Pink Floyd played Winnipeg on July 1, 1994. I didn't go. Even had I liked Pink Floyd enough to go, I wouldn't have gone, if for no other reason than that Roger Waters was gone, and the band was left more or less headless.
I came to Pink Floyd not via Pink Floyd but via Chilliwack. Now Chilliwack was a Canadian band, and they may be still around; I can't tell. They have been recording top 40 wallpaper since about 1972, but I remember their second album. It was reviewed in the Winnipeg Free Press by Andy Mellon.
Mellon was a Winnipeg music-type-guy; he wrote music columns in Youthbeat, then in the Free Press, he did a brief stint as a DJ at CFRW FM, Winnipeg's "underground" station, and managed a record store for a while. Well he reviewed the second Chilliwack album, which happened to be called "Chilliwack," which also happened to be the name of the group's first album, and that can be confusing.
Their second LP was a double, and following the pattern set by The Rascals on Freedom Suite and Canned Heat on Living The Blues, side 1 and side 2 had "normal" music, and sides 3 and 4 were experimental. Remember, this was 1971, when bands could do that.
Side 4 was occupied entirely by a piece called "Night-Morning," which Mellon compared to Pink Floyd. He said it sounded reminiscent of what Pink Floyd had been doing recently. And there's the nexus. I bought the album, and noticed, among other things, that Mellon got the details wrong. He wrote of Bill Henderson's guitar on "Night-Morning" when there was no guitar on the track. Oh, that Andy Mellon. 
And there I was one day listening to CFRW FM, that was Winnipeg's "underground" station, remember, and I heard this music that sounded like "Night-Morning." I said that must be Pink Floyd. And I was right. It was "Echoes."
That, for me, has been Pink Floyd ever since. I have, I think, every album they've done, at least those with Syd Barrett and Roger Waters. I even have a bootleg, Live At Pompeii . I am partial, not surprisingly I suppose, to the earlier stuff, especially the tracks with the over-the-top song titles like "Careful With That Axe Eugene" and "Several Species Of Small Animals Gathered Together In A Cave And Grooving With A Pict." But "Echoes" will always be my favourite. Keep Dark Side Of The Moon and The Wall. I will keep "Echoes" - which, by the way, they did not perform at their Winnipeg appearance…
Overhead the albatross hangs motionless upon the air
And deep beneath the rolling waves
In labyrinths of coral caves
The echo of a distant time
Comes willowing across the sand
And everything is green and submarine.
And no-one called us to the land
And no-one knows the wheres or whys
But something stirs and something tries
And starts to climb towards the light
Strangers passing in the street
By chance two separate glances meet
And I am you and what I see is me
And do I take you by the hand
And lead you through the land
And help me understand the best I can
And no-one calls us to move on
And no-one forces down our eyes
And no-one speaks and no-one tries
And no-one flies around the sun
Cloudless everyday you fall upon my waking eyes
inciting and inviting me to rise
And through the window in the wall
Come streaming in on sunlight wings
A million bright ambassadors of morning
And no-one sings me lullabies
And no-one makes me close my eyes
And so I throw the windows wide
And call to you across the sky
No comments:
Post a Comment