Genius of Pink Floyd revisited

Singer-bassist Roger Waters bathes the Ice Palace crowd of 9,000 in the warm inviting sounds of Floyd classics before moving on to his solo works.

By PHILIP BOOTH

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 5, 2000

Back in the day when Pink Floyd was Pink Floyd, and singer-bassist Roger Waters hadn't yet taken his band mates to court over ownership of the band's name, the arty British musicians were engaged in creating the highest form of head music. It was a sonic concoction defined by psychedelia and progressive rock, facilitated by state-of-the-art recording technology and tailor-made for sonic cocooning: A listener could slap on headphones, plug in and be transported to another world, with or without the benefit of altered states of consciousness.

Waters went for much the same effect Friday night at the Ice Palace, for the nearly three-hour first show on the second leg of his "In the Flesh" tour, a long-overdue outing that kicked off last summer. Pink Floyd's former defacto leader, the conceptual genius behind several of the group's most memorable albums, bathed several generations of fans (about 9,000 people) in a warm, inviting wash of sound.

Lush synthesizers and clean-sounding guitars were layered with rich vocals. Special effects -- ringing alarm clocks, helicopters, children's voices, hammering -- panned from front to rear speakers and back. The rhythm section didn't so much lay down the beat as provide an entrancing, steadily pounding pulse. The veritable contact high, courtesy of the most secondhand green smoke we've inhaled since the glory days of the Lakeland Civic Center, probably didn't hurt that auditory immersion process. And liquid-emulsion projections added to the sense of dislocation.

Waters, out front, alternating between bass and guitar, dusted off all those depressing old lyrics about alienation, madness, man's inhumanity to man, etc., and refitted them with the help of an expert six-member band backed by three female singers. Without the stadium-size laser spectacle to distract us, as happened when the Waters-free Floyd hit Tampa six years ago, the answer to that nagging question became readily apparent. Which one's Pink? His initials are R.W.

He wasted little time getting into the material many clearly wanted to hear, rolling out four tunes from The Wall, the 1979 double-album rock opera. The sound of approaching choppers cued Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2, which suffered from a muddy mix, but benefitted from the help of two star guitarists. Austin six-string slinger Doyle Bramhall II, wielding a left-handed Stratocaster, ripped out the familiar, melodic original solo, while Snowy White (ex-Thin Lizzy) used his Les Paul to dig even deeper.

A pair of ho-hum songs from Floyd's 1983 The Final Cut led to the twin-guitar harmony lines and squiggly synthesizers of Pigs on the Wing and Dogs (from 1977's Animals). Waters closed the first set with a segment from 1975's Wish You Were Here, cranking up the throb and the neo-symphonic textures for the moody Welcome to the Machine, the quieter title track and a truly majestic version of Shine On You Crazy Diamond, the group's nod to the spirit of Floyd founding father Syd Barrett.

Waters' solo work was emphasized during the second half. But that material, mostly from 1992's Amused to Death, was downright lackluster, next to trippy 1969 piece Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun (the first of two songs featuring guest appearances by area saxophonist Mike MacArthur) and inspired if overly reverential versions of Breathe in the Air, Time, Money, Brain Damage and Eclipse, all from 1973's classic Dark Side of the Moon.

Waters may have happily moved on to more personal projects, but nostalgia is what he serves best. We'll gladly indulge in his brand of pleasantly aged ear candy any time he is so inclined. Note to Roger: We'd be even more excited to feast on Floyd classics if they were presented in tandem with your old colleagues. What do you have to lose?