Dark Side of The Moon: As visible from India

Dark Side of The Moon: As visible from India

"So ya thought ya might like to go to the show"

This is how Roger Waters started the long awaited DSOTM concert in mumbai MMRDA grounds. Being a fan of Pink Floyd, I had to watch the show. So I travelled from bangalore to mumbai over the weekend and we four... Anurag, Anurag, Shilpa n me met at the venue for the concert. All this while I had only one doubt in my mind... What about lead guitars... in the absence of Gilmour who would take care of the note bends, the sustained leads, the Comfortably Numb leads, the added vocal effects of Wish you were here. And I thought... lets see.

Earlier that day I had gone to Elephanta caves. The ferry ride was really very good [:)]... This smiley is intentional over here.... Anyways, then in the evening I met Shilpa at the crowded Kurla station. We took an auto to BKC where Anurag and Anurag were waiting for us.

Before the start of the show the screen showed a radio, cigarette a hand occasionally coming in to change the radio channel, and a bottle n glass of alcohol. They played some jazz music which we were discussing was spoiling the ambience. Then we thought that they are doing it to make the rock effect seem better later. And it really did miracles... The start was awesome. A perfect start, no other song would have fitted as the start for a Roger Waters concert. Our Mr. Pink Floyd (of the album wall) after gaining fame as a rock star is asking audiences why have they come to the show :)
Then to keep the mood for some more time he played the song "Mother". My god... this was growing interesting. Then he went back to the early days of Pink Floyd and played some songs. As I had not listened to the early albums properly, I didn't recognize the song.

But to bring me back to the show started a well known intro. The images of Syd Barret on the screen were evident of the start of the song "Shine on you Crazy Diamond". I held my breath... will this new guitarish be able to play like Gilmour... Well yes he could atleast play what was expected... quite satisfactory... actually he was good.
And then he played "Wish You were here" and "Have a Cigar". Then he played some of his songs based on his ever dominant theme... "War". And he told a story of some lebanese family he had met and sung a song he had written on the incident. I must say the song was very touching. The traditional Pig read an additional statement this time in addition to "Impeach Bush".

It Read "Remove Caste System in India" in hindi and in English... That was cool Mr. Waters. The song being played was ofcourse from the album "Animals"... It was "Sheep".

And then we had a 15 min break. We had Sandwiches which tasted ok. Meanwhile they displayed a full Moon peeking from behind the ocean. The size of the moon was increasing continuously till the time when the low beats of Speak to me started. And as I had wished for, they had played all the recorded voices as present in the later release of DSOTM. And then they kept on playing continuously... Breathe is my personal favourite from the album and I could feel my breath while the song was being played. Great gig in the sky was performed well by the lady. The trains, ambulences, helicopters plane crashes from all around the ground were adding to the ambience.
"There's no dark side of the Moon really... As a matter of fact its all dark" There were the words before he concluded the DSOTM album. The guy who was singling in place of Gilmour was satisfactory... his voice matched with gilmour's voice a bit. Though I missed gilmour in the songs "Mother" and "Wish you were here".

And then came the most ecstatic part. The Happiest day of life started with Waters pointing at one of the audiences and singing the lyrics "You... Yes you...". And then through the most famous "Another brick in the wall" till Comfortably Numb" they continously played the songs in between as present in the album.

"Vera" as usual was very touching. And all this while they displayed the picture of Vera Lynn on the screen.
Roger Waters had put his heart on stage while singing this song. I somehow feel he's very much emotional about this song and he really seemed to be so.

Comfortably Numb had some extended leads though not as good as PULSE, yet good. The guitarist had performed upto the mark but I wished Gilmour had played... That would have been like a dream come true. We could have witnessed "Learning to fly", "Coming Back to life" and "High Hopes". But ok... lemme not wish for the impossible.

Did Roger miss something.... Actually he satisfied the needs of audiences in every album he touched... "Wish You were here", "The Wall" and of course "Dark Side of the Moon". A complete satisfactory package.

As far as my group is concerned, Anurag(K) knows lots of floyd songs... He has a copy of DSOTM with him. Anurag(S) has listened to DSOTM because of Anurag(K) but he had come after one sleepless night and one full day of cricket. Yet he was standing there... tapping to the tunes of Pink Floyd. Shilpa... was completely new to floyd, but she's crazy for guitar... She knew only one song "Wish you were here", yet she loved the show. Though she couldn't connect much to the first half because of lack of too much of guitar. And I loved the show... Except for 2-3 songs I didn't know, I felt all the other songs till the core of myself...

After all it was Pink Floyd... The Pink Floyd.