November 22, 2024

The Queens County Citizen

Complete Canadian News World

Memories of Pink Floyd | Press

From Dune Reader to Denise Villeneuve

Are there teenagers who escape Pink Floyd? It seems a must for early life music lovers, because 7000 copies The Dark Side of the Moon Still sold out every week today, this legendary group has never stopped recruiting followers.

Posted at 9:15 am

I didn’t escape either. At 15, I used to destroy cassettes Wish you were here, The Dark Side of the Moon And the wall On my Walkman. This group opened the musical horizons of many young adults, which is cliché. I listened to Pink Floyd until I got sick of it in my twenties, and when I started drifting away from it, my younger brother, six years younger than me, dove deeply into the same initiation. His intense, repeated listening almost turned me away from Pink Floyd forever, but he soon switched to rapping, which gave the whole family pause.

For this reason, I invited my brother to the press conference of the show Pink Floyd: Their Mortal Remains, which has just opened at Arsenal Contemporary Art. We have a lot of common memories around this group, the occasion is great. We last saw them show 1994 at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. He with his friends, I with my father.

You must have experienced it at least once in your life, because Pink Floyd redefined large-scale performances, enough to inspire a satirical song in Monak’ Serge, Bad ride of the centuryThere he mocks fans He ran to the stadium like lemmings. Man, there are lasers… In 1994, they did three nights and sold 175,000 tickets!

My dad and I had never experienced a show with 65,000 people, so in the first few minutes, being so high up in the stands, we were hyperventilating a bit – I almost passed out. But the magic caught up with us.

Thousands of lighters were lit (this was before iPhones), and we set off on a beautiful trip despite the legendary sinister sound of the place. I still remember my father’s dumbfounded face. He got up several times and muttered his praises to “Tabarnax,” and I probably saw my father more at the show, because of his awesomeness. show In itself. For my part, I will never forget this moment when I fell into a trance with the crowd during the guitar solo. hey u – I felt like I was in a cult.

After the show, my dad bought my brother a t-shirt and we got to stumble upon him among 65,000 people, drawing on magic mushrooms and his 15 years of musical experience. Before my father came back from the bathroom and realized it, I instructed him to leave as quickly as possible. But Dad wasn’t stupid, he guessed and said nothing. Youth must happen and Pink Floyd must live…

“From what you took, do you remember show, at least ? I asked my brother as we walked around the exhibit. Yes, one of the most beautiful moments of his adolescence, he told me. Thousands of young people besieged the STCUM buses to go to Mount Royal to continue the dream of the show, thus recreating the events of the previous generation, which in 1994 Pink Floyd said he was no longer.

Even today, my brother loves to fall asleep to the music of the play Echoes…

presentation Pink Floyd: Their Mortal RemainsIt was screened in London, Italy, Germany, Spain and the United States before landing in Montreal, a gift indeed groups. With over 350 pieces of art — from Syed Barrett, electric guitars and keyboards to puppets and inflatables the wall -, we measure the artistic evolution of the group due to the known differences between its members, which revolutionized the history of music by combining theater, opera, animation, jazz, psychedelic, electronic and progressive rock, sometimes in sawtooth.

Pink Floyd’s impact wouldn’t have been the same without the collaboration of artistic director Aubrey “Poe” Powell, who defined the group’s visual universe and for whom the show is a much better place. We caught up with host and former RBO Richard Z. Sirois, who looked like a kid in a candy store, grinning from ear to ear. He traveled 10 hours to this press conference where Nick Mason, Pink Floyd’s drummer, signed one of his albums.

Photo by Marco Campanozzi, The Press

Nick Mason, founding member and drummer of Pink Floyd

Moreover, the moving image I remember from this exhibition is that of Nick Mason wandering alone in a room, like a casual 78-year-old visitor, looking at the evidence of his glorious past.

My father would have been his age today if he was alive. We didn’t expect to run into Nick Mason during our visit and he graciously agreed to pose for a photo with my brother.

This will be another memory in our family album of Pink Floyd.

Pink Floyd: Their Mortal RemainsAt Arsenal Contemporary Art until December 31, 2022

About The Author