Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets live at The Usher Hall Edinburgh

A few years ago you would probably have thought that you would have had more chance of seeing a flying pig than of seeing Nick Mason, Pink Floyd’s only remaining original member, take his own band out on the road.  Back in 2019 however, that’s exactly what he did.  A handful of London gigs in tiny clubs developed into European and American tours before COVID put paid to another planned tour. And that might very well have been that; a short-lived hobby band, a bit of fun that had served its purpose. Having scratched an itch, Mason, a man whose other hobbies include supercars and helicopters, could easily have gone back to counting his Ferraris and polishing his chopper. Happily though, Mason’s enthusiasm for showcasing the music of Pink Floyd’s early psychedelic period remains undimmed and the band has reconvened for another set of dates.

Hopefully, tonight’s sell-out crowd have a fair idea of what lies in store as anyone expecting an evening of Dark Side Of The Moon or Wish You Were Here would be somewhat disappointed; the band’s repertoire excludes anything after 1972. The house lights dim and a suitably atmospheric intro – Mission Control pre-flight chatter and liftoff countdown – builds the tension before the unmistakable bass line of One Of These Days begins off-stage. Bassist Guy Pratt wanders on and continues to send those notes spinning around the hall as the rest of the band take their places and join in. As one of Floyd’s most driving, raucous pieces it’s a great opener and sets the scene for the rest of the evening.

Arnold Layne takes us back to the band’s earliest days, a song that Mason tells us was banned by the BBC for being too rude, its tale of a knicker-pilfering antihero nearly scuppering their pop star dreams before they had even got off the ground. Whether or not they troubled the singles chart, tonight’s performance proves that Floyd, despite their reputation for experimentation, always had a knack for a good tune. Fearless from 1972’s Meddle album with its lazy vibe and Liverpool Kop chants is an early highlight. The relatively obscure album Obscured By Clouds’ title track, one of four tracks from the album played tonight, allows the band to stretch out, keyboard player Dom Belen providing a Hammond organ backdrop for guitarists Lee Harris and Gary Kemp’s slashing guitars. The keystone of the first set is an abridged version of the Atom Heart Mother suite bookended by verses of Roger Waters’ song If from the same album. Not greatly loved by either David Gilmour or waters, Atom Heart Mother is nevertheless one of my favourite Floyd tunes and it’s great to hear it given a run-out. It’s time to slow the pace a little and having been Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright’s son-in-law, bassist Guy Pratt is best placed to pay a brief tribute to his contribution to the band and  Wright’s blissful evocation of a sleepy summer afternoon, Remember A Day, is suitably woozy, leading us into the throbbing psychedelia of Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun which brings the first set to a close.

The second set launches us straight into Floyd’s first album with a blistering Interstellar Overdrive and Astronomy Domine and it is clear to see the affection that Mason, Harris, Pratt and Kemp have for this period of the Pink Floyd catalogue. “I’ve seen Uriah Heep T-shirts here tonight, Genesis T-shirts and Led Zeppelin T-shirts but no fucking Spandau Ballet T-shirts says Gary Kemp ruefully. Later, however, when a wag in the audience proposes Gold as a possible encore inclusion, the suggestion is unsurprisingly not taken up. We are a long way from encores yet though. The proto-metal Nile Song, a real outlier in the Floyd canon, leads to two more songs from Obscured By Clouds, Burning Bridges and Childhood’s End. Harris, Pratt and Kemp then gather around the drum kit to ensure that they don’t fluff the count-in to Lucifer Sam. After making a bollocks of it, they good-naturedly laugh it off and nail it the second time around.

And so to the highlight of the evening: the epic in every sense Echoes, instantly identifiable from that first distinctive piano ping. Echoes was the point where the post- Barrett Floyd’s gift for melody meshed with their desire to push boundaries; an abstract tale that explores isolation and connection, themes that would feature throughout the band’s later albums.  And it is tonight utterly magnificent; worth the price of admission on its own. It’s a performance that seems impossible to follow but opening an encore with the psychedelic pop of See Emily Play provides a perfect palate cleanser before we are thrust into the anarchic cacophony of Saucerful Of Secrets which emerges into a triumphant, anthemic coda. The final word goes of course to Syd Barrett, who made Pink Floyd possible, and Bike, the apotheosis of his whimsical, profound genius.  With his Saucerful Of Secrets  Nick Mason has given us a really special gift.  Let’s hope he doesn’t find another hobby any time soon.

Setlist 

One of These Days

Arnold Layne

Fearless

Obscured by Clouds

When You’re In

Candy and a Currant Bun

Vegetable Man

If

Atom Heart Mother

If (reprise)

Remember a Day

Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun

Interstellar Overdrive

Astronomy Domine

The Nile Song

Burning Bridges

Childhood’s End

Lucifer Sam

Echoes

See Emily Play

A Saucerful of Secrets

Bike

John Scott