Preview
COMFORTABLY NUMB – THE PINK FLOYD EXPERIENCE
Wednesday, October 15
Jubilee Auditorium
Twenty tons of gear, 270,000 watts of light show, nine years of dreams and passion. Is this what it takes to re-create the experience of a Pink Floyd live show? A San Diego guitarist, Tom Quinn, believes so. In fact, he’s so certain about it that he and his six-piece band have been holed up at the Centrium Arena in Red Deer, surrounded by numerous technicians and truckloads of equipment, to create Comfortably Numb – The Pink Floyd Experience. After their first musical test drive of the show, complete with lights and 3-D surround sound, Quinn was so pumped at the realization of his nearly decade-old dream that he couldn’t sleep.
Quinn who has a degree in financing and engineering says he got the idea for Comfortably Numb in 1994, after watching a Roger Waters-less Floyd perform on their final tour supporting The Division Bell. "I realized that nobody ever talked about re-creating a Pink Floyd show. Obviously the obstacles that it would take to put together such a thing are seemingly insurmountable to the most well trained technicians and musicians. It’s a daunting thing, but I left the stadium that night determined to at least give it a try."
Quinn placed ads, interviewed musicians and ended up with his core band. Their first show was in April of 1996, and since that time the group has been nominated for five San Diego Music Awards and won twice. But despite the success, Quinn still wanted to re-create the entire experience of a Floyd show.
Then in February of this year, representatives from Calgary-based Jeff Parry Promotions came down to view Quinn and co., on the hunt for a band that could not just cover Floyd but simulate them. As a result, the Calgary show will be the world premiere for Comfortably Numb, which will also play in Edmonton the next day. After that, Quinn hopes to take the show on the road.
The guitarist’s Floyd immersion began in the early ‘70s when he fell in love with the sound of the dreamy orchestral bands like Floyd, Genesis and the Moody Blues. "(Floyd guitarist) David Gilmour, from my earliest days of playing guitar, was always my mentor, even when I wasn’t playing Pink Floyd. He was the standard by which I measured myself," says Quinn, who counts Animals as his favourite Floyd album to perform live and Wish You Were Here as the best listen.
"I’ve gotten to the point where I know what David felt when he played a particular passage because I spent so much time studying it."
He recalls seeing a laser light show 15 years back where people oooh-ed and aaaw-ed over a pen-light type laser. "Just put Dark Side of the Moon in a CD player – that’s all it takes to rouse their passions. It was amazing." Such a reaction over so little has convinced Quinn that Comfortably Numb will blow people out of their chairs.
"It’s going to be the Pink Floyd show that Pink Floyd fans never thought they’d see again. I’m convinced we have a unique opportunity to wow Floyd fans all over again…. The closest I get to a religious experience anymore is throwing my guitar around my neck and turning on my amplifier and having the privilege to play the music of David Gilmour and Pink Floyd."
But Floyd fan Alastair Robertson (favourite album: The Wall), 18, says that viewing Comfortably Numb would not be religious, but sacrilegious. "I think it is the duty of all rockers to hate cover bands. I don’t like greatest hits albums and I don’t like tribute bands. It takes away from the majesty of it all," Robertson says. A Floyd fan for about five years, Robertson lists The Wall as his favourite Floyd album and says the band is in his personal Top 5 along with the Smashing Pumpkins and Nine Inch Nails.
When asked if he’s curious enough to go view the show, his answer is direct. "No. This is a concert for people who like Floyd, not for people who love Floyd. If you feel a deep connection to the music, this is sacrilege. But if you go because it’s a rock show and you want to get nostalgic, then yeah."
Quinn, who says hippies, families and teens all turn up to see his band’s shows, is predictably annoyed at comments like Robertson’s. "Just a cover band? This is a Pink Floyd show re-creation." Quinn sites the anger of the adolescent-adult transformation that Waters explores in his music as a perfect match for the youth of today.
But it’s not just tatooed cocky youths who are skeptical that a band that is not Pink Floyd can recreate the Floyd experience. Musician and Floyd fan Greg Kucheran (favourite album: The Final Cut), 40, who has spent over 25 years playing covers and original songs, saw Floyd in Edmonton in 1994 and doubts any other band can do them justice. He says he’s unimpressed with the sound clip of Comfortably Numb he heard on the radio.
"I can understand the passion of getting into the music, but whether they’ve accomplished it, well, from what I heard in the sound clip, I’m really skeptical.
With all the lights and everything, maybe the illusion of it, it might be like the Vegas, Celine Dion version of Pink Floyd. When the magic’s not there and someone’s just going through the motions and playing the songs – that’s what it sounded like to me." |
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