Pigs flew for a short time

Originally Written: Saturday, July 02, 2005

I barely got home in time to see the Pink Floyd portion of Live8. They played brilliantly. They chose songs that Pink Floyd/Roger Waters had both performed on their recent tours. The nice thing is that they didn't make the same mistake that both camps have mad recently, namely over arranging the songs by adding a bunch of backing musicians that aren't necessary. For the most part it was the band and another guitar player. A saxophone player for one song and a backing singer for one song. I watched most of it on MTV. The fuckers talked over the beginning of Breathe and cut to commercial halfway through Comfortably Numb. Fortunately I caught the end of Comfortably Numb on aolmusic.com. So what did they play? Glad you asked.

1. "Breathe"
2. "Money"
3. "Wish You Were Here"
4. "Comfortably Numb"

All in all a very strong performance. It's amazing how much different they sound with Roger Waters back on bass, "Money" was so much better for his presense. They touchingly dedicated "Wish You Were Here" to founding member Syd Barrett. It was extremely emotional to hear David and Roger singing "Comfortably Numb" together for the first time in roughly 25 years.

Too bad Syd Barrett wasn't well enough to be on stage with the band that he helped put on the map. Syd has been suffering with schizophrenia for many, many years. The hallucinogenic drugs that were so much a part of the swinging London of the late 1960's snuffed out the flame of his genius probably for good. There is always the hope that he will wake up from his bad dream like Brian Wilson from The Beach Boys. This is the only picture that I have ever seen with all five members of Pink Floyd together. Syd and David were only in the band together for a couple shows. Syd is the haunting figure in the upper right.