2025 – A Very Special Anniversary Year!
We are looking forward to playing one of Pink Floyds masterpieces from the 1970’s this year. Wish You Were Here is certainly up there with the best of their albums, with David Gilmour having said it is his favourite. Indeed, this might have been the last Pink Floyd album that all four members were writing and playing as a fully functional unit. Animals is also a masterpiece, but the cracks were beginning to show, which finally led to The Wall coming crashing down.
But Wish You Were Here has it all and flows beautifully from start to finish. The first half of Shine On You Crazy Diamonds opening with the haunting blend of organ, wine glasses and Solina Strings and Rick Wright unmistakable Minimoog intro. Gilmour’s mournful Stratocaster guitar intro in part two definitely has more than a hint of melancholy as it leads to the four note phrase that was the original seed of Shine On. Then the rest of the band join in and we are off on a journey.
Welcome To The Machine kicks off the first of two songs about the music business, and a real synth fest it is too. Gilmour’s voice carries just the right amount of weight for the subject matter on this song, which is only matched by Rick Wrights two synth solo’s with a sound that could strip paint!
Have A Cigar, like The Great Gig In The Sky on Dark Side is not sung by any of the band. Both Waters and Gilmour had a go at singing it, but neither had the right voice for this cynical song about being burnt by the music business. Luckily, Roy Harper was also recording at Abby Road and had dropped in to see what Floyd were up to. Seeing how Waters and Gilmour were struggling with it, Roy pipped in and said “I’ll sing it… for a price!”. A great job he made of it too!
Wish You Were Here takes us up to the finale. An acoustic masterpiece with guitar, lap steel guitar, piano, bass drums and layered Minimoog. This is the song that gets more requests for dedications at gigs than any other. It’s truly a song for lost friends and family.
Shine On You Crazy Diamond parts 6 to 9 is an epic piece to close an epic album! From the delay drenched synth intro and screaming pedal steel guitar of part 6, we return to Waters on lead vocal for part 7. The soulful oohs and ahhs of the backing singers make this something special! Part 8 is a double up of Fender Rhodes piano and a funky Clavinet part. Rick Wright brings the piece to a close with a mournful Minimoog part which floats on the top of a see of multi-layered VCS3 synths, piano, organ, bass and drums, with a splash of Gilmour’s guitar to support Wrights Moog.
A Little bit about Mac Floyd
Mac Floyd are an eight piece band from Scotland that recreates the amazing music of Pink Floyd live on stage. We pride ourselves in performing everything live – as it should be. The only thing you will hear during a Mac Floyd performance that is not live are the samples/sound effects from the various Floyd songs. We’ve been going a long time and still got some mileage in us!
mac floyd 