Nick Mason's Saucerful Of Secrets

Thanks for being a part of this much-appreciated tour. Loved your rendition of "Atom Heart Mother"!

 

Welcome and thanks for your information!

I don’t suppose the band is taking requests for the upcoming US tour? I’d sure love Fat Old Sun and Wots Uh The Deal. Give it some thought.

 

Lee, please allow me....
"Start yer own band"

 

Haha yeah. Can't hurt to ask though!

 

Those two have both been part of Gilmour's set in recent years, so that's likely a reason why Nick's band haven't done them (so far). They seem to be focusing on territory not covered by either Gilmour or Waters (aside from crowd-pleasers like "One of These Days" and "Astronomy Domine"). For example, I loved hearing "Green is the Colour," which hasn't been touched by anyone since the early '70s.

 

Well, thank you!! A great thing to get a musician exercising his chops & his passion again, and we all benefit. Powerhouse setlist. Really excited to see you in Seattle next year, thanks for coming stateside.

Seems like Rick would've enjoyed this.

 

Welcome Mr Harris, thanks for answering my question.
Obviously I was off-base in conjecture territory there.

While I can't consider myself a die hard Syd fan, he was
instrumental in merging musique concrète with pop and
it was, for the time, a very interesting and unclear left turn.
I admit much of my fascination for this form began with
"Saucerful ..." itself. I think the vague concept of sound as
music and vice versa has limitless possibilities and every
once and a while a "challenging" listen, that is, a recording
that's considered outside the norms of the western concept
of music, whatever THAT is, is food for the ear.

So it was a pleasurable surprise that once again that adventurous
spirit found its way in "Dr Strange" a couple of years back when
the opening riff to "Interstellar Overdrive" throbs as Stephen
loses control of his car. I'm sure that in 1968 some listeners
thought The Floyd would lose control of its career but fortunately
for us that didn't happen, cooler heads prevailed and so did this
strange music.

Great to read you are among the consumers of adventurous
anarchy! Looking forward to the music and show.

Full speed ahead! Cheers.

 

OK, this next question will separate the men from the boys.

I'm not well-versed in early Floyd, but there seems to be much
consternation as to the existence of Syd's followup to "Emily",
"Millionaire". Now according to some Syd Floydists out there,
there are two songs with similar working titles, one by Barrett
and one by Waters, both of which were unreleased and reincor-
porated into other songs. The long rumor is that some of the
"Piper" -era outtakes were destroyed years ago and yet, I've read
that none other than Nick Mason himself has everything The Floyd
committed to tape from '65 to '68.

Much noise surrounded the recent "Immersion" sets that included
or excluded legendary "lost" tracks.

Yeah, I know. Navel gazing here.

 

Thank you. I hope it's as much fun for you as it is for us.

 

Syd's song was "She's a Millionaire" ~ one take recorded for Piper but likely never mixed down & subsequently wiped. Not believed to exist. Floyd's managers loved the song, so when they announced it as the next single it may've just been wishful thinking on their part. Syd re-attempted it as "Millionaire" for the Barrett sessions in '70. Instrumental backing tracks definitely exist ~ which Wright plays on ~ though how complete of a take was captured is conjecture, as nothing has ever circulated even on bootleg. At least one section of the song, per a biographer who heard the tapes, was incorporated into "Opel" ("I'm try-ing...."), at least instrumentally if not lyrically. If I got anything wrong, hopefully someone will correct me.

 

I already thought "waitasecond..." when I saw your first post in this thread!

I'm delighted to see that you joined this forum, and I think you're doing an awesome job playing "Syd's guitar", so to speak! I also really liked the double slide guitars in AHM. Hopefully there will be some kind of tour souvenir at some point, like a live album or DVD/Blu-Ray...?

My only issues with the show I saw was that neither Guy nor Gary are best suited to doing David's vocal parts (but then again, who is...) and my usual volume issues. (Although Marillion this month in a different part of the Liederhalle Stuttgart were louder, and The Australian Pink Floyd Show nearly split my ears apart at the Porsche Arena! ASOS were aural heaven compared to that... and it seems I'm in a minority anyway when it comes to complaining about sound.)

 

Nothing wrong AFAICT. Would only like to add that the Waters song was 'One in a Million'. Never recorded in the studio, and only survives on a bootleg of a '67 show (where it is sometimes called 'Brush Your Window' or something like that). Possibly it inspired 'Corporal Clegg', they're a bit similar.

 

BTW, whey you guys come to New England, don't pass by some GREAT beer.
Us Yanks have been crafty of late. Trillium in Boston and Tree House an hour
south near Sturbridge. Top shelf brew.

Perty sure you guys would love some suds!

Cheers.

 

I have it on a bootleg at “Rust in a Million “!

 

Well, thank you for all this, and congratulations on a fantastic idea.... that transformed into a fantastic experience for all listeners/attendees.
I went to the Luxembourg show. The venue was so tiny that it seemed we were witnessing an early Floyd show in a small London club !!
Amazing feeling !
I mean.... Who would have guessed, two years ago, that in 2018 we would get to hear Nick Mason (and a band) playing "Point me at the sky", "Interstellar overdrive', "See Emily play" and even... ..."Vegetable man" !??!!

I for one, feel privileged to having had the opportinity to witness this, live. I can't start to imagine what it feels like to be actually IN the band and play those songs with Nick.
In the future, people will talk about this 2018 "out of the blue" project as a small miracle.

 

Hi Lee! Could you please let us (me) know how Gary Kemp became a band member? As someone who was in awe of him as a teenager (I'm now 50), I'm fascinated as to why he was chosen as a guitarist in this particular context?

 

It's been pretty well covered in recent interviews:

Tell me how Gary Kemp entered the picture.
I’d say again that it’s a rather retro idea. This was a band that very much formed itself. There were no auditions. It was very much, “Yeah, we’d like to have a go at this.” I’ve known Gary for 15 years. And it’s not that I wouldn’t have wanted to work with him, but that it wouldn’t have occurred to me that he would be interested in doing this. But of course, so many people do have an interest and affection for Syd Barrett and that era. I think I mentioned to Gary that I was thinking about it and he absolutely leapt at it. He said, “Yeah, I’d love to have a go at that!”

Spandau Ballet is a very different kind of band, but he obviously really gets the material and understands how to sing it.
Yeah. You can get a bit locked into this idea that if you do one sort of rock music, it’s hard to break out of it or you’re unlikely to do something else. But it appears, actually, that the genres might be different, but the basics are really the same. I love the idea that something who played with Ian Dury, someone else who’s a New Romantic, someone else who was in the Transit Kings and had done stuff in the Orb … and then Guy has played with everyone.

Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason on Saucerful of Secrets Tour, Syd Barrett – Rolling Stone

 

True. "Point Me At the Sky" needs a special mention, as I feel that song has been criminally overlooked for a long time. One magazine reviewer felt the same and pointed out what a great song it is. The mood it got us into can only be described as "euphoric".

Yeah, a fan I met in the train before the show was concerned about Gary and said he didn't like Spandau Ballet. Different generations I guess

 

Very much looking forward to seeing this show in March. For those who've seen this in UK and Europe, by chance was Inside Out (preferably hardcover) available for sale at the merch table?

 

Enjoy! I think it will be a fun and rather loud romp back in time.

And ... it's unique.

 

Since moonlandings are news again, they oughta consider this very rare chestnut:

 

I'd love to hear them play "The Embryo" in Seattle. Always a nice showcase for Mason's rolling fills.

 

I just bought tickets for the Boston Orpheum show. Around $108 each with all the fees included for center orchestra seating (not too bad).

 

Don't worry about Gary Kemp, he's a brilliant guitarist and a good singer. He's also a massive Floyd fan and has known Nick for many many years, he does a good job.

 

Let us know how the show is.
I am going in April at the Sony Centre.
Thanks Glen