David Gilmour Kicks Off New Tour at Pula’s Arena, Bringing the Timeless Spirit of Pink Floyd Back to Life (2015)

Author: Aleš Podbrežnik

Location: Pula / Arena / Croatia
Concert date: 12.09.2015
Attendance: 7000
Ticket price: 50.00 (stands – standing)

Whenever Mr. David Gilmour heads out on tour, the Earth’s magnetic axis shakes. Once a decade. Last time around, in 2006, he was presenting the album »On An Island«, and in between he and his buddy Nick Mason briefly stirred up the public with the release of the new Pink Floyd album »Endless River« (2014), which set off whispers about a new Pink Floyd tour. David Gilmour was quick to cool the overheated heads that were expecting the miracle of the century, saying he planned to release a new solo studio album in 2015 and present it on a new solo tour.

If you’re David Gilmour, you can allow yourself a lot. Not quite everything, but almost. »Rattle That Lock« is this musician’s new, fourth studio album overall, released on 18.09.2015. The tour the guitar master dedicated to presenting the new record was announced in early March, with tickets going on sale on his “not-so-modest” 69th birthday, exactly on 06.03.2015 at 11 a.m. Central European Time. The Pula show sold out in two hours flat!  Gilmour devoted the first leg of the tour to prestigious concert venues. The Arena in Pula was placed at the start of the tour. It was David Gilmour’s first real concert appearance since 2007!

Seven thousand people filled Pula’s Arena. The magical venue was buzzing like an anthill. Everybody flocked there, including a huge number of visitors from Slovenia, Italy, Austria, Germany, the USA, Russia and who knows where else. The concert, which kicked off at exactly half past eight, was split into two parts. The first lasted exactly one hour, and in it Gilmour mostly presented the new material from »Rattle That Lock«. He was helped by a crew of eight supporting musicians: Phil Manzanera (Roxy Music, guitar), Guy Pratt – the son-in-law of the late Richard Wright, by the way (bass guitar), Jon Carin (keyboards, ex-Industry), Kevin McAlea (keyboards), Stevie DiStanislao (drums), Bryan Chambers (backing vocals), Theo Travis (saxophone) and Louise Marshall (backing vocals).

If you want to get as close as you can to the spirit and work of Pink Floyd live these days, you have to go see two performers. The first is Gilmour, the second his former Pink Floyd buddy Roger Waters. So the stage logically echoed the essential traits of classic Pink Floyd shows. The backdrop was a gigantic round screen ringed with spotlights in the background. Fog, fog, and fog everywhere. Although the new songs in the first part sounded more than promising, meaning Gilmour has made another excellent studio album, everyone was of course waiting for the Pink Floyd classics. And the first one came pretty soon. Wish You Were  Here was up fourth, and before long Gilmour served up two Dark Side Of The Moon classics back to back, Money and Us And Them, where Jon Carin took over the lead vocals on the verses in place of the late Richard Wright. Gilmour had last performed the latter with Pink Floyd in 1994. The first part was closed by the fantastic High Hopes, spiced up with Gilmour’s outstanding closing solo on the pedal steel guitar. The first part showed that complete perfectionism is another name for David Gilmour. The company of exceptional musicians built a one-of-a-kind musical backdrop in which, for the first hour, Gilmour’s singular, famous, soulfully passionate voice and his unique guitar sound, recognizable from a mile away, held court. Even so, this part hinted that the years have touched Gilmour just a little. His upper register doesn’t obey him quite as well as it used to. Mr. Gilmour also allowed himself a few guitar slip-ups that came out muddy or even in an off-key tone. But those are minor remarks. The 7000-strong crowd was in a real delirium.

After a twenty-minute break the band continued the show. The second part was even more intense and especially nostalgic and emotionally powerful! Pink Floyd classics dominated it. Picking the highlights of a show like this is always a thankless job; the opening stretch alone put things in their place. Astronomy Domine gave the band a welcome warm-up and the audience a pleasant tease on the way to one of the concert’s peaks, which came with the dramatic epic Shine On Your Crazy Diamond. An outstanding performance, accompanied by the famous backdrop of projections. No less superb was Fat Old Sun, which maestro Gilmour sang in magnificent vocal form. The birth of Pink Floyd! No need to stress that, right? The title track of Gilmour’s previous album »On An Island« also sits wonderfully in the setlist, and it prepared the ground for the landing of two brand-new songs: The Girl In The Yellow Dress, wrapped in cabaret-jazz chanson, which right from the opening announces itself as the real oddity of the new album »Rattle That Lock«, followed by the second single from the new record, the song Today. The infectious charisma of the new songs, steeped in the unique character of the brilliant David Gilmour, delivers what is today closest to classic Pink Floyd, especially from 1987 onwards.

The return to Pink Floyd followed with probably the best song on the album »A Momentary Lapse Of Reason« (1987), the famous Sorrow, and the band closed the regular set with what was, up to that point in the show, the first song from »The Wall« overall. Run Like Hell. In this song Phil Manzanera also got plenty of room to show off his exceptional guitar chops! When the song slowly built through an atmospheric cauldron into the closing section, he and Gilmour traded a few inspired guitar duels.

The roaring and the huge excitement just wouldn’t die down. The emotions boiled over at practically every Gilmour move, every passage, every change of rhythm. People sang along to all the Pink Floyd songs with Gilmour without a breather. The atmosphere at the concert was frankly indescribable. You have to live it; nothing else counts. Humanity simply hasn’t invented the right words for an objective account. The sound? Absolutely brilliant. Not a single miss. In the second part the band came even more alive. Thanks to the repertoire itself, which featured more Pink Floyd classics, as well as to the emotions and energy the audience rewarded the band with. That’s why the second part of the show came off even more intense.

In the encore we got more songs from »Dark Side Of The Moon« and »The Wall«. You’ve probably already guessed which part of »Dark Side Of The Moon« has wall clocks raining from the sky in the stage backdrop? Time. Once again it roared and thundered, the crowd sang, bellowed, shouted its head off. Unrestrained. The magical moments of this hard-to-describe encounter with a music legend were slowly nearing the end. Gilmour and company bridged Time to Comfortably Numb with a short Breathe Reprise, and then the band stepped into the final act of the show. Just like during Run Like Hell, Gilmour wasn’t allowed to use the stage excerpts from the film »The Wall« during Comfortably Numb, since those are owned by Roger Waters. But that doesn’t even matter in the end, especially once the song flows into the second solo, which delivers the drama of all dramas. It’s one of the most beautiful and striking solos not just in the entire Pink Floyd discography, but in rock music as a whole.

What to say in closing? Gilmour came back in a big way. Nothing else was to be expected. With ticket prices this dizzying, the man can’t afford the slightest slip, because his loyal audience can literally dream his music and Pink Floyd’s by heart. He’s backed by a guard of exceptional musicians, and David remains a musical one-of-a-kind in every respect, with whom the whole world keeps living the Pink Floyd story (after Pink Floyd) on. The return of a music legend to the world’s stages made Pula especially happy for the whole crowd, and above all for the younger visitors who never had the chance to see Pink Floyd live. An unforgettable, one-of-a-kind experience at Pula’s Arena. Let’s hope Gilmour decides to extend this concert epic across European stages into 2016, too. Plenty of people were left without tickets and are eagerly hoping for another chance to catch a David Gilmour show and merge with the unique spirit and work of the timeless Pink Floyd. The music of generations lives on! 

Setlist

1. 5 A.M.
2. Rattle That Lock
3. Faces of Stone
4. Wish You Were Here
5. A Boat Lies Waiting
6. The Blue
7. Money
8. Us and Them
9. In Any Tongue
10. High Hopes
— 20 min. break—
11. Astronomy Domine
12. Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I-V)
13. Fat Old Sun
14. On an Island
15. The Girl in the Yellow Dress
16. Today
17. Sorrow
18. Run Like Hell
—encore—
19. Time
20. Breathe (Reprise)
21. Comfortably Numb

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