Review: David Gilmour shines on at the end of a beautifully haunting three-night stand at the Hollywood Bowl
With a musical and cultural legacy so vast it’s nearly impossible to quantify, singer/guitarist David Gilmour could easily rest on his impressive laurels. Especially at 78, when some of his British brethren and peers, including ELO’s Jeff Lynne, are making final-bow tours of greatest hits. But Gilmour, who joined psych-prog progenitors Pink Floyd two years after the band’s 1965 inception, proved vibrant and vital at his fourth show in Los Angeles and final evening of a three-night-stand at the Hollywood Bowl.
Anyone who has listened to an FM rock station in the last 50 years likely has at least a half-dozen Pink Floyd songs committed to memory. With 1973’s “Dark Side of the Moon†and 1979’s “The Wall†collectively selling more than 80 million albums worldwide, the band’s evocative, provocative lyrics and trippy, sometimes pointed and painful video and visual accompaniment are as heady as Floyd’s singular sound.
A 20-song set spanning more than two hours (with an intermission) featured enough Floyd classics, including “The Great Gig in the Sky,†“Breathe (In the Air),†and a pitch-perfect encore of “Comfortably Numb†for even a casual fan. Not that there were a lot in attendance; Gilmour aficionados tend toward the fanatical, the guitarist’s instantly recognizable tone and solos, notably the emotive psych-blues of “Comfortably Numb,†iconic.
Pink Floyd’s last tour was in 1994; the group’s final, one-off live performance in 2005 (at Live8), and the acrimony stemming from personal, creative and legal battles between Gilmour and bassist/singer/songwriter Roger Waters is unlikely to ever cease.
But Gilmour does a wonderful job of balancing Floyd material with his solo catalog of five studio albums since 1978. Songs from his 2024 “Luck and Strange†LP mesh seamlessly with older material, thanks in no small part to a stellar band that includes a trio of female singers/instrumentalists who made “The Great Gig in the Sky†heavenly, and the solid playing and energy of longtime bass player Guy Pratt. The evening began with two songs from the new album, including the spare, meditative title track, before launching into “Dark Side of the Moon†classics and “Fat Old Sun†from 1970’s “Atom Heart Mother, “ a timeless track buoyed by Gilmour’s steel guitar. A lovely cacophony of bells signaled “High Hopes†from 1994’s “The Division Bell “(the second Floyd album without Waters), Gilmour’s emotional, pacific vocal delivery magical and melded with sweetly surreal guitars.
Though many songs have a lull-like quality in parts, the show itself had no lulls, even in softer moments: With two acoustic guitars leading the heart-wrenching classic “Wish You Were Here,†you could hear a pin drop. With more than 760 million streams, the track is rightfully at the top of the Pink Floyd canon. Ultimately, the evening had scant disappointments, though “There’s No Way Out of Here,†an evocative fan favorite from Gilmour’s 1978 self-titled solo debut, would have been a welcome addition.
Since the early 1990s, Gilmour’s frequent lyrical collaborator has been wife Polly Sampson, whose sensitivity and topicality often reveals a heart-rending reality that’s never heavy-handed. She’s especially spot-on in the stunning “A Single Spark,†Gilmour singing, “These days of wild uncertain times I ask the empty skies / Who will keep things rolling, who to sing Hosannas to.†Ditto the indictment of universal war culture “In Any Tongue,†the song’s animated accompaniment heartbreaking, Gilmour’s tasteful use of his tremolo bar giving the song an aura both haunted and haunting. The family talent stretches to daughter Romany Gilmour, whose youthful, pure voice and persona has a lovely gravitas, as exemplified on the new song “Between Two Points.†Another winner off the new album was “Dark and Velvet Nights,†accompanied by big-screen animated artwork from Latvian-born mixed-media artist Julia Soboleva, her outsider-art style lending a raw, fresh and almost voodoo-like mystery to the visuals.
Gilmour and Co. created a beautifully haunting evening for a chilly Los Angeles Halloween. One night after the city’s spectacular baseball triumph and with a fraught election day looming, Gilmour’s songs and presence proved a perfect antidote to the external, a welcome humanity shining through every note.
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