Inside Out

by Nick Mason

  A classic example on this tour was one particularly troublesome five-ton mechanised crane, with a lighting rig attached, that travelled on an overhead track above us. When it eventually fell off its track (fortunately not hurting anyone) Mark Fisher, Robbie Williams who had been responsible for transporting the thing, and even the band who paid for it but were playing underneath it, were all thrilled to see it disappear forever.

  FOR SALE

  One five-ton crane. Complete with track and all light fittings. Wd suit construction company or elderly rock band. $100. Collect from Norton Air Force Base, San Bernardino…

  As usual there was the slightly awkward day or two when the band arrived to mess up everything the crew had been doing for the past two weeks. At this point, the crew also had to go through the most soul-destroying part of all, which was learning how best to pack the trucks by stripping and re-erecting the stage. This is not as mindless or military an exercise as it sounds. There is an extremely strict order of pack according to what can be dismantled first and what needs to be put in first. And since, with restricted space backstage, there is an equally strict schedule for parking the trucks in the right order, a simple, economic factor comes into play: one truck saved over a nine-month period might pay for twelve crew parties, a new car, or simply a lawyer’s bill for a couple of days, or hours.

  We managed to overcome most of the various teething problems. As Storm’s films had by necessity been prepared against the recorded songs, we discovered there were cueing problems with the live versions. However, by now we knew some tricks of the trade – that the film should be abstract enough in the middle to give us some leeway, and Jim Dodge, our projectionist from previous tours, had become a past master at being able to adjust his projector speed to make sure the beginning and particularly the endings were in sync.

  The set was a mixture of old and new, including ‘Astronomy Domine’, which we had not played for at least twenty years, probably longer, and which brought back memories of Syd standing there in his big-sleeved outfit. ‘High Hopes’ was a new addition – complete with a giant division bell, sadly operated by a trigger device rather than a bemuscled gentleman from the Rank Organisation.

  The show was shaping up. Our ability finally to learn from experience came through on this tour. Whereas the initial shows of the 1987 tour had been extremely exciting, but weak in communal performance, despite the individual competence of the musicians, now we had a good idea of how to present the show. All we had to do now was pay for it.

  I still have mixed feelings about tour sponsorship. Touring a big show has become a hugely expensive operation and sponsorship can be a useful ingredient in that mix. But there is always a sneaking suspicion in the back of my mind (and I think David feels this more strongly than I do) that there is a danger that sponsorship can dilute the creative strengths. The argument that without sponsorship ticket prices would be higher is usually countered by the view that the band could take less money and achieve the same effect. There is no doubt that negotiations about the size and placing of advertisements and logos can become rather fraught.

  That said, I was happy to have a real tour sponsor in the shape of Volkswagen. The first item on the agenda in our new relationship with the company was the Pink Floyd car. VW had some experience of working with bands: the year before they had sponsored a Genesis tour. They had learnt from a couple of mistakes. We were told that one version had come out in a colour symbolising gay pride, which the notoriously macho car sales industry had failed to appreciate.

  When discussions had begun, there was an agreement that we did not want an association with some wild ultra-fast hatchback. Instead it was decided to produce a version of the Golf that could be considered the safest and most ecologically friendly (one might think an ecologically friendly car is a contradiction in terms, like a vegetarian crocodile, but there are degrees…).

  We enlisted the help of a friend, Peter Stevens. Peter is a much-respected car designer and also taught part-time as a professor at the Royal College of Art. We had met on and off over the years, and Peter had produced the graphics for cars I had raced at Le Mans with Richard Lloyd Racing. He had also been working with Gordon Murray, one of the great racing car designers (with a lifelong enthusiasm for the electric guitar) on the McLaren F1 road car. Peter’s experience with car design of all sorts meant that we could at least keep our suggestions within the realms of possibility rather than suggesting changes that would take seven years to put into production. The finest moment was when we visited the huge Volkswagen factory. VW were probably expecting the meeting to be a rubber-stamping exercise, but their high-powered engineers had a shock as they realised we had turned up in the company of Herr Professor Stevens, their former tutor, to evaluate their work.

  Peter found the experience educational as well. He had noted that Steve O’Rourke had carried a heavy overcoat with him for the entire journey. It was only just prior to going into the meeting that Steve put it on. Peter found this curious and asked him why. Steve explained that this was his ‘mean bastard’ overcoat. The extra bulk that it gave him, coupled with the fact that he would spend the entire meeting standing rather than sitting, had proved a valuable negotiating tool. Although Peter never bought a coat, he did invest in a pair of ‘mean bastard’ boots, which are still used for the occasional confrontational meeting. He maintains they are extremely effective.

  After years of doing things our own way we were unused to dealing with another organisation that operated under very different rules, and we had a number of disagreements. But the final product was a more than worthwhile exercise – the car even sold quite well in Europe – and is certainly dearer to my own heart than even the finest of fizzy drinks.

  Some climatic traditions die hard, and after rehearsals in perfectly dry conditions, the rains came down from the first gig onwards. During one show – the wettest of the wet – the equipment gradually got worse and worse. The PA was sounding distinctly soggy, monitors were dropping out, and my drums were increasingly waterlogged. We lashed ourselves to the mainsail Hornblower-style and played as long as we reasonably could, but at some point we had to abandon ship. It was a reminder that, wonderful money-spinners though they are, stadium shows are much more difficult to control. We had fabulous effects – especially the giant mirrorball – but it was all wasted effort if the stage was going to flood.

  Because of the Britannia Row sessions, David, Rick and I felt much more like a band on the road. However, with our traditional reticence, we forgot to relay this to the rest of the band – pretty much the same one as worked on the 1987 tour – and so, from their point of view, they found themselves in a rather different situation. The positive spirit David, Rick and I were enjoying threatened to dilute the overall team feel, and certainly changed the dynamic. When, shortly after the tour started, we decided to take the first bow alone, this, to say the least, did not improve matters. The rest of the band re-created their own team spirit by establishing a mobile nightclub underneath the staging, below the structure built for the lighting and sound, which they dubbed the Donkey’s Knob and which became the venue for many an informal after-show performance – and even an occasional gig during the mid-show interval.

  After three shows in Florida and Texas, we headed south of the border for a one-off in Mexico City. This was the first time we had played in Latin America. The atmosphere was wilder, more exuberant, and the audience considerably younger compared to the US. This audience was not only seeing a Floyd show for the first time, they seemed to be discovering the music as well. At the end of the North American leg, and after a couple of nights in New York we flew over to Lisbon and straight on to the European dates, although we took a short time out in July for David to marry Polly in London.

  At the beginning of September we were in Prague (again a new venue for us). The night before playing the Strahov Stadium to 120,000 people, we had dinner with Václav Havel, the playwright and former prisoner of conscience who was now the prim
e minister. This was not the ‘slap-up feed’ that the tabloids favour (why do they insist on this Billy Bunter-speak?), but an informal buffet at a riverside café. A number of us had done our homework by reading some of his books on the way to show some knowledge of his work – and wondered if Václav had been up all night with his CD collection. Some of his ministers appeared to have been rock critics in a previous life. I did wonder if in the new regime the secret police were now doing album reviews.

  The actual touring finished in Lausanne on 25th September, or at least it felt like the end of the tour as Nettie and I headed off to the South of France to recuperate following the last of the stadium shows. However, we still had a series of nights to play indoors at Earls Court in October. In 1987 we had played Wembley Arena and the Docklands, so it was fourteen years since we had performed at one of our favourite venues, a place with plenty of character, right in the heart of London. However, the home venue meant an unconscionable number of people wanting to come as guests. My daughter Chloe was working for me at the time and had handled the intricacies of tickets and seating arrangements all year. London, however, was her hardest task of all.

  The subtleties of inner-sanctum passes are a degree subject in their own right. Access All Areas means about halfway in, VIP one level further. A laminate trumps a stick-on and a green dot lets you through another gate. After that it helps if you are either part of the show, a family member, or have that demented look that ensures that there are always a few lunatics who make it to where they absolutely should not be. One startled tour manager found a stranger in his office who suggested he should have knocked first before barging in.

  We had decided that the income from the London shows would be given to charity, and had come up with a complex formula to ensure that the smaller charities with which we had personal ties would benefit along with the larger ones we all supported. This meant a series of photocalls with each of the individual charities, who quite rightly wanted to obtain the maximum exposure from the event. Unfortunately in the event none of them got a look-in, as just before the show started a whole section of seating collapsed.

  The house lights had been dimmed and amid the hum of anticipation, I heard what sounded like a roll of thunder. Maybe one of the tapes had miscued. Word quickly came that a section of seating had sheared away. There was no alternative but to bring the house lights up immediately and to get help to people trapped and first aid for those needing it. The show that night had to be cancelled. By the following day, only a few people were still hospitalised, which was a relief to everyone, apart from those few, of course.

  By chance we had built an extra rest day into the series of performances there, and so we were able to schedule the date a few days later, so that most – if not sadly everybody – had the chance to see the cancelled gig. Despite the events of that first night, the shows felt a fitting end to the tour. All the previous work ensured the shows were as good as they could be, and a little glow of charity gave some additional feel-good factor. Douglas Adams joined us on stage at Earls Court for the 28th October show, an opportunity we had offered him partly as a birthday present, but also in thanks for having come up with the title for the Division Bell album. My one piece of advice to him was ‘Whatever you do, Douglas, don’t look down…’, which in the excitement of the moment he clearly forgot, as he spent the whole song staring intently at his fretboard.

  During the Earls Court shows, one unexpected but very welcome backstage visitor was Bob Klose. I hadn’t seen him since the Tea Set days of the mid-Sixties, although by coincidence he had married an old schoolfriend of mine from Frensham. It reminded me that a couple of years later, at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, an even more unlikely arrival from the past had been our other Regent Street Poly cohort Clive Metcalf. Somebody with a marked lack of tact made the unkind comment to Clive that, having chosen to leave the band, he must feel like somebody who’d lost the winning lottery ticket. Clive calmly replied that when he and Keith Noble had decided to jettison the rest of us, they thought they were the ones making the right career move. As Clive observed, ‘We thought you were losers, anyway…’

  Although at the time the Earls Court concerts were simply the end of another tour, they in fact marked a significant cessation of activity. During the following ten years we did release a live album and a video, both called Pulse, from the tour, as well as various anthologies and re-masters of our work in new formats. But we did not tour again or release any new material.

  David would, I think, freely admit that he was the one who was the least eager to return to the fray. He seemed to have little appetite for all the ramifications of cranking up the whole machinery of touring yet again. But I did hang on to the hope that this was not necessarily the end of Pink Floyd as an active force. There were various things we had never done. We never developed the idea David had for a twist on the unplugged concept. We never released the ‘ambient’ tapes from the Division Bell sessions. And – to date at least – I have never appeared in the ‘Identity Parade’ round on Never Mind The Buzzcocks. After so much relative inactivity, musically speaking, I had been wondering how to end this book. However, I was unexpectedly provided with the material for a proper postscript, and shortly afterwards by the best of all possible dénouements.

  POSTSCRIPT

  IN JANUARY 2002 I was taking a holiday with my family on the Caribbean island of Mustique. At the beginning of each year a beach picnic is held to raise funds for the local school. During the party I suddenly felt a forceful pair of hands grasp my shoulders, and then my neck. Opposite me I saw Nettie’s eyes widen in surprise…

  It was Roger. Seeing me there he had come up behind me and caught me unawares. We had only seen each other a couple of times during the previous fifteen or so years. I had often wondered what the atmosphere might be like if we happened to run into each other again, and how I should approach such a meeting. What a waste of all that planning.

  Roger and I started talking, carried on talking for a fair amount of that afternoon, and met up a couple more times during the holiday. After all the water that had flowed under the bridges of the past, it felt terrific to make peace with one of my oldest friends. A large amount of emotional baggage got dumped at Mustique customs.

  Later that year I got a call inviting me to play a guest spot with Roger at Wembley Arena during his 2002 tour. I didn’t say ‘yes’ straight away – the idea felt slightly alarming – but it did not take long to work out that to miss this opportunity would be something I would regret ever after. I had spent long enough bemoaning the split between us, so it seemed particularly stupid not to jump at this chance to give a pretty public demonstration of a rather grown-up moment of reconciliation. I played on only one number – Roger’s arrangement of ‘Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun’ – but the evening was fantastic. Roger’s band was enormously welcoming, and a particularly nice touch was the chance to work with Harry Waters, who was on keyboards; apart from being Roger’s son, Harry is also my godson.

  Working with Roger again had been a joy. I loved the rehearsals. Despite many assurances that the intervening years had mellowed Roger, I was pleased to find that any imperfections in the show were met with the familiar irascible shout from stage to mixing desk.

  And that, I genuinely thought, was that. When Inside Out was first published in September 2004, the question about the possibility of Pink Floyd playing together again – with or without Roger – was an obligatory line of enquiry in every related interview. I faced these questions with a determinedly straight bat, but still tried to offer at least a glimpse of optimism, since as far as I was aware, our innings had not yet been declared.

  When Mojo produced a special edition devoted to the band that autumn, Roger and I were both interviewed. Roger was asked about the possibility of a thaw in relations with David, a suggestion he politely but determinedly squashed: ‘I can’t think why. We’re both quite truculent individuals and I don’t think that’s going to change.’ Els
ewhere David had compared the idea to ‘sleeping with the ex-wife’ – it didn’t look hopeful.

  In my piece, the final two questions were ‘Will there be another Pink Floyd album?’ and ‘What about a one-off Pink Floyd concert with Roger Waters for the thirtieth anniversary of Wish You Were Here?’ I said: ‘I could imagine doing it. But I can’t see Roger would want to. I think David would have to feel extremely motivated to want to get back to work. It would be fantastic if we could do it for something like another Live Aid; a significant event of that nature would justify it. That would be wonderful. But maybe I’m just being terribly sentimental. You know what us old drummers are like.’

  Well, stranger things have happened. Six months later someone pointed out a comment made by Bob Geldof in a TV interview in which he said that he had seen a quote from me about a Pink Floyd reunion being – just maybe – feasible for a big charity event. Sadly, I can’t take any credit for the final outcome, but clearly a seed had been planted in Bob’s brain as he evolved the idea of putting together an event similar to Live Aid twenty years on from the original.

  I was so unaware of his plans that when my wife Nettie told me Bob was on the phone one day in June 2005, I had no idea why he might be calling. We had occasionally met at social events and the odd charity committee meeting for the Roundhouse Trust since his appearance as Pink in the movie of The Wall, but we didn’t speak on a regular basis.

  The first stirrings of Bob’s efforts to mount Live 8 had not yet permeated my consciousness. Bob now told me about the event and said that he had spoken to David about the possibility of Pink Floyd appearing, but that David had said no. Bob, as ever, merely saw this negative response as an inspiring challenge, and said he’d take the train down to David’s house to discuss it further. Bob had already reached East Croydon when David rang him to say ‘Don’t bother’, but Bob decided he would push on anyway. However, even a direct and personal plea from a man so famously persuasive still failed to change David’s mind.