The remaining members of Pink Floyd have reunited – ever so briefly. Over the weekend drummer Nick Mason and guitarist Dave Gilmour joined estranged bassist Roger Waters on stage at London’s O2 Arena during his solo performance of the band’s iconic 1979 album The Wall. Gilmour accompanied Waters on ‘Comfortably Numb’ while Mason joined the pair on tambourine for the show’s final song,’ Outside The Wall’.
This performance marks an important milestone in repairing the frosty relations between Waters and Gilmour. The pair had a bitter falling out in the 1980s, with court battles over the right to use the name Pink Floyd which Gilmour – a relative latecomer to the group – won. The court battle led Pink Floyd to be nicknamed ‘Ha Ha Roger we got the band name’ during the 1990s.
Waters’ performances of The Wall across America and Europe have been one of the highest grossing tours of the last year, and this development could be laying the groundwork for a Pink Floyd tour featuring all the remaining band members which has the potential to become one of the highest grossing tours of all time.
Gilmour’s appearance was to return a favour to Waters, who had appeared on stage with him at a charity gig last year. Waters explained “Someone, I think it was David himself, came up with this ‘Wouldn’t it be funny…’ idea. What if he (David that is) were to sing the old Teddy Bears song To Know Him Is To Love Him with me (Roger that is), what with us having been so famously at each other’s throats for years and years?”
He continued “”Some weeks passed with David cajoling me from time to time, telling me how easy it would be, until one day he made one final entreaty. I quote ‘If you do To Know Him Is To Love Him for the Hoping Foundation Gig, I’ll come and do C. Numb on one of your Wall shows”. Well! You could have knocked me down with a feather. How fucking cool! I was blown away. How could I refuse such an offer. I couldn’t, there was no way.”
He’s advised fans, however, that there will be no further appearances from Gilmour on this tour “I should also remind you that tonight is most definitely a one-off. David is not repeating his special guest performance at a later occasion, I’m sorry to disappoint those of you with fingers crossed and tickets for later shows.”
The recent announcement that Pink Floyd will be reissuing all their studio albums with unreleased tracks to accompany them, as well as the weekend’s developments point to the signs being good for Waters to rejoin the band.
