I cried twice today.
The first, in my partner’s company, following our baby’s scan where we found out the gender.
The second was in the presence of 5000+ fans, as guitar hero David Gilmour stepped onto the hallowed boards of the Royal Albert Hall, picked up his weapon, and began to play. Gilmour delivered a dazzling opening salvo from his third solo album Rattle That Lock – 5 A.M deftly serves as a wordless distillation of Gilmour’s powers.
Similar feelings were conjured when I saw heroes Bruce Springsteen and Eddie Vedder in tours past – knowing the fate that befell Messrs Petty and Cornell, we should guard ourselves against taking anything for granted. That the lyrical heft of Gilmour’s fourth solo effort offers a poignant reflection on mortality and ageing, it is not lost on the assembled congregation that we are seeing something truly special.
Having never had the opportunity to see Pink Floyd during their active years, witnessing Gilmour live takes all the best bits (and leaves out Waters’ problematic politics). That the ghost of the late Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright can be heard on the title track to Gilmour’s latest album Luck and Strange adds an extra air or familiarity to the performance.
The theme of family can be felt throughout the night’s proceedings. His daughter Romany is along for the ride – lending her hauntingly beautiful vocals to one of the evening’s highlights – a sublime cover of the Montgolfier Brothers Between Two Points. Similarly, Gilmour’s wife Polly Samson penned the majority of the new record, and acted as photographer while the brilliantly-assembled band entertained us all throughout the evenings two sets.
That fine cast of players were first introduced during a warm-up session broadcast on YouTube a few weeks prior, but nothing could have prepared us for the magic resonating through these most fabled Halls.
Gilmour’s solos have the unnerving ability to transport us to otherworldly plains, and weave rich kaleidoscopic images. Sorrow and Coming Back To Life have their widescreen dreams realised, making full use of the RAH’s pin-perfect acoustics.
Long-term collaborator Marc Brickman delivers a light show with enough lasers to illuminate London. And he’s going to need it – Saturday’s show is the fourth of a six-night residency. The tour previously touched down in Rome at the Circus Maximus, and will later arrive in the US (calling at Los Angeles and New York).
And while there are no pigs over Battersea, scores of surrealist scenes played out above Gilmour’s troupe thanks in no small part to film-maker Gavin Elder. The darkly beautiful video for Dark and Velvet Nights (drawn by Julia Soboleva, with Levan Kvan on animation duties) loomed large, and is worth a repeat watch.
The ominous chiming of the Division Bell rang out during High Hopes – like a siren luring us into the end of the first set, replete with one of the longest standing ovations this writer has ever seen.
A bonafide highlight from the second half sees Gilmour’s three-woman choir (the Webb sisters, Romany Gilmour) accompany Louise Marshall on piano for an utterly bombastic The Great Gig In The Sky.
Elsewhere, new cuts like Black Cat and Luck and Strange veer into downright bluesy territory, even dye-in-the-wool classic Wish You Were Here benefits from this new, looser workout.
Like a divining rod, his guitar delivers otherworldly sounds, like on the late Floyd-era highlight High Hopes and Comfortably Numb like manna from heaven threatening to rip the Royal Albert Hall from its very foundations and hurling us into the stratosphere.
Throughout this run of shows it is clear Gilmour was put on this earth to play, and still at 78 there is no-one else who even comes close to imitating what he does.
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