‘I’m David Gilmour, and I’m a fucking legend,’ says the superstar guitarist to camera at the start of this live concert film. The line felt indisputably fake. Gilmour is usually a modest, introspective fellow, and a director must have told him to deliver this.
By Miles Salter
Feature photo by Jill Furmanovsky
Gilmour now resembles Father Christmas – slightly portly, mostly bald and with a white beard, albeit wearing a black T shirt instead of red boots. So, what was in Santa’s sack?
This concert, filmed in Rome during Gilmour’s 2024 Luck and Strange tour, gave us two hours of Gilmour fronting his superb band, including long time bass player Guy Pratt, the Webb sisters (who used to accompany Leonard Cohen), and the band’s star, disciplined but emphatic drummer Adam Betts.
The classics – Breathe and Time from Dark Side of The Moon, and the perennially poignant Wish You Were Here – were gorgeous. The Webb Sisters and Gilmour’s daughter Romany gathered around the piano for a delicate re-take of Great Gig In The Sky, one of the most remarkable pieces of music from the 1970s. It was clearly carefully rehearsed, and rather lovely, but lacked the spontaneous power of Clare Torry’s vocal, teetering between ecstasy and despair.
The second hour of the show was devoted to Gilmour’s solo material. This – as this reviewer feared – lacked the thrills of the Floyd classics. If you were a Kylie Minogue fan, waiting to jump and spin around, after multiple guitar solos, you’d be suffering withdrawal symptoms.
We were rewarded at the end with Gilmour’s magnum opus, Comfortably Numb from The Wall. This song is so rich in poise and catharsis that Italians in the audience were shown weeping. I would have loved to have heard more songs from The Wall, but Gilmour’s now terrible relationship with Roger Waters may be too much of a barrier.
The production values for this were outstanding throughout. Beautifully filmed, it sounded amazing, and drone shots of Rome at night added to the atmosphere. Watching it on the vast IMAX screen was truly immersive. Great stuff, Dave. You may not want to hear it, but the back catalogue is the place to dwell.
Miles Salter is a writer and musician based in York. He fronts the band Miles and The Chain Gang.