Inside Out (38 page)

Meanwhile, we had asked Bob Ezrin to come in and lend us a
hand. We needed someone to have a look at the overall show. I think we had been so busy on the music that, although we had
a fabulous lighting set-up, the band on stage was a mess. This was just up Bob’s street. He equipped himself with a loudhailer
and entertained us strutting up and down in front of the stage shouting loud but unintelligible advice while conducting drum
fills with wild gesticulations at the same time. Later on we modified this communication system for something a little higher
tech.

We also had to address relatively simply but vital issues: how and when we got on stage, how the numbers finished, whether
we wanted to be lit between songs or simply segue into the next. And if any musician was to move we also had to ensure that
they would not be lost forever by plunging down one of the trapdoors that disguised many of the more unusual lighting rigs.

The final dress rehearsal before we headed out to Ottawa was held at night. It was a warm summer’s evening, and as we played
the huge hangar doors were open, with large jets slowly taxiing past to the runways. As the music wafted out over the area,
an uninvited audience of airport personnel arrived. Gradually the interior and exterior of the hangar filled with a wonderful
collection of service and emergency vehicles, all with their revolving amber lights activated. It beat the more conventional
use of swaying cigarette lighters into a cocked hat.

The atmosphere before the first show in Ottawa was electric – well, it was backstage even if not in the rather damp field
out front. The new album was not even available in the shops, so we were starting off playing unfamiliar music to a probably
sceptical audience. We awarded ourselves top marks afterwards for surviving, but we were well aware that, although most of
the technical side worked, the performance was well below par. We steeled ourselves for more rehearsal time, and yet another
revision of the set list.

With the fairly intense schedule that we had set ourselves everything began to settle in rapidly, and over the first few shows
we were able to refine and change the show, rather than learn it. We were still quite short of material, and one extra encore
found us with nearly nothing more to play: we plumped for ‘Echoes’. We were not that familiar with performing the song, and
the piece sounded a little stilted – it was the last time we ever played the number. David now observes that one of the reasons
we couldn’t quite recapture the feel of the original was that the younger musicians we were now working with were so technically
proficient they were not able to unlearn their technique and just noodle around as we had in the early Seventies.

After correcting a few musical and technical aspects, the shows started gelling relatively quickly despite the occasional
glitch. As a result the individual shows tend in retrospect to merge into a seamless flow. In fact the show was feeling so
comfortable that we started trying to film the shows early on, but unfortunately, having filmed in Atlanta at the Omni, we
didn’t like the results. We hadn’t spent enough and it showed. So to punish ourselves, along with everyone else, we tried
it all over again in New York in August the next year. We ordered twenty cameras and ended up with two hundred hours of film.
Someone is still probably incarcerated in an edit suite somewhere viewing the results.

Simultaneously, Roger’s
Radio KAOS
tour was criss-crossing North America. We studiously managed to avoid each other, although a couple of our personnel went
to see his show. I didn’t want to see it – out of sight, out of mind – but in any case rumour had it we would not be allowed
in, and I had no intention of being escorted ignominiously from the premises. We eventually formalised a settlement with Roger.
On Christmas Eve 1987, during a break in touring, David and Roger convened for a summit meeting on the houseboat with Jerome
Walton, David’s
accountant. Mince pies, noggin and festive hats were placed on hold, as Jerome painstakingly typed out the bones of a settlement.
Essentially – although there was far more complex detail – the agreement allowed Roger to be freed from his arrangement with
Steve, and David and me to continue working under the name Pink Floyd. The document was then handed over to our respective
and expensive lawyers to be translated into legalese. They all singularly failed to achieve this; in the end the court accepted
Jerome’s version as the final and binding document and duly stamped it.

After the first leg in the States, we headed to New Zealand for our first visit: it was like being in England in a time warp,
but a pleasant one. Seeing the local musicians I realised how hard it must be starting out there: even if you made it big
in New Zealand you wouldn’t make any money for the record company, so then you had to make it in Australia – and there would
still be many rungs to climb. After the shows in Auckland, we returned to Australia after a long absence. The last time we’d
played, in 1971, we had arrived at the wrong time of the year in bitter cold. This time we were determined to do it properly
– and it turned out to be smooth and easy. The band would occasionally head for a club to jam led by the new recruits. They
performed a number of times in Australia billed as The Fisherman’s (short for Fisherman’s Friend). I think they rehearsed
harder for the renditions of ‘Unchain My Heart’ and ‘I Shot The Sheriff’ than they did for the main show…

After Australia, Japan was a little more difficult. There was no outdoor show, and shuttling between large auditoria, we had
less time to experience the country. Even the cameras seemed more expensive this time. On the way back to the US, Nettie and
I stopped over in Hawaii for a delightful couple of weeks, although the occasional burst of torrential rain was a throwback
to a classic British seaside holiday.

On a professional level this tour had been the most enjoyable ever, and it had been particularly so on a personal level. Nettie
had come along for the entire time, from the rehearsals in Toronto onwards, and had increased the pleasure of the whole enterprise
immeasurably. She had been on theatre tours as an actress, but the scale of this and the numbers of people and amounts of
logistics and material involved were something of an eye-opener for her. What I definitely appreciated was that going on tour
without a partner was likely to put a strain on most relationships – I once worked out that 90 per cent of this particular
tour party had left a trail of broken marriages and partnerships behind them. It seemed to be the case that you either took
your wife along, or invited your divorce lawyer to accompany you.

The second leg in the States reinforced the law that all effects have the capacity for disaster: during a show in Foxboro,
Massachusetts, the flying pig snagged somewhere and was ripped to pieces by an over-enthusiastic, or fanatically vegan, audience.

By the time we arrived in Europe the band had really settled into the groove: they were a hard-working group of musicians,
who regularly – Jon Carin particularly – reviewed the tapes of the previous night’s show to try and note any imperfections.
Their professionalism was impeccable: even if Guy Pratt was the last out of the bar the night – or morning – before, his playing
was faultless on stage, a tribute to his iron constitution or the fact that our music was too easy.

We had developed a comfortable way of living and working together on tour, by not dividing up into cliques and enjoying a
reasonable level of fun. We would occasionally throw a Wally party after the show, the idea being to turn up dressed as appallingly
as possible. The local thrift shops would be drained of shell suits; nylon was the order of the day. The tour had been, according
to Phil Taylor – who had been touring with us since the mid-1970s – great
fun, with a good spirit and a sense of relief that we were back out on the road.

If any constitutions were wilting the following day, their owners could turn to Scott Page, who had become the tour’s unofficial
herbal tea salesman. He was nearly as good at this as playing the saxophone, and soon a fair number of the band were to be
seen clutching horrible plastic bottles of urine-coloured liquid which they insisted on drinking at all times. Fortunately
like most tour fads – Japanese cameras, buckskin cowboy jackets and tequila sunrises – it was short-lived, and I can only
hope Scott still has vast quantities of those awful herbs stuffed in his attic.

In Europe the shows were more varied and have stuck in my mind for longer, mainly due to the venues we chose. Sometimes we
could add an extra level of variety: in Rotterdam, we arranged for a pre-show air display, accompanied by ‘Echoes’ on the
PA system by two motor gliders, flown by friends of ours whom David and I had met through learning to fly. Their graceful
aerial balletics trailing smoke seemed like a good idea for other dates, but we were defeated by the complications of getting
permission for them to fly in restricted air space.

Versailles was probably the grandest of the European shows. These events would come together through a combination of Steve
recceing possible locations and direct approaches from interested parties. At the time, François Mitterand’s Minister of Culture
was the dynamic Jack Lang. He was on side for the Versailles project – which helped in the politicking to convert any doubters
– and it seemed a natural meeting of minds.

The setting was magnificent, and most of the French were pleased to see us there. Certainly there were lengthy speeches from
local dignitaries, one of whom seemed to have offered his support only if his name could appear above the band’s on an official
plaque. I was called on at short notice to deliver a brief speech – having
hastily cobbled together a few clichés, my mumbled utterance was unlikely to trouble historians of the
entente cordiale.
We had great weather, and it felt like a special occasion. This is really the aim of trying to work in unique places. A stadium
is much more convenient for any large show, but it is more difficult to create such a special atmosphere. Whenever possible
it does seem worth making the effort to utilise settings with a sense of history and place.

As a gesture of goodwill to our Italian fans, we accepted an invitation to perform on the Grand Canal in Venice. However,
it transpired that the invitation had not been sent out by all the city fathers. There were two opposing factions, one delighted,
the other convinced that we would achieve what a thousand years of lagoon waters had failed to do, and sink the city in a
single afternoon. We held a press conference to reassure the council, the nation and the conservationists that we were not
setting out to sack the city, not even to undertake any light pillaging. Nevertheless, we still failed to convince everyone
that this was the case.

As Venice has limited access the plan had been to restrict the number of tourists allowed in on that particular day. We stayed
outside the city, in the Lagoon, reckoning that life was hard enough without having to jostle past the fans and the city authorities.
In the event, the mayor conspired with the police to allow everyone in, persuaded the shops to close and withdrew any previously
arranged toilet or rubbish collection facilities. It is not impossible that support seemed to be withdrawn when the necessary
payments were not made to all and sundry.

A representative of the Gondoliers’ Union came and claimed his colleagues would all blow their whistles throughout the show
if we didn’t pay them $10,000 (they already had clients paying double for every boat). This was one bluff we could call –
I have yet to hear any whistle rise above the noise we can make. Our stage-cum-barge was declared a seagoing vessel and liable
to an extra tax if we tried
to move it up the Grand Canal, the police blockading every other route out. Fortunately we were able to set sail on the high
sea and make an escape in the Horatio Nelson tradition.

These distractions did not dent the success of the show, which worked particularly well as a live television special. Michael
Kamen, who was due to play with us, was the only distressed face I saw. He had appeared before as an occasional guest but
this time we wanted him involved in a more structured way, particularly as it was going to be televised. Alas, Michael was
held up in the crowds, and thwarted by a lack of water transport at a critical moment, he only made it as far as the mixing
desk, too late to take part, and had to watch from the shore two hundred metres away – a sort of bearded French lieutenant’s
woman.

One golden moment was when a royal barge arrived filled with the dignitaries who had caused us so much trouble. Covered in
lights and serving a seven-course meal it drew up in front of the stage, mooring in front of the audience and blocking their
view. The audience went mad. A hail of bottles and rubbish rained onto the barge. The waiters manfully defended their masters,
shielding them, centurion-style, with their silver trays. Soon the barge was underway again, this time attempting a mooring
alongside our platform. One look at our crew, who made Blackbeard’s pirates seem like the Partridge Family, and off they went,
never to be seen again.

If playing in Venice was problematic, a series of gigs a few weeks earlier had posed even more of a logistical challenge,
when we played in Moscow. A shortage of currency meant that it was virtually impossible for a Russian promoter to pay the
costs of the tour, but a deal was worked out that essentially covered all the practical aspects of playing. First, they were
responsible for getting our equipment from Athens to Moscow and then on again to Helsinki afterwards. To do this they flew
in the military
Antonov, the biggest cargo plane in the world. It looked fantastic and took the whole set easily. Accommodation was in the
huge hotel in Red Square, which was still staffed with KGB surveillance on every floor along with samovars to provide hot
tea. With the tightness of security and the sheer size of the place, it took us three days to find where we could get a drink
in the evening and breakfast in the morning.