Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets
Palmanova / Piazza Grande / Italy
Thursday, 20 July 2023
Nick Mason needs no introduction. Pink Floyd and? Drums. The rest is history. Back in 2018, the stately gentleman decided it was time for a live comeback. He gathered Lee Harris (Blockheads) and bassist Guy Pratt, with whom he had played on Pink Floyd’s final tour in 1994. Pratt is perhaps even better known for having been married for a time to Gala Wright, the daughter of the late Pink Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright. These three men set out to revisit Pink Floyd material from the early era — initially just for fun, to see ‘what they had.’ That material, in other words, from the days when Syd Barrett was at the helm. Shortly after, keyboardist Dom Beken — brought in by Guy Pratt, the two having collaborated musically for many years — and guitarist Gary Kemp joined the fold. The latter is known above all as an integral member of the new romantic sensation of the ’80s — Spandau Ballet — and the writer of the vast majority of their evergreen hits.
The band has been touring since 2018 (minus the two-year pan(dem)ic theatrics). Friuli-Venezia Giulia has long been known for the sheer number of interesting concerts that crop up during the summer months, especially in July. And so on 20 July 2023, the magnificent main square of the beautiful Palmanova came alive in this regard too — where we managed to catch one of the concerts on the Italian leg of Nick Mason and his Saucerful of Secrets’ new European tour. And rightly so. No secret that this summer has been a complete lottery when it comes to outdoor concerts. Nick Mason’s show in Vicenza, Italy, just two days earlier, had been definitively cancelled due to extreme weather. Those of us in Palmanova that evening were the lucky ones.
The other great news was that there was no support act and no extra waiting around. The two-part concert kicked off just after nine in the evening — with a set of songs that neither Waters nor Gilmour have ever touched in their post-Pink Floyd careers. In that sense, Nick Mason delivered exactly what’s been missing from the colossal tours of his two Pink Floyd mates, both of whom carry the weight of major-star reputation. And that’s not all. Mason showed an incredible down-to-earth quality throughout the show. He prefaced several songs with a full story. He also made a point of telling the audience they were welcome to photograph the show to their heart’s content — just keep the flash off.
What’s interesting is that Mason wasn’t looking for vocalists who would approximate Barrett, Waters, Gilmour, or Wright. Both Pratt and Kemp are a mile away from any of those voices in terms of vocal character. Yet together they create a vivid vocal contrast — which was always the case one way or another throughout Pink Floyd’s career. Kemp has a really interesting voice. It genuinely catches you off guard, because at first you can’t quite place it. It’s mildly dissonant in places. Perhaps the most fitting comparison is David Bowie. Pratt on the other hand brings a softer colour, with the occasional falsetto that would fit right in with some old-school prog-rock institution — and it works especially well in songs where you can lean into that psychedelic ‘esoteric’ moment. So it’s no surprise he took on lead vocals for Remember A Day, among others. That’s a track written by the late Richard Wright. But that wasn’t a hard rule. Pratt almost shocked us when he absolutely nailed The Nile Song from the More soundtrack — a track known for Gilmour’s raw vocal edge. His voice is worlds away from Gilmour’s, yet Pratt locked in brilliantly with his own approach. It’s also worth noting that Kemp, who handled the bulk of the vocal duties (especially the Barrett tracks), didn’t bother putting on a ‘cockney’ accent — which was such a distinctive feature of Barrett’s vocal delivery. And the fascinating discovery was that both Kemp and Pratt — despite neither of them sharing much with any of the original Floyd voices — slotted beautifully into the Pink Floyd material from those classic, let’s call them romantically psychedelic, days. That is, the days before Pink Floyd became a global (commercial) powerhouse.
Two hours and twenty minutes. With a short intermission. Dynamite. The performances were simply outstanding. Material spanning from the early psychedelic era all the way through the flirtation with progressive rock, which in artistic terms culminated in the transitional album Meddle (1971). All backed by massive film projections. They only skipped Ummagumma (1969), which is no surprise — even though the author of these lines had quietly hoped Nick would do a solo drum piece using The Grand Vizier’s Garden Party. But the material the quintet delivered was nothing short of dreamlike. In the first set, the only blemish was a mild imprecision from Pratt when doubling Kemp’s vocal lines in the Meddle classic Fearless (Liverpool fans will know it particularly well) — everything else was pure brilliance. And Mason didn’t forget the gong. The legendary Live At Pompeii film got a brilliant embodiment in Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun, with Kemp doing the lion’s share of the work in building the intense, hypnotic atmosphere through heavy use of the e-bow.
Hard to pick highlights. Really. Having them play Arnold Layne is already a massive thing, but then getting the B-side of that single too — Candy and a Currant Bun — that’s downright heavenly. This was all in the first set. The real surprise there was definitely Vegetable Man. Nick said before playing it that it’s an old Pink Floyd song the band would run through at rehearsals but never truly finished as a composition. The label didn’t like it and wouldn’t put it on an album. So it was the very founding of Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets that finally brought it to life on stage for the first time. A special concert moment came from the combination of the gentle If, which the band masterfully pivoted mid-song into the opening of Atom Heart Mother Suite, before returning — two sections later — to the final third of If and wrapping it up neatly. No orchestra needed.
Interestingly, Mason and the team chose to give more attention to the Obscured By Clouds (1972) soundtrack. The quintet played the strongest tracks from that record — the title track and When You’re In both in the first set, then Burning Bridges and Childhood’s End in the second. Kemp’s theatrical ‘Miaow…’ could only mean one thing: the Barrett song about a mischievous black cat. It was Lucifer Sam. And in the second set, we were all feverishly waiting for… Echoes. Yes. The grand finale. The closing number. You could call it the highlight of the whole show, in every sense. The band demonstrated extraordinary cohesion and perfectionism. They naturally added their own flourishes and nuances — the musicians assembled around Mason are technically far more polished than Pink Floyd were when they recorded and wrote these songs — yet the substance of Pink Floyd’s timeless legacy remained untarnished. But technical polish isn’t really the point. What matters is the impression. The mark this performance leaves. That hypnotic atmosphere that moves you. That moves your body. Piece by piece. Playing with the most hidden corners of your soul. Reaching into its depths. Shaking it, stirring it. Waking it up. Especially in a nostalgic sense. The emotional impact was extraordinary. In every way. Lee Harris also shone in this section, coaxing genuine sonic miracles out of his Stratocaster through feedback.
Bottom line: Mason is in great shape. Physically, performance-wise, and in terms of wit. At one point during a break, while introducing the musicians on stage, he described Kemp as: ‘From a new romantic warrior to the king of progressive rock.’ The line was of course a nod to the years Gary spent with Spandau Ballet — though you have to keep in mind that all those guys who found commercial success with their bands in the ’80s — Spandau Ballet included — grew up on the sounds of progressive rock, a fact Kemp himself confirmed in one of his later heartfelt addresses, saying among other things that he had never imagined the music on the records he listened to as a teenager would one day turn out to be the greatest music ever written in the story of rock.
The band came back for a generous encore. See Emily Play absolutely cannot be missing. And it wasn’t. The encore’s peak was the full ‘psychedelic snake’ of A Saucerful of Secrets — without doubt another one of those moments that launches you into a world of its own, the world Pink Floyd’s music creates. Well, let me pinch myself — the world recreated by Nick Mason and his four brilliant musical companions. That world that carries you off into a state of rapture. A world it takes you a long while to wake up from. ‘One more?’ asks Pratt. The crowd goes wild. It was Bike — the playful Piper At The Gates Of Down (1967) classic from the ‘Barrett school.’
All in all: unforgettable. Not Pink Floyd, but it is Nick Mason. Better Nick Mason than never — or never again — Pink Floyd. We’d have waited forever for these songs if the near-eighty-year-old legendary drummer hadn’t decided to hit the road again. So I’m putting it on the conscience and heart of every Pink Floyd fan: go see at least one of Mason’s concerts, because you will be deeply grateful you made that choice. If the virtually untouchable stars Waters and Gilmour can do it, Nick Mason can do it with full legitimacy too. And if I’m being a little mean — without a second drummer (Gilmour needs an extra guitarist by his side — Ray Manzanero). Unique, just as the persona and work of Pink Floyd are unique and timeless!
Author: Edita Klemen & Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Edita Klemen & Aleš Podbrežnik
Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets setlist:
—first set—
1. One of These Days
2. Arnold Layne
3. Fearless
4. Obscured by Clouds
5. When You’re In
6. Candy and a Currant Bun
7. Vegetable Man
8. If / Atom Heart Mother/ If
9. Remember a Day
10. Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun
—second set—
11. Astronomy Domine
12. The Nile Song
13. Burning Bridges
14. Childhood’s End
15. Lucifer Sam
16. Echoes
—encore—
17. See Emily Play
18. A Saucerful of Secrets
19. Bike
