Yearning for Floyd

Have been watching videos of Pink Floyd from the past 2 hours continuously, don't know why I am, frankly speaking I don't need a reason anyways to watch Floyd.

It’s now been close to 10 years since I've been sharing my highs and lows with Floyd. There are probably umpteen factors, that Pink Floyd has in it to attract and keep me captivated. I've never really ventured to know more about the actual story about how, why and when they decided to part ways. Never actually felt I should, as just their music was good enough.

Guess, yesterday night was destined for this when I arbitrarily started viewing videos one after the other and more. Very fact that Floyd is not like other rock n roll bands to whom drugs, alcohol is a major factor in Pink Floyd having such a long lasting loyal fan base I guess, of course not to mention the musical brilliance. Having said that I do understand that at some point of time, psychedelic music was used as stairway for drug peddlers and misguided youth generation at large. The point is Floyd went high on producing the kind of music they did and this high percolated into their listeners in various forms. 

Us, ordinary people and them extra ordinary men. Ego, everyone has this and when we talk about creative geniuses like Roger Waters and David Gilmour, them not having it will be a pleasant surprise. Anyways one desire like some other hundred thousands of them will be to see them all live in a concert sometime. I so hope the reunion happens and fans round the world get to see them once again, before the band becomes totally defunct.

Until then like Roger says, 

"You can bet The Dark Side of the Moon will still be on the charts."

Keep Rocking
Sanju

Trip to the Dark Side of the moon.

As promised I am back to share my Floyd experience with you all.

A hot Sunday afternoon in Mumbai totally devoid of trees made all of us traveling in a Maruti-Suzuki Alto sweat as if we were playing football in the sun. Fortunately we reached the venue MMRDA grounds, quickly and parked our vehicle.

Time of first assessment… We went around seeing if at all any tickets were still being sold as my friend wanted his special friend not to miss the spectacle. There weren’t any being sold, so we started contemplating about other possible ways in the hot sun.

Now I know why Bangalore is fun even with hot sun. “Save trees to keep the feeling for long”!

But this sunny feeling wasn’t there to stay for long as my friends got cans of fermented brew. Yea Kingfisher… what else?? And that’s the end of the uncomfortable hot feeling we had.

It’s not simply that T shirts have quotes on them saying ‘Save water drink beer’!
Some 3 cans of beer later when it was 5.30 the gates opened. For the uninitiated like me it was just being on beer and waiting for 7 amidst seeing nice Bombay chiquititas and listening to Floyd being played by the organizers in the background. Of course there are some Floydians who belong to a school of thought that listening to Floyd without being on joints was like watching Godfather without Marlon Brando.

By the way, let me tell you Bombay chicks are truly worth a second look!!!

7.20 and there was a display on the big screen. A radio, an ashtray, a whisky bottle, a pistol and a man with his arm operating the setup. We got to know that the things were these, only after 5 mins when the man started tuning the radio for different frequencies skipping tunes from ‘Dancing queen’ to some Beatles numbers etc until he hit the first Floyd number. This was the central theme of the show where the man kept pistol down and tuned and tuned.

It was one hell of a beginning to the show which started with the song Mother and ended after some 10 songs with comfortably numb. I really got comfortably numb. The first half of the show was totally message driven; Roger played an assorted collection of his repertoire. The fist half ended with one his new songs condemning the American attack on Iraq ‘Leaving Beirut’ which he beautifully camouflaged it with his childhood tales.

Mr. Bush was impeached here from Bombay thru a mercenary that happens to be customary in Floyd music. Pig!!! Yea the pig’s tail wagged on the wordings “Impeach Bush” much to the delight of thousands of fans.

Fifteen minutes from then, it was truly like being on the “dark side of the moon” listening to time, money, us and them so on and so forth. I don’t remember how time passed until 9.45 when he said adieu. Don’t know about others but I for sure was left wanting for more.

But in all I opine that it was trip well traveled.
Hope for more….
Sanj

Some videos I shot from my cellphone

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1274180708154024674 - Shine on U crazy diamond.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3012064203967692285 - Leaving Beruit.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2538732406883666851 - Leaving Beruit(Contd).
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-145995113808110199 - Time.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6413250912135351466 - time(Contd).
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3722048510618020247 - Us and Them.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7115131752871073649 - Comfortably numb.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3703852242372106841 - Band Intro by Mr. waters

Waiting for the Gods....

Ooooh, you cannot reach me now

Ooooh, no matter how you try

Goodbye, cruel world, it's over

Walk on by.

Sitting in a bunker here behind my wall

Waiting for the worms to come.

In perfect isolation here behind my wall

Waiting for the worms to come.

Can someone else apart from the Gods themselves write lyrics like these ?

The more I hear of them the more i scratch my head thinking why I wasn't born earlier?

Who cares... we are in the technology age and have access to everything, good or bad!!!

Let me get a bit nostalgic here when i first heard Floyd. Oh! Those classes of my 2nd sem when not many people but for a few, in my class knew about Floyd. There would be no stopping us chatting in the class about the sheer impact it made on bright not so young minds.

Late 2001 and early 2002, my tenant then doing his BE from UVCE introduced me to Floyd with songs like Coming back to life, Comfortably numb, Learning to fly and Money.

I just went gaga over Learning to fly and Coming back to life. The magic that david Gilmour weaved on the strings is unthinkable. I for one, was truly learning the high's of Psychedelic music.



2002 - Wud keep Listening to all shows on radio city while completing some practical records and endlessly hope they play some Floyd songs. Man those were days of desperation when there were not much resources and also the gizmo friends who would have music you think of. How can I ever forget those days when I would be waiting to answer questions to win tickets to the Floyd show in Bangalore? Its a different thing that I never managed to win one, but attempts are something greater than results ... aren't they???

The silky soothening voice of Priya Ganapathi on the 10'o clock show, I think that went a long way to plant the psychedelic bug in my mind. A certain enigma oozed out of her voice when she spoke about Floydian music and i don't think she put it up. You can never bring out the best in you until you love what you are doing, and priya was creating magic on the radio waves. Did she love Floyd... or what??

2003 - My cuz gave me the most precious b'day gift that she could have given me at that point in time. A cd full of Floyd songs and i felt instantly connected to my soul music.

David Gilmour, Bob Dylan, Syd Barret, Roger Waters.... Surely, there is something about Rockstars that amazes you by their lives like their music.

Come to think of it, four years since then, 2007 and now its finally happening.

I am going to Mumbai to attend a live Floyd concert.

I think there is going to be an other post following the concert, as i will know what Floydian music really means to me.Till then .... like my friend says,

meet you on the dark side of the moon.

~Sanj