Inside Out (43 page)

Roger was immediately positive about the idea of playing together again for an event that was politically in tune with his
own sentiments, especially as Bob’s intention was not to raise funds but to hoist a massive, global rallying cry and send
a clear message about needless poverty to the leaders due to attend the G8 summit at Gleneagles.

By the time Bob rang Roger again, two and a half weeks had elapsed. Roger asked Bob the date of the Live 8 concert and was
suddenly struck by the fact that it was less than a month away:
there was no more time for reflection. He offered to make the ultimate gesture and place a call to David. ‘Hello,’ Roger said
when he got through, ‘I think we should do this.’ David was still uncertain, worried that his voice and guitar parts would
be too rusty, an idea that Roger was quick to counter. David asked for some time to ponder the matter. Twenty-four hours later
he had successfully pondered.

Thus it was that, one Friday in June, barely three weeks before the event, David called Bob, Roger and me to say ‘Let’s do
it.’ To all of us it was clear that since Live 8 was about increasing awareness, the re-forming of Pink Floyd would bring
more attention to the event, although Roger made it adamantly clear that, whatever else, he was not prepared to be a support
act for the Spice Girls or an ABBA tribute band. Despite this, Bob was moved to describe Roger as a great diplomat – this
really was breaking new ground.

However, there was still one more person who had to agree. Rick had not been party to these early negotiations since they
mainly concerned Roger and David, but it was imperative that he be part of any re-forming of the band. If we were going to
do it, we were going to do it properly. Rick said yes unprompted, although there may have been a slight quiver of alarm in
his voice at the prospect of voluntarily re-entering what had once, for him, been something of a gladiatorial arena.

By Sunday the news had officially broken after weeks of the rumour mill working harder than an Italian waiter’s pepper grinder.
David issued a statement in which he said, quite rightly, that ‘any squabbles Roger and the band have had in the past are
so petty in this context’. Roger, responding to suggestions that this was merely an excuse for some geriatric rock musicians
to promote their back catalogue said, with glee, ‘The cynics will scoff. Screw ’em!’

The headline writers had a field day. Hatchets were buried.
Loggerheads were prised apart. And pigs that could fly were suddenly breeding all across the broadsheets and a tabloid or
two. Richard Curtis got in touch to suggest that if the band could agree on a set list, then surely the G8 summit could agree
on a practical commitment to resolving Africa’s problems.

For some reason our internal difficulties, really no different from those of many other bands, had been built up into a mythical
representation of rock’n’roll’s greatest feud. Having lived through it, I can honestly relate (and hope that
Inside Out
has reflected this), that it was not actually World War III, or if it was, I’d have to say I think I had quite a good war.

I was amused by a spoof piece by Toby Moore in
The Times
that gave readers ‘an exclusive peek’ inside the rehearsals, each of us sitting in the studio as a row of lawyers conferred
over whether an F sharp could or could not be included. And I liked a line that he attributed to me, saying that rock’n’roll
was all about ‘rows, recriminations and lawyers’. One paper also reported that Syd’s sister Rosemary had asked him what he
thought about the reunion. She remarked he had not reacted at all. ‘He’s no longer Syd,’ she said. ‘He’s Roger now.’

Once the decision was in place, one of our first tasks was to decide what to play. Initially Roger and David discussed this,
with some input from Bob. I did suggest that the numbers we played should be the slower ones…

With ten days to go, the four of us convened at the Connaught Hotel in London to make the final choice. It was a remarkably
businesslike meeting. We were doubtless all on our best behaviour and quickly got down to discussing what had to be done,
although, as ever, we were able to draw on a deep well of longstanding band jokes to dispel any tension.

We had brought along a selection of video tapes – some from Roger’s shows, the rest from the last Pink Floyd tours – for use
in
the show. Unable to break the habit of a lifetime, we felt a little extra tweaking was required, which meant I was able to
sit with Roger in an edit suite selecting sequences to accompany the set. It reminded me of how much I enjoy the way Roger
likes to work. Under pressure, no time was wasted, but although Roger kept a sense of clarity about what he wanted, he was
still able to take on board other ideas if it looked like they would work.

We had agreed to rehearse over a three-day period at Black Island and to invite Tim Renwick and Jon Carin to play – a neat
link back to the original Live Aid when Jon had been in Bryan Ferry’s band with David. Dick Parry brought along his sax, and
we were joined by Carol Kenyon as a backing singer on ‘Comfortably Numb’. We had also managed to bring together a team of
longtime collaborators and crew, including Phil Taylor (our longest-serving NCO), my drum tech Clive Brooks, Roger’s guitar
tech Colin Lyon, Andy Jackson at the mixing desk and James Guthrie, looking after the sound for television. We were all a
little older and maybe a tad wiser, and we even managed to have some healthily creative differences of opinion about how pieces
should be played without hitting the self-destruct button. A frisson of tension did occur when Rick was talking about a particular
bassline that Guy Pratt had used on one of the previous tours (Guy married Rick’s daughter Gala shortly after the
Division Bell
tour). Roger, hearing this, announced, ‘Rick, what you and your son-in-law get up to in private is none of my business…’

On the eve of the Live 8 show we gathered at Hyde Park. In the area immediately in front of the main stage, scattered knots
of event staff, security, band members and their families watched Madonna work out her white-clad ensemble. I was also pleased
to notice my two boys, Guy and Cary, grinning back at me from up on stage, obviously showing early promise in the art of bluffing
their way past security. As dusk fell, and with individual sound
checks complete, we began to play our set. The rehearsal ran fairly smoothly, although there was, I must confess, a certain
level of instability in the drum department. However, like all good dress rehearsals, this left plenty of room for improvement
on the night.

Come Saturday, 2nd July, we knew we were going to be on late – it was clear that it would be a physical impossibility for
the show to run on schedule – so we had planned to head down to Hyde Park for five or six o’clock. On reflection, it seemed
absurd to miss the opening of such a significant occasion, and I think we all turned up in time for the kick-off. I headed
out front to watch Paul McCartney and U2 perform ‘Sgt Pepper’ and even as a fully paid-up, jaded and jaundiced veteran of
the music business, was moved by the power and strength of what was happening both on stage and in the audience.

Backstage the shortage of dressing rooms meant each one only became free an hour or so before each artist was due on stage,
which excluded any diva-like excesses. We were able to do some media interviews and push the message of what Live 8 was about,
all of which helped me feel that we had made the right decision to reconvene; in the absence of any jugglers or fire-eaters,
we provided the necessary ‘novelty act’ that might just make the audience wonder ‘What on earth made them do it?’ and reflect
on the real message of the cause.

Our slot moved ever backward, as an overcast sky gave way to a shepherd’s delight sunset. By the time we hit the stage at
eleven o’clock, we had drawn on all our communal experience of waiting, adrenalin bubbling underneath while nervousness crept
stealthily in. But once the tape of the heartbeat for ‘Breathe’ started in the pitch black arena I was already relaxing, easing
into being part of a band, rather than concentrating on audience numbers.

It was fantastic to be playing with the others again – Rick layering in his unique textures, David as reliable as ever, pitch-perfect
and lyrical, and Roger delivering those familiar bass patterns and personal lyrics with body language that told me he
was really enjoying himself. The whole set felt tight and contained and we managed to keep a lid on any over-excitement despite
the importance of the event, thankfully restraining ourselves from hollering ‘Hello London!’ However, Roger’s more measured
words before ‘Wish You Were Here’, mentioning Syd, ensured that we did make some meaningful contact with the audience.

After our final bow, we headed backstage where there was plenty of undisguised emotion on show, but I am delighted to report
that, great troopers that we are, the four of us displayed that inscrutable and dry-eyed stoicism that is part of a fine Pink
Floyd tradition…

And there for now the story must pause. The allegedly impossible had come to pass, and we genuinely felt we had all made the
best contribution we could have done to support Bob’s vision, passion and mission.

Before our Live 8 reunion, Roger had already made his own distinctive contribution to this book. Towards the end of its gestation,
after he had finished reading the manuscript, we met up in a London hotel to talk through his comments. He had gone to a lot
of trouble to make corrections, and to question some of my interpretations and emphases. These observations had been made
in green ink, and as he flipped through the pages I was occasionally alarmed to see sections where the use of green ink was
remarkably liberal. On one page Roger had simply scrawled ‘Bollocks’ across the whole text. However, after our session on
the book, we were still feeling sociable enough to go out for a convivial dinner with my wife Nettie and Roger’s girlfriend
Laurie, where who should we run into but Gerry Scarfe, who crept up behind Roger and placed his hands… Oh no, not again.

David must frequent the same stationer’s as Roger, as his comments were also made with a green highlighter, and he had taken
equal care over the exercise. In David’s case I particularly appreciated his comments as I know he has always had reservations
about any one of us attempting to write a history of the band, since none of us can have been present at every decisive or
creative moment in a history, and so it can never be definitive. I have done my best to capture the mood of each period, and
although I have tried to be even-handed I know that most moments are inevitably coloured by my own feelings of joy, sadness
or fatigue.

Rick also added his comments, faxed from a yacht in the Caribbean. I was particularly intrigued to find that after all these
years he was finally able to reveal the real reason he had refused to give Roger his cigarettes when we were at the Poly.
First of all, Rick said, Roger had been somewhat aggressive in asking for them – little surprise there. But worse, having
secured possession of the cigarettes, Roger had taken the packet and ripped off the cellophane protecting it, which Rick was
zealous in keeping intact.

And there is Syd. Or, as I now must write, there was Syd. When I was writing this book, I just did not feel it right to try
and contact Syd. He had had his own life for a very long time, and to burst through his door in Cambridge waving my text in
his face would have been extremely invasive and unfair. After Syd’s death on 7th July 2006, I wrote a few lines about him
for
Time
magazine, and I include from the briefest of obituaries these words in tribute: ‘Syd was the nucleus that created Pink Floyd.
Although the band continued and grew after he had gone, my own view is that in a business that makes the theory of chaos look
like a Machiavellian strategy, without his initial influence, the odds are that none of us might have found our way into the
music business and Pink Floyd in any form would simply not have existed.’

There seemed far too little time to recover after Syd’s death before Rick died, just over two years later, in September 2008.
Rick had not been well for some time, but the news was no less shocking. What I felt most was the sense of imbalance caused
by his loss. Rick perhaps never received the credit – both inside and outside the band – that
he deserved for his talents, but the distinctive, floating textures and colours he brought into the mix were absolutely critical
to what people recognise as the sound of Pink Floyd. Musically he knitted us all together. His approach to playing was genuinely
unique: he once summed up his musical philosophy by saying ‘technique is so secondary to ideas’. Many fine keyboard players
could and did emulate and recreate his parts, but nobody else other than Rick had the ability to create them in the first
place.

His memorial service was held at the Notting Hill Theatre. It was a wonderful send-off to a friend who had been part of my
life for more than four decades, and an event that induced a feeling of enjoyment, rather than sadness, both socially, with
so many familiar faces there, and musically. Jeff Beck played a beautiful, unaccompanied guitar solo, the more beautiful for
being unexpected, and Dave and I performed Rick’s ‘Remember a Day’ for the first time in nearly forty years. Rick had said
he wanted a party that was not too formal, and he absolutely got his wish.

Since I started work on this book there have been a number of people who were helping or supporting the project who are no
longer with us. June Child, Tony Howard and Michael Kamen died during this period (as did Nick Griffiths shortly after the
first edition was published); Storm Thorgerson suffered a severe stroke, although he rallied sufficiently not only to produce
the jacket, prelims and pyramid spread for
Inside Out,
but also to inflict the particular brand of forceful questioning which has made him the terror of the record industry upon
the publishers. I also have to report the deaths of Bryan Morrison and Mick Kluczynski. Bryan was the archetypal music business
rogue we loved to hate; even Roger had a tendency to allow a wry smile to appear at the mention of his name. And I have to
credit Bryan with being enormously helpful with this book, generously supplying stories he was intending to retain for his
own memoirs. Mick was a stalwart of the road crew from the early 1970s
onwards – a time when the crew was small enough for us all to get to know each other well – who could provide a steadying
influence whenever mayhem threatened to intervene. However, by far the most upsetting loss for me was that of Steve O’Rourke,
after a stroke in October 2003. Given that a fair amount of this book is taken up with Steve being given a rather hard time
by the band I have included a few lines from a letter that I wrote after Steve’s funeral.