With a musical and cultural legacy so vast it’s almost impossible to quantify, singer/guitarist David Gilmour could easily rest on his impressive laurels. Especially at 78, when some of his British brothers and peers, including Jeff Lynne from ELOmake final tours with the biggest hits. But Gilmour, who joined the progenitors of the psych-prog group Pink Floyd two years after the group’s founding in 1965, was dynamic and vital during his fourth Los Angeles concert and final night of a three-night stand at the Hollywood Bowl.
Anyone who has listened to an FM rock station in the last 50 years probably has at least half a dozen Pink Floyd songs burned into their memory. With 1973’s “Dark Side of the Moon” and 1979’s “The Wall” collectively selling more than 80 million albums worldwide, the band’s evocative, provocative lyrics and trippy, sometimes sharp and painful video and visual accompaniment , are as intoxicating as Floyd’s singular sound.
A 20-song set spanning more than two hours (with an intermission) featured ample Floyd classics, including “The Great Gig in the Sky,” “Breathe (In the Air)” and a pitch-perfect encore of “Comfortably Numb”. even for a casual fan. Not that there were many people; Gilmour aficionados tend to gravitate toward the guitarist’s fanatical, instantly recognizable tone and solos, including the emotive psych-blues of the iconic “Comfortably Numb.”
Pink Floyd’s last tour was in 1994; the band’s last single live performance in 2005 (at Live8), and the acrimony stemming from the personal, creative, and legal battles between Gilmour and bassist/singer/songwriter Roger Waters will likely never end.
But Gilmour does a wonderful job balancing Floyd’s material with his solo catalog of five studio albums since 1978. The songs on his 2024 “Luck and Strange LP” fit seamlessly with older material, thanks in large part to a stellar group that includes a trio. female vocalists/instrumentalists who made “The Great Gig in the Sky” heavenly, along with the solid playing and energy of longtime bassist Guy Pratt. The evening began with two new songs, including the restrained and meditative title track, before launching into classics “Dark Side of the Moon” and “Fat Old Sun” from 1970’s “Atom Heart Mother,” a track timeless carried by Gilmour’s steel guitar. A beautiful cacophony of bells signaled “High Hopes” from 1994’s “The Division Bell” (Floyd’s second album without Waters), Gilmour’s emotional and peaceful vocal delivery magical and fused with gently surreal guitars.
Although many songs had a lull in certain parts, the show itself had no lull, even in the softer moments: with two acoustic guitars leading the heartbreaking classic “Wish You Were Here”, one could hear a pin drop. With over 760 million streams, the track rightfully sits at the top of the Pink Floyd canon. Ultimately, the evening had few disappointments, although “There’s No Way Out of Here,” an evocative fan favorite from Gilmour’s 1978 self-titled solo debut, would have been a welcome addition.
Since the early 1990s, Gilmour’s frequent lyrical collaborator has been his wife Polly Sampson, whose sensitivity and topicality often reveal a heartbreaking but never overbearing reality. She is particularly on point in the astonishing “A Single Spark,” with Gilmour singing: “These days of wild and uncertain times, I ask the empty skies / Who will make things happen, to whom to sing Hosannas.” » Ditto for “In Any Tongue’s” indictment of universal war culture, the song’s lively accompaniment heartbreaking, Gilmour’s tasteful use of his tremolo bar giving the song an aura at once haunted and haunting. The family talent extends to daughter Romany Gilmour, whose youthful, pure voice and character have a beautiful gravitas, as evidenced in the new song “Between Two Points.” Another winner from the new album was “Dark and Velvet Nights,” accompanied by big-screen animated artwork by Latvian-born multimedia artist Julia Soboleva, her raw art style imparting a raw, fresh, almost voodoo-like mystery to the visuals.
Gilmour and Co. created a beautifully haunting evening for a cold Halloween in Los Angeles. A night after the city’s spectacular baseball triumph and with a busy election day approaching, Gilmour’s songs and presence proved a perfect antidote to the outdoors, a welcome humanity shining through in every note.
