In 2006, lead singer and guitarist of Pink Floyd, David Gilmour, hit the road to promote his album On an Island. After two years of meticulous mixing and marketing, Gilmour’s last show in Gdansk, Poland, was released to the masses. The show’s location bears is significant to Gilmour’s music because it was the same site where Lech Walesa began his solidarity movement against the Soviets in 1980. The Polish government has also applauded the music of Pink Floyd (for lashing out against “The Wall” of socialism, presumably) and Gilmour opted to mark the Gdansk shipyard with another symbolic event.
The final product comes on two CD’s: one disc of On an Island live and one of Floyd classics.
In homage to Dark Side of the Moon, disc 1 begins with “Speak to Me,” “Breathe” and “Time.” The phase-shifted open chords catapult listeners back to 1973 psychedelic and signal the beginning of a journey that only Gilmour (and perhaps Roger Waters) can provide. The rest of disc one continues on with On an Island material, which provides an exciting change for long-time listeners. Gilmour’s new stuff might as well be from the 70’s, considering the flashy guitar riffs on tracks like “This Heaven” or the extended sax solos on “Red Sky at Night.”
Most fans will be thrilled at the prospect of longer and livelier versions of old favorites on disk two — who wouldn’t jump at a 12 minute version of “Shine on You Crazy Diamond”? At first listen, many of the live recordings sound like note-for-note replicas of the studio originals (sans a female backing choir). However, by the sixth minute of the “Comfortably Numb” solo, you begin to see the marginal benefit of listening to these versions over their 70’s counterparts; the strings and keyboards are deeper and more resonant, while the guitars still cut like a knife. Between the vocal layers to the Baltic Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra to the frenetic rock guitar, Gilmour succeeds in creating a degree of heaviness that is hard to come by in modern music.
The two whole CD’s occupy at least a couple hours, but if that doesn’t cut it, the box set is packaged with up to five discs of extras and surround sound mixes. If you have a lot of money (or bandwidth) five speakers, and an interest in making-of footage, go for the full effect.