They received a lot of thanks for their excellent Live 8 coverage, and have asked us to remind you all that you can still view the Floyd's four songs - Breathe/Breathe Reprise, Money, Wish You Were Here and Comfortably Numb - on demand by going to this link at music.aol.com until the end of August. There are also all the other performances available too. Each song can be selected individually, and with a fast connection, can be viewed successfully full-screen in pretty good quality.

This should keep people going until the official DVD arrives in November from EMI.

AOL news also has some remarks from the various members of the band:

Although the band's performance [at Live 8] was undeniably strong, guitarist David Gilmour admits that, at least initially, he said no to reforming for the show. "Bob Geldof came down to visit me in the country and tried to persuade me that this was something I should do, and I sent him away and said no," he recalls. "He rang everyone else up. Roger [Waters] eventually rang me up and then I thought, 'Well, in the end, I'll probably kick myself if I don't do it.' It's a very important thing to do for the welfare of Africa and the world."

Drummer Nick Mason agrees that the cause to help stop world poverty was the ultimate catalyst for the reunion. "The band came together to do this one thing. One of the things that Bob particularly wanted was to get people to recognize the problem, and I think something like reforming of a band was in some ways actually really useful. I keep referring to it as sort of novelty act -- and so I felt it a really worthwhile thing to do."

Is this a one-off reunion? "I have no idea, actually," Mason confesses. "It would be great to re-form just to do good work. I think that what we're doing is this one specific show for Bob and for this cause, and that's it. It's not a way of launching our next world tour."

David Gilmour says the reunion has provided the band with a sense of closure. "It's nice to put things to bed -- have a happy ending, put some old squabbles to rest."

Mason says that preparing for the Hyde Park performance was reasonably straightforward. "We had one meeting to decide what we'd play and that was very easy. I mean, it's a fairly limited spot, not an entire show -- just a matter of doing a few songs. And then we went into the rehearsal studio for three days. We worked out that between us, we've got about 300 years of rock 'n' roll experience in the studio, but funnily enough, it's the technical stuff that takes time -- just making sure that everyone can hear what they need to, that the monitors work, that sort of thing."
The full article can be read through this link.



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Date news posted: 8 August 2005

http://www.brain-damage.co.uk/news/0508081.html

Надменный Роджер Уотерс в 1968

Группа в 67...ещё с Сидом

Выступление 68г.

Как я понимаю,это Уотерс уговорил Гилмора в конце концов выступить. А я-то думал,что это Уотерс всегда был главным противником объединения Pink Floyd,а оказывается-все наоборот. А Гилмор...Тоже мне,еще один "Роберт Плант" нашелся!

2zand:
>Как я понимаю,это Уотерс уговорил Гилмора в конце
>концов выступить. А я-то думал,что это Уотерс
>всегда был главным противником объединения Pink
>Floyd,а оказывается-все наоборот. А Гилмор...Тоже
>мне,еще один "Роберт Плант" нашелся!

Ну Родж уговорил упрямца воссоединиться для Такого события!..

Думаю не зря...хотя бы побасил малость...да и дружеская концовка для коллектива выходит...

ОБ ОЖИДАЕМОМ ТРИБЬЮТЕ НА СТЕНУ В ИСПОЛНЕНИИ ЗВЁЗД РОКА!

Several veteran rock artists have teamed to record a track-by-track tribute to Pink Floyd's "The Wall." Due Sept. 27 (!) via the Cleopatra Records' Purple Pyramid imprint, "Back Against the Wall" boasts the participation of Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson, the Doors' Robby Krieger (!) and Yes' Rick Wakeman, Chris Squire and Steve Howe.

Another former Yes alum, Billy Sherwood, produced the tribute, which also features King Crimson's Adrian Belew (!) and Tony Levin (!), ELP's Keith Emerson, Styx's Tommy Shaw and Toto's Steve Lukather, as well as actor Malcolm McDowell, who provides spoken dialogue.

"All the artists involved poured their hearts and soul into this body of work and it shows," Sherwood says. "It is with the utmost respect to Pink Floyd that we took the challenge."

-- Barry A. Jeckell, N.Y.

http://www.billboard.com/bb/daily/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001011798

FLOYD FEATURE IN NEW GUITAR WORLD MAGAZINE

The latest issue (dated October 2005) of the US's Guitar World Magazine has an article which is an excerpt from one of the two forthcoming books about Pink Floyd's classic album, Dark Side Of The Moon. The issue also comes with a CD-Rom that is said to show David Gilmour demonstrating how to play "Breathe" and "Us and Them" on guitar. The clips are from the DSOTM Classic Albums DVD.

The excerpt is from John Harris's book, which we've reported on previously. John's book sounds like it will be a fascinating read, full of interviews done specifically for the book, so the excerpt should be a good taster. (In fact, look for our review of this title soon).

The publishers say this about the article: "The road to The Dark Side of the Moon was long, bumpy and strewn with French hippies, art house movies and shaky gigs from Tokyo to Manhattan; Guitar World proudly presents the untold story behind Pink Floyd's masterpiece."

Elsewhere in the magazine are tabs and sheet music for "Us and Them", and also there is a large feature on Jimi Hendrix performing at Woodstock, with Mitch Mitchell and Billy Cox, his rhythm section, talking at length about it.

Our thanks to Jimmy Hayes and neutron722 for the information about this magazine, which is now on US newsstands, and will soon be available in selected outlets worldwide as an import.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date news posted: 9 August 2005

http://www.brain-damage.co.uk/news/0508091.html

Вот сама статья

Ещё про Трибьют Билли Шервуда из Yes на Cтену Уотерса

TRIBUTE TO THE WALL COMING SOON - UPDATE

Interest continues to grow over a forthcoming album playing tribute to Pink Floyd's The Wall. Amongst the artists on "Back Against the Wall" are Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson, the Doors' Robby Krieger, Yes' Rick Wakeman, Chris Squire and Steve Howe. The full list of participants can be found on our 30th May news story (http://www.brain-damage.co.uk/news/0505304.html).

Billy Sherwood is producing the tribute to Roger Waters' 1979 masterpiece, for Cleopatra Records, which has now got a firm release date of 27th September.

Billy told us recently: "It is coming along quite nicely and I should be mixing it very soon. I'm a long-time huge fan of Pink Floyd and especially The Wall. I have been working very hard to keep the over all integrity extremely high, as did everyone who played on it. I hope you like it!"

"All the artists involved poured their hearts and soul into this body of work and it shows," Sherwood said. "It is with the utmost respect to Pink Floyd that we took the challenge."

As we get more information on this project, we will let you know. There's a lot of interest in it, not least because of the big names involved, elevating it from other tribute albums out there.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date news posted: 10 August 2005

http://www.brain-damage.co.uk/news/0508101.html

Q Prog Special Edition.

The Floyd feature is quite extensive, although certainly not big enough to

justify why PINK FLOYD is written with huge letters on the cover. The issue

is actually fairly balanced, devoting 5-to-10 pages to each band, including

Genesis (Gabriel years), King Crimson, Yes, Soft Machine, ELP, Caravan,
Camel and other usual (and some unusual) suspects. It also features a nice

single-page feature on the Harvest label, and plenty of references to the
Floyd, outside the main feature on them. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Floyd

feature is a mixture of quotes already printed on the last MOJO Floyd
special (2001) along with some (not too many) new ones, that ANNOYINGLY are

not properly credited. There are no references or sources listed -just a
brief list of websites used, including www.brain-damage and -confusingly-
www.pinkfloyd.gr , which is mostly written in .. greek! :-) I don't think

there are many new bits of Floyd trivia that we didn't already know, but
I've singled out some of them below:

Overall, the magazine is definitely worth buying, especially if you're into

'70s prog. I actually enjoyed the features on the other bands more.

---------------------------------

Now, on to some quotes from Q Prog Special Edition, starting with the one

where Rog FINALLY admits what we all knew was true all these years about
the
Abbey Rd clips in Live at Pompeii:

Roger: "Some of the interviews in the canteen at EMI [filmed later] are
really funny. You can see we were all so fucking stoned. Well, not *all* of

us, but certainly Dave and I are completely out of our brains. I was going

through my stage then when I was pretending to give up cigarettes, so I
would only smoke joints. But actually I was addicted to the nicotine, it
had
nothing to do with the hash. When I stopped smoking nicotine, I stopped
smoking dope as well because I realised I didn't really like it."

Also. finally there seems to be confirmation about something that I wrote

to Echoes almost 8 years ago, regarding the early planning stages of the
Pompeii project. I had conveyed some -entirely unofficial- information that

Maben originally had Greece (Ancient Epidaurus) in mind, but several
factors
contributed to this not materialising, including the fact that Greece was
under the rule of a military junda at the time. In fact, it was only
*after*
the fall of the dictatorship in '73 that many of 'western' pop/rock records

of the '67-'73 era starting circulating -officially- in Greece.

Anyhow, the 'Epidaurus theory' was half-information/half-speculation back
then and has since been debated by Greek and non-Greek residents alike, so
I
put it to rest. Moreover, the release of the Pompeii Director's Cut didn't

make any mention to that whatsoever and Maben implied that Pompeii was in
his mind from the outset.

However, this is now contradicted by a quote attributed to Mason.
So, here it is, straight from the horse's (well, Nick's) mouth:

Mason: "I DON'T THINK WE REALISED THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LIVE AT POMPEII WHEN

WE MADE IT. ADRIAN MABEN, WHO PRODUCED AND DIRECTED, CAME UP WITH THE IDEA

TO DO A BIT OF FILMING IN GREECE, SO THE EQUIPMENT WAS LOADED IN THE VAN
AND
OUR ROAD CREW JUST HEADED OFF DOWN THERE."

------- further quotes: ---------

Waters: "The only Albert Hall gig I can actually remember was when we did
the whole of aSoS as a performance using a choir with Norman Smith
conducting and the massive Albert Hall organ. Using the organ was fraught
with difficulties because there's a huge delay between pressing the keys
and
the noise coming out of the tubes, as it's such an enormous instrument. We

also used cannons. It was fucking great, cos they had this pair of old
cannons downstairs that they used for the 1812 overture, and I thought,
well, bugger me, we must use those! So we wheeled them out.

Mason: "There never was any great plan for furthering our career. A lot of

things came to us rather than us hatching them. We *hatched* the albums,
the
tours and the structure of the shows, but the other stuff... film
music -whether it's More or Zabriskie Point, or projects like Pompeii- they

were definitely brought to us. And it has to be said that we very rarely
turned work down, if it was proper work.

Waters: "We did the More soundtrack as a sort of personal favour for
Barbet.
He showed us the movie -which he'd already completed and edited- and
explained what he wanted; and we just went into the studio and did it. I
don't really like working under that sort of pressure, but it can help you

by focusing your ideas.

Gilmour: "I suppose it seems silly now, but we thought of films as one of
our possible futures."

Mason: "Until then we had participated in a few movies. The first one was
Let's All Make Love in London in 1967, where we performed IO. Then we'd
done
the music for The Committee, a film starring Paul Jones. It was done in one

morning... Barbet Schroeder's proposal, which had taken an interesting
subject, was very attractive.

Waters - "We wrote and recorded ('More') at the same time. I was sort of
sitting at the side of the studio writing lyrics while we were putting down

the backing tracks."

(re: live Ummagumma)

Wright: "The only thing I remember about the evening was that everything
went wrong. We were recording on a 4-track as well, trying to get the whole

thing down. I remember it was a good gig but to me the tapes were
disappointment. There were a lot of technical faults on the tape."


Thanasis

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture."
- Frank Zappa

1

.

.,

Live 8 / Floyd Feature in Word magazine
Transcribed by Thanasis Tsilderikis WITHOUT PERMISSION

WORD MAGAZINE, July 2005 issue

When, midway through their 20-minute set, Waters announced he felt
"incredibly emotional to be back with these three guys again", he meant it.

As he tried to sing Wish You Were Here, a song about Syd Barrett, his
childhood friend and the band's inspirational founder who left in 1968, his

voice cracked and he could barely get the words out. Gilmour, Waters's
arch-enemy in one of the longest feuds the rock world has witnessed,
carried
on scowling down at his electric guitar. Although the band played on, none

of them had expected such a public declaration from the man who had sued,
insulted and mostly just ignored them for 20-odd years. Even Nick Mason,
the
group's unflappably urbane drummer - and the only member on speaking terms

with Waters before the Live 8 reunion - admitted later that "we were all
very surprised at the way Roger behaved".

Peter Jenner, the band's first manager, recalled that Waters "was the one
who had the courage to drive Syd out, because it was chaos", but that it
hurt. "Syd was the only person, I think, who Roger has ever really liked
and
looked up to, and he always felt very guilty about the fact that he'd blown

out his mate."

According to Gilmour, Waters proceeded to take it out on him. "I was the
new
boy. Not only that, I was two years younger than the rest of them, and you

know how those playground hierarchies carry over. You never catch up. Roger

is not a generous-spirited person. I was constantly dumped on."

Mason believes that it is Waters' absorption in his solo projects which has

taken the sting out of rejoining his old adversaries. "Roger's very
pragmatic. Because he's enjoyed working on his own, I think that being back

with the band feels like a novelty to him."

As relations were warming in one corner of the frosty foursome, they were
cooling somewhat in another. Mason's lavishly illustrated, delightfully
chatty personal account of Pink Floyd - Inside Out, published in 2004 - did

not find favour with David Gilmour. The book's gossipy, self-deprecating
style shortchanged the band's real musical achievements, Gilmour grumbled
privately to friends. (Though they live not far from each other in the
South
of England, in West Sussex and Wiltshire respectively, Gilmour and Mason
haven't socialised for years.)

In terms of their recent public profile, the closest thing to a gig Pink
Floyd had done prior to Geldof's intervention was a brief performance at
the
funeral of their manager, Steve O'Rourke, in the summer of 2004. Gilmour,
Mason and Wright played WYWH during the service at Chichester cathedral and

Wright followed it with a solo piano rendition of Great Gig in the Sky. "It

didn't feel like a gig," Mason noted, "and we didn't ask Roger to take part

because he still had some differences with Steve, who was very much a part

of our team. So he wasn't asked to come at all."

(comment ---> this, I believe, is the first official confirmation that
such
a 'performance' in O'Rourke's funeral took place, other than the initial
rumours that claimed Roger played too, along with Dick Parry.)

But here comes the good part. Geldof's own account of the reunion, with his

characteristic, wholy un-British, frankness.
Enjoy! :-)

Word magazine: Why were you after PF in particular?

Bob Geldof: Well, that world audience, those sales. Also, that morning I'd

receive a print-out from some guy from an Internet site saying that the
Pink
Floyd would never play again unless it was something exceptional like Live

Aid. So I rang Nick Mason. He said, are you serious? I can't see what would

make the others talk to each other. So I called David Gilmour. I've known
him since The Wall and he was driving up to London with Polly and he
practically swerved off the road. And said mmmm, you know? I said, well,
I'll
come and see you.

I rang him again and he said, look, the answer's no. I want to do my solo
album now. Also there's the concern that the record company think there is
a
giant pot at the end of the PF rainbow. I did a Vicky Pollard - yeah, but,

no, but - I said well, don't say no now [ed: Vicky Pollard is a comedy
character on British TV, satirical of the 15-year-old working class girls
in
'Little Britain' and the way they talk in fits and starts]. Give me a
chance
to lay out my stall, my purpose, let me come and see you and maybe argue my

position. I said I've got to come down and see you, which train do I get?
So
I get to Crodyon and he rings me says Bob, there's no point.

I've got as far as Croydon. I'm at East Croydon station, Croydon East, you

know! And I said, at least come and pick me up. He was a bit grumpy but he

turned up in this lovely od Merc and we went back to his place. And I went

into it. He knew I was there to pitch. He was being kind but it was a
little
awkward and he kept his head and at the end he just said, I just can't go
through all that stuff again, and told me I had to try and understand all
that.

- So how did you sell it to him?

Geldof: I laid out the politics of the thing, what would happen if the PF
played. The world audience, the uniqueness of the event, the fact that they

never said goodbye to the audience, and that every person who ever bought a

PF album in the world would have access to them again.

He was sotto voce in the end. He took me upstairs and played me some tracks

from his new solo album and I told him to take some speed! He said, I get a

lot of pleasure out of all this, and they ware very beautiful songs. So he

said well, I don't know, I'm not going to change my mind now, Bob. So I
didn't
crap on about it. I said, at least think about it. He said he was going on

holiday for a week and there'd be no time to rehearse. I said do think
about
it.

But then Mason called to say how did you get on? I said, I don't think very

well but I'll write him a letter. Next Roger Waters calls me, in a great
mood. I think a lot of people think he's bitter and cynical but I don't
think he is at all. He's hilarious and has this acerbic wit and he's very
up
and funny. And he said what's happening? I said will you play? And he said

all things considered, I'd love to. That took me back a bit, so I checked
with Nick that Rick Wright would be up for it and he said he would. And I
rang Roger back and Roger said 'What's Old Grumpy up to? I said, still
being
fairly grumpy."

:-D :-D :-D

Geldof: "There were clearly lots of unarticulated things going on, lots of

water still flowing under those bridges. And Roger said I'd like to do it
and I'd like to do it in London if we can do it. I said, dude, you can do
it
on the moon, you know! Now Nick, Rick and Roger appeared to be absolutely
wanting to do it but Dave was away. I said I'd written Dave a letter, I
called Nick again and told him about Dave and he said "It's the curse of
leadership."

- Referring to Roger or Dave Gilmour?

Geldof: "Referring to Dave, I suppose, as Dave's the one who has led the
Floyd for the last 20 years [имется в виду группа Гилмора под лэйблом пинк флойд]. The burden of carrying on gradually. And Dave

is with his new family and he's just got rid of that house and Dave I think

just didn't want to go back to that place he'd been before. Roger on the
other hand had become hugely expansive and was wanting to gig and quite
prepared to let sleeping dogs lie. Terrible cliche but it's true. It was
sort of like a reversal of roles really. And Roger said, have you got
Gilmour's number? I heard no more for two weeks and then the phone goes and

a voice says, all right then. I said sorry? He said "It's Gilmour. All
right
then."

"I said you're not fucking serious! Fuckin' hell, you've made an old man
very happy. Not that I can stand you cunts but you've made an old
retro-punk
very happy! Cos I never liked their music, really."

comment ---> Sir Bob doesn't mince his words, does he? You gotta give him
that!

Geldof: "I rang Roger and told him Dave had called and he said "Oh Good.
Where will we be on the bill?" Apparently that first meeting they had
together was great. What older people should behave like, all grins and
smiles. Nick told me, you know without being mawkish or anything, that it
was like being in a band again. So familiar and fun and so good. Instantly

they got to sorting out what songs they would play and even asked me at one

point if I thought they were all right. 'What do you think?' I said, what
do
you mean what do I think?! The enormity of the Floyd playing again. The
sheer numbers of eyeballs watching, all marshalled to a political end, it's

amazing. In the US this is a bigger story than Live 8, why this band with
such a painful history of disorder, why are they doing it?

- Was this the biggest news story you could have engineered? I can't think

of a bigger one.

Geldof: "In pop terms, absolutely. The whole point was the brand, and the
individuals have become more and more fascinating as a result. As you began

to understand the dynamics of each song and who did which bit it became
fascinating. And their strange sense of politics, politics on a polite
English level but with a profound bitterness. I didn't care for the music
much but I genuinely like them as people.

- Do you think all bands will reunite eventually, and that events like Live

8 just give them the excuse to do so?

Geldof: "No, I don't really. I think age is the excuse. You look at it and

think back to what it was. We were glorious, you know! I don't know why we

were glorious but let's acknowledge it! I'd like to play to all those
people
again! Whatever happened to us was just clearly uniquely good. It's not to

recapture the old glory."

Later in the article, there's that Mason quote reprinted again:

Mason: "Bob and Roger are a bit like Hitler and Stalin with a better sense

of humour. And, in Bob's case, worse hair."

There's an interesting account (Nick's) of the whole dynamics of Gilmour's

upcoming solo album and PF reuniting for Live 8:

Mason: "The moral pressure on anyone to do something like this is
phenomenal." He totally sympathised with Gilmour's predicament: "Live 8's
going to impinge on next year when he tours as a solo artist. People will
be
saying, "Come on Dave, do some Floyd material", as they will have just seen

him do some. And it takes a hell of a long time to establish yourself as a

solo artist. But Bob rang me and said 'David Gilmour won't do it'. And I
felt, well, that's Dave. You can take a horse to water but you can't make
him drink. In Dave's case you can't even get him near the water. So Roger
rang David and that cemented it. Bob then spoke to Roger and he agreed. I
think he felt -well we all felt actually - that it was a shame we didn't
play Live Aid but we didn't really exist as a band at the time."


Coming up: More selected quotes from Q magazine's Prog Special Edition

Thanasis

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I can't see the lines I thought I could read between."
- Brian Eno

из Echoes Digest