Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets: Live at the Roundhouse DVD/Blu-ray

I remember spotting a Yamaha RA-200 on stage in Berlin and later reading with great joy that it was Gilmour's very own RA-200, which he (among other bits of equipment) had lent to Nick!
Pink Floyd's Nick Mason revisits the early years with Saucerful of Secrets

Something else: Anyone besides me find the 5.1 mix lacking in bass? I compared it to TDB, which is the gold standard to my ears, and the Saucers sound really thin in comparison. Don't remember noticing that live.

 

I really loved how and that the band talked to the audience as much as they did. That aspect was so UNlike the Pink Floyd that the band had become by 1974 - and really a surprise/delight both of that times I saw the Saucers (in St. Louis and here in DC.

Their evolving and sometimes improvisational approach, especially with the musical ‘quotes’ — a snippet of “Embryo” within “I/O”, and 2-3 different Who (Entwistle) bits here and there — really kept things loose and fun.

And I don’t know that I’ve been to any rock show that pushed my “jazz” buttons like the Saucers did. And I wouldn’t have traded anything from their set list, for anything else post-1973.

 

Listened to the 2 discs this morning and the performance is just awesome. I watched the new Roger Waters movie and while enjoyable, the music just sounds kinda cold and clinical. Plus, we all know about the lip-syching and everything else. Nick and his band just sound more real, live, genuine, authentic. I was so happy to hear these old favorites played so well, not to mention Nick still is getting it done on drums. He sounds great here.

 

“Clinical” is definitely the word, when it comes to Waters of late.

There’s a soundboard(?) or combined soundboard/monitor-mix of Roger doing Dark Side in its entirety (from 2012, iirc?). The main thing is that the click track and a couple dozen verbal ‘countdowns’ and other verbal cues are fully audible.

And practically EVERY moment where the music needs to breath, that space is filled with metronomically precise countdowns and clicks — so it’s no wonder Roger’s shows sound like they do (which I realize are limited by all of his prerecorded vocals, plus the extravagant animations and tons of cued lighting effects).

And at least for me, it utterly sucks the life and soul out of the music. That Dark Side with all the monitor stuff is on YouTube (all with proshot video), though I won’t post it here. Just listening to it (without watching), is kind of excruciating (at least for me) - which I did about a year ago (in full).

I don’t mean “excruciating” to sound hyperbolic. But it literally is like listening to automatons performing. And it’s not much better (for me) even without the audible ‘click’ and all the cues and countdowns either (because the music still sounds like they’re there).

FWIW, I am (or was) a professional choral singer (10 years in a professional symphony chorus, 1995-2004, a baritone). And I can tell you nothing bothers me more than music that should breath, but doesn’t.

But in a big venue, with screaming fans and a massive lighting and effects show, I suppose people are sufficiently distracted from the music that most can’t tell. Lip-synching entire concerts (and what that requires of the actual musicians on stage) bugs the heck out of me too.

(It’s a living, I realize, and I don’t blame the support musicians. They gotta do what they gotta do.)

/rant

The Saucers, on the other hand, were an absolute breath of fresh air the two times I saw them. And the organic light show was an absolute treat, especially seeing as how it WASN’T rigidly tied to the music, down to the millisecond.

Probably another reason they sounded like a real band (and the lighting and effects only highlighted this aspect of their performance, in that it all felt really ‘real’).

 

Floyd became what is akin to grand theatrical performance -- Waters is just an extension of that. When your music is synced to actual film footage, and everything is timed so precisely, the room for improvisation and musical creativity is severely limited. It's just not that kind of show -- and that's OK.

When your performance is tied simply to a light show that can adjust on the fly, or to swirling colours, what happens on stage is up to you.

 

exactly even the 87-94 shows were loose and the songs could breathe and the light show adjused too the extension of the song. Even when there were screen films not all the time was David or the band in sync with the screen films.
Nick's band can play freely and feed off each other and the audience naturally if they want too extend the songs

 

I'm PO'd.
I ordered the vinyl with the limited edition poster and after 9 months got CD/DVD set instead!! I'm calling them tomorrow!!
Though, I did receive the magnet, t-shirt, and signed poster as the one above.
So, I (obviously) assume that the limited edition signed poster that comes with the vinyl set is like the one above and not the larger, more expensive tour poster signed only by Mason? Were the signed tour posters only available at venues SoS performed?

 

Yes the tour posters were not part of the offer, and were only signed by nick. They are very large and may still be available on the website

 

Thx.

 

If you can be any other musician who would you be?

Nick: “Its got to be Roger Waters so then I could tell me what to do”

Fantastic

 

It would be fascinating to me to hear this - I tried to search but came up empty handed. Could you provide a link please? Thank you very much!

 

It is a shame that there is no CD/Blu Ray version...any way i bought the CD/DVD in order to get the CDs.
Apart from that this release is AWESOME. Any one noticed The Who 5.15 bit in the instrumental part of Arnold Layne?? Its spot on.

 

Seems like this is the video - from Argentina 2007 - that is what I probably heard. I just listened to the first half of it, and there are enough sections where Roger doesn’t sing, that the “click” doesn’t permeate every minute of the entire thing (so it is less than I remembered).

Still, a lot of it does seem pretty sterile, and I suggest listening to it while NOT watching the video. I listened to it at work (~ 1 or 2 years ago) - audio only - and I’m sure if I’d watched the video too, that would have really drawn my attention away from what I was trying to listen to / listen for.

 

Why Woud David or Roger object?? He has the same rights to do whatever he wantos with the Floyd catalogue, as long as he pays the credits to Roger, David and the Wright estate.

 

Yes indeed, good ears! it’s no question a clever Who nod, I am pretty sure we discussed it on the tour thread at some point...

 

See my posts subsequent to the one you are quoting, which were all admittedly speculation on my part.

 

If I'm not mistaken, at another point earlier (can't remember what song), Guy and Lee play the Stone's "Bitch" riff?

 

Streaming this now, it’s great. I especially like the version of Lucifer Sam.

May have to ask someone to get me this as a birthday present.

 

The references to Lady and the Tramp during Lucifer Sam made me laugh out loud!

 

We are Siamese if you please. We are Siamese if you don’t please...

 

For those of us old enough to remember when that was actually part of the movie...

 

I also enjoyed the quick Sex Pistols reference in "The Nile Song." Lots of fun stuff like that in this concert.

 

Is there anyone who has both the Blu Ray and 2CD/DVD versions? I was wondering how much of an upgrade the Blu Ray picture quality and audio is vs the DVD. I don't know whether I should buy both, or just the 2CD/DVD.

 

Guy also quotes John Entwistle a few times.