David Gilmour (2002): In Concert DVD

In 2002, Pink Floyd fans had been left wanting for a long time. Except for Echoes, the best-of collection released in 2001, and the superb 1980 live performance of The Wall released in 2000, there had been no new material from the group since 1994’s The Division Bell. Singer and guitarist David Gilmour had said on a few occasions he had no intention of resurrecting the group, so when the announcement went out that Gilmour would be performing some live dates in 2002, the interest was immense.

Evidently tired of playing vast stadium barns with nebulous light shows costing roughly the same as America’s space program budget, Gilmour is recorded on this DVD in the more intimate setting of London’s Royal Festival Hall during his appearance at 2002’s Meltdown festival, curated that year by Robert Wyatt. The crowd is seated and reverent, the lighting soft, the mood distinctly relaxed, and there are surely people outside having a crafty herbal smoke. What makes this performance really stand out is the way Gilmour reinterpreted such oft-played and familiar material in such an intriguing way. This is not merely an unplugged set, and doesn’t quite conform to that format, eg an established artist plays their stuff on an acoustic guitar, slows the pace down and imagines it lends their songs added gravitas and depth, when in fact it’ll bore the life out of you.

Not Gilmour. Looking well-fed and engaged in his music, he veers away from the bombast and volume that characterised the live Floyd experience, and is backed by a double bass, a cello player, piano, Dick Parry’s saxophone, and nine female backing singers (including long-time collaborator Sam Brown). He also plays, as you would expect, electric and acoustic guitar, and a bit of crunching lap-steel. The instrumentation turns it into a kind of rock chamber music – all subtlety and epiphany, played with the kind of care and attention that only ex-members of Pink Floyd can muster. It’s a beguiling and highly effective approach.

It begins with Shine On You Crazy Diamond Part 1, usually preceded with a 3-minute keyboard chord and that mournful 4-note riff played through a vast echo unit. Gilmour strolls on to the stage, plonks at an acoustic guitar for a minute to check it’s in tune, and then plays the song solo. It’s a track you would never have thought could be done by one man and an acoustic guitar, and a small effects pedal, but here, the song is given new life. Dick Parry enters for the saxophone solo, and the audience are clearly mesmerised by what Gilmour has done to this most familiar of Floyd songs.