David Gilmour started his Luck and Strange world tour in Rome at Circo Massimo with a show on Friday night.
The concert featured six songs from his new album, some from Rattle That Lock, and many Pink Floyd classics.
Before the tour, he said he wouldn’t play songs from the Seventies, focusing instead on his time leading the band in the Eighties and early Nineties. But as the tour drew near, he decided to include some older tracks.
“One has to wake up to reality once in a while,†Gilmour shared. “I think I will be doing one or two things from that time, but it just seems so long ago. I know people love them, and I love playing them. I’ll be doing ‘Wish You Were Here,’ of course I will. And some of the things that started with me anyway.â€
On opening night, he played “Wish You Were Here,” along with “Breathe (In The Air),” “Time,” “Fat Old Sun,” “The Great Gig in the Sky,” and “Comfortably Numb.” There were also four songs from The Division Bell and one from A Momentary Lapse of Reason.
His new band includes Adam Betts on drums, Ben Worsley on guitar, Rob Gentry and Greg Phillinganes on keyboards, Guy Pratt on bass, and backup singers Louise Marshall, Charlie Webb, and Hattie Webb.
Romany Gilmour joined her dad for “The Piper’s Call” and “Between Two Points,” a Montgolfier Brothers cover. It’s not clear how long she will stay on the tour. “She’s at university studying in London, and so I don’t know that she’ll be able to do it all,” said Gilmour.
We wonder how long Romany will stay on tour.
Every solo concert by Gilmour ends with “Comfortably Numb.” Recently, Ice-T’s band Body Count released a version of this song featuring Gilmour on guitar. Ice-T said, “It was really funny. We were like, ‘Does David need a studio?’ They were like, ‘David owns five studios.’ When the song came back to us, we were like, ‘Fuck. That’s dope!’â€
Gilmour will perform five more shows in Rome, then head to London for six concerts at the Royal Albert Hall. The U.S. part of the tour starts October 25 in Los Angeles. It will finish in New York at Madison Square Garden in early November, with one show happening on election night. “I wish I had known about the election night date before I booked those days in, and I think I’d have taken a day off on that day,†he remarked. “Hey, but you Yanks have got to do what you’ve got to do.â€
Here’s the complete setlist for David Gilmour’s September 27 show at Circo Massimo in Rome, Italy:
5 A.M.
Black Cat
Luck and Strange
Speak to Me
Breathe (In the Air)
Time
Breathe (Reprise)
Fat Old Sun
Marooned
Wish You Were Here
Vita Brevis
Between Two Points (with Romany Gilmour)
High Hopes
Sorrow
The Piper’s Call (with Romany Gilmour)
A Great Day For Freedom
In Any Tongue
The Great Gig in the Sky
A Boat Lies Waiting
Coming Back to Life
Dark and Velvet Nights
Scattered
Comfortably Numb
