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1.7.2006 Roger Waters London Hyde Park

Roger Waters at Hyde Park.

The Times ***** David Sinclair at Hyde Park

04.07.2006: EXACTLY a year since the remaining members of Pink Floyd — David Gilmour, Richard Wright and Nick Mason — reunited with Roger Waters to perform at Live8, the battle for custody of the group’s legacy rumbles on. Gilmour, who billed himself “The voice and guitar of Pink Floyd”, included a generous complement of Floyd songs in his recent shows at the Albert Hall.
But Waters, now billing himself “The creative genius of Pink Floyd”, upped the ante at Hyde Park, where he performed the group’s masterwork, Dark Side of the Moon, in its entirety.

This strangely timeless album remains a touchstone of the classic rock era, and Waters took great pains not to interfere in any way with the sound or structure of the songs as they were recorded. The noise of screeching trains and clanging clocks ricocheted around a vast speaker system, which fired sounds at the audience not only from the sides of the stage but also from the back corners of the enclosure. The guitarist Dave Kilminster produced an elegant facsimile of Gilmour’s soaring guitar solo (and his vocal part) in Money, while Mason was actually there in person behind the kit, his lugubrious features giving nothing away as he rattled out the stuttering introduction to Time.

Former Pink Floyd star Roger Waters performs at the Hyde Park Calling Festival, in central London, on Saturday Saturday July 1, 2006. (AP Photo/PA, Yui Mok)

It was a technically flawless performance, and Waters has as good a claim to this material as anyone else in or out of Pink Floyd. But, after the real thing on this very stage only a year ago, there was something inescapably ersatz about this note-perfect re-creation — a bit like seeing Axl Rose and a bunch of session men playing all the old Guns N’ Roses songs.

That said, the 62-year-old Waters was on splendid form. His craggy features loomed menacingly from the screens at the side of the stage, and his voice took on a megalomaniac fervour, as he bellowed racial abuse at imaginary figures of hate during In the Flesh, one of many other Floyd songs that the band performed during the first half of the show.

There was an emotional version of Shine on You Crazy Diamond, during which pictures of Syd Barrett, the group’s long-departed singer, appeared on the screens, and a sensational take on Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun, which took on a surreal quality as its hypnotic riff emanated from a stage that was bathed in the brilliant rays of the early evening sun.

There was also a new song in among all the nostalgia: Leaving Beirut, a remedial lesson in Middle Eastern politics that rather underlined why Waters may be best advised to stick to the tried and tested at this point in his career.

Roger Waters live.

The Guardian Roger Waters ***** Hyde Park Calling festival, London von Ian Gittins

4.7.2006 Pink Floyd's one-off Live8 appearance last year sparked speculation that the iconic band might reform on a long-term basis. These hopes proved woefully misguided when guitarist David Gilmour used subsequent interviews to restate his incompatibility with estranged songwriter/bassist Roger Waters.

Gilmour, who owns the Floyd name after a bitter mid-1980s court case, recently toured a rarefied if soporific new solo album, On An Island. In stark contrast, Waters - somewhat immodestly billing himself as "the creative genius of Pink Floyd" - has undertaken this money-spinning global jaunt, playing Floyd's magnum opus, 1973's Dark Side of the Moon, in its entirety.

In this handout photo photo provided by Hard Rock International, Roger Waters signs a Gibson guitar at Hard Rock Presents Hyde Park Calling, Saturday, July 1, 2006 in London. AP Photo/Hard Rock International, James Mason

The intense Waters always was the tortured wing of Floyd, and age has not lessened his angst. Tonight's ragbag first set includes the weighty Leaving Beirut, wherein Waters recalls a teenage vacation in the Middle East, sighs over Iraq, and indignantly likens Tony Blair to Genghis Khan, Lucrezia Borgia and Son of Sam.

It's not exactly crowd-pleasing stuff, and there are roars of relief when Floyd drummer Nick Mason joins Waters after the interval to rehash Dark Side of the Moon, the stoner-friendly exercise in home-counties psychedelia that hung like a fug over the student bedsits of pre-punk Britain.

Of course, what was a trip in 1973 can sound sadly pedestrian now, but Waters' note-perfect sweep through Dark Side proves surprisingly endearing. Time remains a gorgeously febrile mind-bending symphony, and he spits out anti-breadhead anthem Money like a penurious militant rather than a millionaire on a nostalgia kick.

By the shimmering conclusion of the album's closer, Eclipse, Hyde Park is one giant satisfied smirk, so it's a pity Waters returns to encore with Floyd's plodding 1979 no 1 single, Another Brick in the Wall (Part Two). That's the problem with 1970s prog rockers - they just never know when to stop.

Nick Mason to join Roger Waters at Hyde Park Calling so now that's half of Pink Floyd!

9.5.2006 Hyde Park Calling, which is happening on Saturday 1st and Sunday 2nd July at London's Hyde Park, have just announced a rather special drummer will be playing with Roger Waters. Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason will join Roger Waters at his Hyde Park Calling show on Saturday 1st July, and Mason will play drums on Waters’ performance of ‘The Dark Side Of The Moon’ which is part of the show.

Mason is the only member of Pink Floyd who has remained with the band since its beginning in 1965 and has played on every Pink Floyd album including, of course, the 1973 epic ‘The Dark Side Of The Moon’.

Hyde Park Calling has on the Saturday Roger Waters (of course), Texas, Starsailor, Chris Difford, Breaks Co-op, Robert Cray Band, and Suzanne Vega. The Sunday line-up has The Who, Razorlight, The Zutons, and Ocean Colour Scene confirmed for the Main Stage, and Primal Scream, and Casbah Club on the Second Stage.

Info: Simon Wimpenny

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