Over half a century since he first performed there, Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason returned to London’s Roundhouse venue — scene of one of many band’s most legendary first reveals — Monday evening (Sept. 24), accompanied by his new supergroup Saucerful of Secrets.
Pink Floyd famously opened the venue on Oc. 15 1966, performing alongside The Soft Machine at an “All Night Rave” to launch the underground newspaper International Times.
The gig, which was Pink Floyd’s debut to a paying viewers of greater than 50 individuals, was attended by a who’s who of counter tradition Sixties London (Blow Up director Michelangelo Antonioni, Marianne Faithfull and Paul McCartney amongst them) with acid-laced sugar cubes stated to have been handed out to punters on the door.
A poster from the evening, which was billed as a ‘pop-op-costume-masque-drag ball,’ is proudly on show within the refurbished railway depot declaring: “Bring your own poison. Bring flowers and gass [sic] filled balloons, SurPRIZE for the shortest & barest.”
Almost 52 years later, the sight of Mason as soon as once more performing Pink Floyd songs at The Roundhouse — then susceptible to energy cuts; now slickly fashionable with glorious sound — was one for followers to savor.
“As you know now, we are not the Australian Rogers Waters. Nor are we the Danish David Gilmour’s,” joked the 74-year-old, stepping out from behind his drum package after a thunderous opening salvo of “Interstellar Overdrive” and “Astronomy Domine” – each from the band’s 1967 debut The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn.
He went on to say that his new reside undertaking Saucerful of Secrets, named after Pink Floyd’s 1968 album, was born after he had “finally given up waiting for that phone call from Roger [Waters] or David [Gilmour],” including that he was “thrilled to be back at The Roundhouse.”
“I don’t know if any of you were here with me in 1966?” requested Mason, recalling Pink Floyd’s first efficiency on the venue on the again of a hand cart. Responding to an excited scream from a feminine viewers member, he deadpanned, “It wasn’t that good. [But] it really launched our career at the time, so it’s an important place. I’m very pleased that we are now the oldest boyband and we will continue.”
Returning behind his package, Mason, well wearing trousers and a white shirt, proceeded to guide his bandmates — long-time Floyd and Gilmour bassist Guy Pratt, Blockheads guitarist Lee Harris, keyboard participant Dom Beken and Spandau Ballet guitarist Gary Kemp — by means of a thrillingly uncooked 90-minute set of his band’s early psychedelic rock, spanning Floyd’s early albums.
Notable highlights included a searing “Lucifer Sam” and the visceral white noise rush of “Set The Controls For The Heart of the Sun,” whereas early singles “See Emily Play” and “Arnold Layne” had been reborn with a recent depth and energy.
There had been additionally revivals of languid instrumental tracks and dazzling, semi-improvised psychedelic guitar wig-outs that harked again to the unfastened buildings and unconventional time signatures modifications of the Syd Barrett period. Psychedelic-style again projections added to the sense of cosmic time journey with Pratt and Kemp ably sharing vocal duties all through.
Paying tribute to band chief Mason, Kemp — who recalled seeing Pink Floyd carry out reside in London in 1974 — referred to as the drummer “a nicer, funnier, less egotistical man than you could ever hope to meet. He truly is the heartbeat of Pink Floyd.”
“I hope you’ve enjoyed this as much as I have,” stated a clearly delighted Mason previous to an electrifying two track encore, culminating in 1968’s “Point Me At The Sky.”
