Pink Floyd co-founder Nick Mason is taking the group’s earliest tunes out on the road.
The drummer and Rock & Roll Hall of Famer has formed a new band called Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets to play tunes from Pink Floyd’s pre-“Dark Side of the Moon” output.
“We’re not a tribute band,” Mason told Uncut last week. “It’s not important to play the songs exactly as they were, but to capture the spirit.”
After a series of shows over the past week in London, Mason announced he will take the band on the road for a European tour. (A full list of dates is posted on the band’s website.)
There’s no word yet if the tour will be extended to North America.
Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets features Mason on drums, Gary Kemp and Lee Harris on guitar, Guy Pratt on bass and Dom Beken handling keyboards.
For the London shows, the group’s set included “Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun,” “See Emily Play,” “Arnold Layne,” “One Of These Days” and “Astronomy Domine.”
The Telegraph called one of the London shows a “thrilling return to weirdness of Sixties Pink Floyd” and gave it four out of five stars.
“It was a set of such startling intensity it seemed to mock the very notion of nostalgia,” music critic Neil McCormick wrote. “It was enough to make you wonder whether rock has progressed very far at all since the Sixties.”
Pink Floyd reunion rumors have cropped up from time to time over the years, particularly reports that the band would play at the Glastonbury Festival. Most of those rumors went nowhere; however, the band did perform a short set at the “Live 8” concert in 2005.
Keyboardist Rick Wright died three years later.
Although members of Pink Floyd have performed with each other at solo shows and events, a full reunion hasn’t happened. Mason ― the only member of Pink Floyd to appear on all of its albums ― had always held out hope.
“I now believe when I’m dead and buried my tombstone will read, ‘I’m not entirely sure the band’s over,’” he told Rolling Stone in 2014.
By last year, even Mason seemed to be losing that hope.
“I do not think you can wait for it,” he said. “I would love to be able to say yes, but I cannot see David Gilmour and Roger Waters working together.”