This outing was particularly random considering that I am SO unfamiliar with Pink Floyd's music. One day in March, my boyfriend announces that we're going to a Pink Floyd concert some time in April. I'm all really?!?! Don't get me wrong. I love rock music. In fact, I love all kinds of music except for that slow Mexican music with all the horns and stuff. It kind of grates on my nerves and you can't really dance to it. But seriously, I love System of a Down, Rage Against the Machine, Disturbed, Incubus, Tool, Chevelle and many more bands. I can't say that I ever really dabbled in much rock coming out of the 60's and 70's but I'm open. I was kind of shocked by my boyfriend because I listen to way more rock than him. However, he was interested in this concert because he loves a Wyclef Jean remake of a Pink Floyd song called Wish You Were Here. Plus it was a chance to hang out with this really cool couple we know, Stellion (awesome name) and Deniece. The only song I know by Pink Floyd is Another Brick In the Wall but hey, it's all good.
We got down to the Woodruff Arts Center at about 15 minutes before the show began to encounter a bunch of other concert-goers who were primarily well over the age of 35. I giggled to myself. We were going to be in the company of aging hippies. That's cool. LOL. Probably twenty years from now, the orchestra will be accompanying a cover band that plays nothing but Jodeci or LL Cool J or Green Day songs. We made our way to some pretty fantastic seats smack dab in the middle of the orchestra section about ten rows back from the stage. Thanks Stellion and Deniece! The symphony musicians were already seated on stage when the members of The Machine came walking out. They had to be about 50 years old, dressed in all black, sporting hair reminiscent of the 80s hair band crazy. We were ready to rock.The lights dimmed. Hanging above the stage was a large round circle which turned out to be a projection screen. A strange movie began to show on it as the musicians started the intro to Shine On You Crazy Diamond. It was of this kid walking through a field and then encountering the entrance to some sort of Alice in Wonderland type environment. Colored lights began to flash patterns against the walls and ceiling of the halls, sometimes shining directly into my eye. I thought, Wow Pink Floyd must have loved being high on acid and crap. The concert continued with four more songs including One of These Days and Comfortably Numb before the leader of The Machine announced there would be a short intermission before covering the entire Dark Side of The Moon album.
At that point, I got up to use the restroom and snag some booze. I was enjoying the music but according to the history behind this album, it was probably better that I listened with some spirits in me. Apparently the themes of the album focused on the passage of time, greed, conflict and oh yeah, mental illness. The main composer of this album, Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett, was, in fact, suffering from mental illness. Personally, this begs a lot of questions. The Dark Side of the Moon sold millions upon millions of copies. People walk around with t-shirts featuring the album artwork all of time. For those of us who enjoy this music, are we a little bit crazy too? Does it take insanity to produce timeless music? Where can I get me one of those t-shirts?
Anywho, I have to say that I really liked the show and I do believe we should add this album to our music collection. My favorites were Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun, Any Colour You Like, Breathe in the Air and On the Run. I thought it was kind of funny when this lady came out and starting moaning to The Great Gig in the Sky. Why didn't they ask me to moan to this song? I could've moaned and writhed on stage for three to six minutes.
We left and went to R. Thomas to eat some breakfast with Stellion and Deniece. There we had a discussion about Communist Romania and Democratic Nigeria. Stellion is from Romania and you know my honey is from Nigeria. They were both very pleased to be in America. We also discussed this odd video we saw on VBS.tv. Apparently in Columbia, the young boys like to have sex with donkeys. We left there and immediately went to our next outing at The Velvet Room...but that's another blog.
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