Nick Mason: "I think the problem is Roger doesn’t really respect David"

LOL, I think Rog has been stewing about it for close to 35 years!

 

Roger, in his best biting sarcasm, after a shouted Nile Song request at a Hamburg show on November 14th, 1970 -

"Okay, fine, wonderful, good, great, terrific. Wonderful, "The Nile Song", yes... Never heard of it. Any other requests?"

 

Roger singing a verse of WYWH (badly & for heaven sake why???) at Live 8 sums his personality up well IMO.

 

Love Roger, but never could understand why he allowed himself to look bad in front of the world wide world singing that verse.

 

This is pure classic Roger. Love it.

 

And Roger singing the verses of Comfortably Numb at Live 8 sums up what was missing from the Floyd after he left. It was great to hear the song sung as it should be sung and played by Floyd as it should be played (without the blandly sung by committee verses). Just think - out of the probably hundreds of times they had played it, they only played it a handful of times with Roger. And it was magnificent.

 

Band politics are awful..... If you have an opinion that doesn't sit right with the others it causes friction, and it upsets the balance. I know, I've been in that situation, and it was awful.... And as it happens I was in a Pink Floyd tribute band at the time. I had an opinion about wages being paid to a particular band member that the others didn't like, and i ended up leaving the band before I was sacked. I still stand by my opinion of the time, and since then a certain amount of water has gone under the bridge, and I've even played a concert with them covering for their guitarist who was Ill, however...... I would never go back full time as i couldn't/wouldn't want to put myself through that again.

Playing with them as a "hired hand" was one thing, I was on a wage... But being on the payrole and being governed by management is another, and the politics that go with it.

David & Roger have had their moment, and I don't anticipate them getting back together.. EVER! However, i can see David contributing something on a Waters album, or vice versa.. That would be nice. Nick's in the middle, and he sounds just like a frustrated man who wants to get on. I believe he's fed up with them both, and would like to bang their heads together. His problem is he is literally in the middle, he gets on with both of them (Roger more so than David by his own admission)

 

"we bitch and we fight. diss each other on sight. but this thing we do"

It's a wonder why Waters hasn't scouted Polly Samson for a collaborative, concept album regarding band politics.

 

What verse he sings badly?

 

Go watch it google is ya friend

 

i did and to be honest i didnt notice nothing wrong. I will have another try and obliged me to listen to wywh again wich frankly its a song i dont like that much.

 

oh, sorry, i understood everything wrong. I though that you have said he changed the verse of the lyrics for another and was looking for the changes in the lyrics. My bad.

 

The bass player who's lots better than Roger Waters?

 

That was really nice. Not seen it before. I was going to say it is such a shame, but you know, perhaps it doesn't matter. They seem fine, and so does David and perhaps that is what is really important. Not what everyone else attaches to them. They all gave us some great music and at the end of the day that is what matters. It is a shame that they do not all live in one big house, like The Beatles in Help! But really, we do all grow aprt from people we once knew well and it does not mean actual war. It is often just a gentle drift caused by all sorts of changes, personal and otherwise. If they decide to do anything else, that is fine. And if they don't that is fine too. We still have the things that matter to us to play and watch when we want. Thanks Nick, thanks Roger. And thanks Dave, Syd and Richard too.

 

And not forgetting Rado (Bob) Klose...

 

Waters is - he has admitted that himself - clearly not a very good singer. Yet his voice carries a lot of emotion. He's been singing WYWH like this - a bit different from the original - for years. I have to say I like it more than Gilmours delivery, who is a better singer but delivers his part very predictably. Besides, it's not that often that W & G share vocal duties these days. I enjoyed it.

 

Nah, I still get along real well and collaborate regularly with several people who play bass better than Waters and several people who sing better than him. Whether I write better lyrics than him is a matter of opinion, but they are at least not as dark and disturbing

 

this could and should have been phrased so much better than it was. I don't think Mason is trying to imply Gilmour is irrelevant as a musician/singer within Pink Floyd because he didn't write the bulk of the bravura material but that (in Waters' mind) he's always on a lower rung in the Floyd legacy because of it. there's obviously been an ongoing war of hearts and minds waged by Gilmour and Waters for who matters more in Pink Floyd, and for as important as Waters was to the band, the fact that an entity called Pink Floyd managed to continue longer without him than with him has to be a constant source of frustration to him. but Mason's comments, which he did attempt somewhat to clarify, make it sound as if Waters invalidates Gilmour's role in the band, and I simply don't believe that's true. there's also no small measure of irony in these comments emanating from Nick Mason who, and I say this as a drummer, has always been the most replaceable member of Pink Floyd.

 

Touring as a nostalgia act (milking The Wall) isn't the same thing. And it doesn't justify his stewing over PF2 success and his own previous touring moratorium.

 

I've always viewed Water as a guy who entirely takes himself too seriously. 1979 was the last time Roger Water did anything new that could be considered universally classic, with The Wall. And even then he wears out his welcome as that one draws to a close.

Gilmour is a guitar player first and a songwriter/singer as a close second. He wears that distinction as a privilege. He plays guitar and he clearly enjoys it. In that sense I agree with Waters in how he frames Gilmour. I don't agree it's a negative though. If Waters were Bob Dylan and wrote a body of songs that transcend his treatment of them, I might put more stock is how different he views himself from Gilmour. As it is Roger Water in defined almost exclusively by what he did with Pink Floyd. The fact that he shuns the people who helped him get there, makes his perspective all the more myopic.

 

Surely Gilmour(+ Wright) wrote most of Floyds most beloved music anyway? Or am I missing something?

 

The thing that amuses me in all these discussions is how everyone almost unilaterally forgets that the actual SOUL of PF was Richard Wright...

 

This is tedious. Roger's 1999, 2000, 2002, 2006, 2007, 2008 tours were smashes before The Wall redux. He had success, the fans supported him, you claimed otherwise — as though who had better sales was the only judgment that mattered, which I also disagree with — and oh by the way David joining the band was "PF2" the next lineup came after they mutually agreed to boot out Richard

 

Page/Jones/Bonham should've continued on. They could've had a great tour in front of them with some well known singers (Ann Wilson, Myles Kennedy, others).

sorry for the hijack; now back to your regularly scheduled sub.