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The Pink Floyd near-reunion How Roger Waters rejoined Pink Floyd and nobody noticed By Rick Karhu
Did anybody else notice that Roger Waters, briefly, rejoined Pink Floyd last year? If you're like most Floyd fans, you probably didn't catch it. I missed it and am only now realizing that it happened. However, it's hard deny that when Roger Waters agreed to the production of the live set Is There Anybody Out There? he, for all intents and purposes, was a part of Pink Floyd again, however briefly. True, Gilmour, Waters, Wright, and Mason didn't tour as a unified whole, nor did they gather aboard the Astoria for a few jams so Roger could work out his new lyrics while Dave and Rick honed the music. It's not even likely that they exchanged any kind of pleasantries in the midst of the production. It was nothing like the Good Old Days, but a reunion did in fact happen. It isn't known for certain if Gilmour had any direct contact with Waters at any point during the production of the live double album. What is known is that the two of them did contribute to the production of Is There Anybody Out There? which resulted in something that Roger Waters implied would never happen again--a Pink Floyd album with his input. Curiously, the tone and the words that Roger uses now are markedly different that those he has employed in the intervening years since he and Gilmour wrestled over the ownership of the name Pink Floyd in the 80s. Instead of hurling insulting personal epithets and all manner of accusations at Gilmour and Company, Roger's demeanor is more subdued. He appraises the current situation in a more stately manner now, characterizing himself as "comfortably separated" in a relatively recent interview with Jim Ladd during Waters' In The Flesh tour. Although it's clear that he will never completely be satisfied with the decision that Gilmour has a right to the band name, Waters has obviously lost most of the anger and venom that ran through some of his previous statements on the matter. On top of that, as many of us were lucky enough to witness this year and last, he has reversed his long-standing refusal to play songs that were not completely written by himself. So what? Big deal. What does that mean? Could it mean that Roger will ever record or tour with Pink Floyd again? I seriously doubt it. To believe that you would either have to believe that Roger Waters is one of the biggest liars in show business or that he is wishy-washy and lacking in resolve. Anyone who has even casually tracked his career knows that neither of those statements is close to reality. I think when Roger says he will never work with the members of Pink Floyd again, he means it. However, I don't think that precludes his using the name himself, or insinuating himself back into the Pink Floyd camp. So again, what does that mean? Possibly nothing, I admit readily. Maybe I'm paying too close attention to this. However, if I'm reading this situation correctly, it could mean a lot. It could mean that the tectonic plates on the surface of the world of Pink Floyd have just made a subtle but dramatic shift. The landscape is now different, somewhat more pleasing possibly. (Boy, is that over-dramatizing or what?)
The point I'm sort of getting at here is that if Roger Waters no longer has any problems with the use of the name Pink Floyd (and why else would he have agreed to the release of Is There Anybody Out There?) then maybe we're about to see many more uses of the name. Maybe the time is ripe for Pink Floyd and Roger Waters to open up the vaults, dust off some of those old tapes and see what is still worth being heard, see if there are any gems lying around in the back of those vaults. Roger has acknowledged that there is a strong desire amongst fans to hear some of the older, live Pink Floyd material. Maybe he is willing to set aside his personal disrespect for his former bandmates enough to work with them in bringing some of this archival material to the light of day. Maybe? Hell, it happened already, right? There is one other situation here that tells me this scenario is likely and some fans may not care to hear it. I think there is a strong possibility that Pink Floyd as they are to this day, may never tour or record again, or if they do, I think we'll probably get one more go-round and that will be it. We've all see more mature rock bands take breaks between albums, but you can cite very few who take the extended vacations typical of Pink Floyd in the late 80s and 90s. Is it over? Has Pink Floyd become what Roger once claimed it was, a spent force creatively? You could point to that notorious Swedish interview that surfaced a few months back where David Gilmour supposedly said so himself (although I should point out that this interview has been questioned and challenged by fans and there is some doubt as to what Gilmour meant). You could point to the fact that Nick Mason is more involved and active with his other passion--automobiles--than with music. You could point out that Richard Wright's last offering was a solo album created partly out of frustration with the current Pink Floyd recording philosophy. I would love to be proven wrong about this. I would love to walk into the record store tomorrow and be surprised by a new album, but I somehow think that we're close to the end, if not there already. But is that a bad thing?
Maybe the Animals show that is supposedly out there. Maybe a BBC recording? The Man And The Journey? Maybe an archival Dark Side show. Household Objects anyone? How about some "new" Syd Barrett material? There's so much out there and the four fellows who produced it may have come to a point in their lives and careers when it makes a lot of sense to let this stuff out into the public realm. And even if I'm totally off-base... hey, I can dream, can't I?
Rick Karhu is the ever-optimistic editor of Spare Bricks |
Who
knows? Apart from somehow occupying the minds of David Gilmour and Roger
Waters, there is no way to obtain a definitive answer. However, I'll
go on record now as saying that I believe we'll see more releases like
Is There Anybody Out There? as a result of the winding down of
Pink Floyd and Roger's clearly relaxed attitude about the use of the
band name. I think we'll see more archival material officially released.