Australian Pink Floyd, Saturday 30th September 2017 at Birmingham NIA.
Words by Peter Stimpson
Photos by Fi Stimpson
I was looking forward to this gig as we all traveled the 60+ miles from home to the Birmingham NIA. We left home early as we planned to have food and drink at The Malt House near to the Arena before the event, a pleasant atmosphere and serving good pub grub.
After refreshments we transferred to the NIA to gain entry and find our seats, an excellent seating position situated in Block B, row R, in front of stage.
The countdown ensued with the familiar sound of a heartbeat that would launch the band into the first track from “Dark Side of the Moon”. The band proceeded to expertly play their way through the whole of the album seamlessly with a faultless performance. Lorelei and the girls were fabulous in their rendition of “Great Gig in the Sky”, adding to the performance was an incredible light show that “Pink Floyd” themselves would have been proud of, a nice touch being the replacement of some of the graphics and characters with those of Australian origin, the famous prism had become the shape of the continent Australia, and the kangaroo was also featured in the performance.
After performing all of the tracks on Dark Side of the Moon, the band played a couple of tracks from other “Floyd” albums including “The Wall”, featuring a larger than life depiction of the School Teacher, then went for a well earned break for around 30mins.
After the intermmission the band came back on stage to play more fabulous Pink Floyd music from several different albums, there were tracks from The Final Cut, The Wall, Animals and Wish You Were Here. The audience listened intently, many singing along to the wonderful music enthusiasically. The title song from “Wish You Were Here” was a triumph, and I doubted if the band could top that track, but then they played “Run”. Everyone was on their feet for this, clapping and singing along with the band and generally having a great time.
The concert followed the familiar format as they finished the performance and exited stage. Everyone knew that it was not the last they had seen of the band, after a fair amount of applause, the band returned to the stage to perform their fabulous version of “Comfortably Numb”, with this track the band exceeded all expectations, the music was exquisite, and the timing spot on. The guitar work was so close to the original Gilmour rendition that if you closed your eyes one could imagine David actually playing.
All of the band members played their part with total professionalism, from the brilliant guitarists and bass player, to the excellent and hardworking drummer, the marvelous saxophonist, the superb keyboard player through to the lead vocals and the fabulous and gorgeous backing singers.
After the performance our party was invited back stage by Lorelei McBroom to meet the members of the band, this was like icing on the cake for us, my Grandsons were well stoked about meeting the band, as I was, but especially I appreciated speaking with Lorelei, she is such a lovely lady.
As the evening ended we made our way back home contented,,,, apart from the detour as the M6/M1 was closed !! More time to listen to Pink Floyd, though…!
