Lucca, Tuscany, Italy. Saturday 25-June-2022.
With no prior knowledge and a massive amount of serendipity we managed to be in Lucca on the right weekend.
We had gone to visit to Lucca for the weekend as a bit of internal Italian tourism and to do the Mura di Lucca parkrun. We were wandering around town on Friday afternoon when we saw posters for the Lucca Summer Festival including this concert on the Saturday night, the first of the series.
Nick Mason formed the band in 2018 to play all the early years Pink Floyd material. This was an opportunity absolutely too good to miss. A quick trot to the box office where we bought the best available tickets, amazingly it was not sold out.
Pink Floyd were essential component of my playlist in the late 60s and early 70s, basically the college years. I bought the album Saucerful of Secrets when it first came out. At college me and my mates were into prog rock and such like. We took it in turns to buy the albums and we would go round to each other’s rooms to listen to the albums that we didn’t have and visa versa.
My copy of Saucerful of Secrets had a slight scratch on side two because my mate Pete accidentally dropped the vinyl while taking it off the deck and, trying to catch it with his foot, kicked it across the room. Fortunately the damage was slight as he was wearing rubber soled plimsolls and there was carpet in the room. Not that I hold a grudge but I still remember it clearly.
This is what I looked like then. Nothing says prog rock like long hair, a cheesecloth shirt and denim jacket.
The show included a full-on psychedelic light show.
The concert lasted for 2 and 1/2 hours with one 20 minute interval.
We got to hear a pretty full set list of that early material played by very talented musicians: former Blockheads guitarist Lee Harris, bassist and Pink Floyd collaborator Guy Pratt (session player with so many famous names), vocalist and guitarist Gary Kemp of Spandau Ballet, and Orb keyboardist Dom Beken [wikipedia].
Update: added Astronomy Domine clip [1:30]
Pink Floyd were never on my bucket list because the band as I knew it no longer existed so to get to see the original drummer together with an impressive array of musicians play that early catalogue live was a real nostalgic treat.
So now I have seen them and I did buy the T-shirt.
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