NICK MASON'S SAUCERFUL OF SECRETS: LIVE AT THE ROUNDHOUSE

Some years ago I came to hate The Dark Side Of The Moon because it's the change point fron the early Pink Floyd to what followed. Well I really love DSOTM and the followings, including the underrated The Final Cut, but I must say that I like the early Floyd much more. I have enjoyed the fantastic performances of the Italian cover band "Pink Floyd Legend" when they played Pompeii and Atom Heart Mother (two different gigs).

So what about Nick Mason setting up a band to play the old stuff with new arrangements without replacing the original mood of the songs? Unfortunately there aren't long trippy improvisations: Interstellar Overdrive is just a little bit of the original psychedelic box, and contains little inserts from Ummagumma, Atom Heart Mother is tied down to few minutes between two slices of "if" with the singer too high-pitched whose voice is too cold for that song.

It's not an issue. All the rest is excellent, including what is probably the only existing listenable version in terms of recording quality of "Vegetable Man". There's Obscured By Clouds introduced by a "Vangelis like keyboard", Remember A Day sounds better than the original. The band resisted to the tentation of transforming the hardest Floyd's song into a metal piece so that The Nile Song is still a psychedelic heavy track. It's a pity that the vocalist has added some unneded "personality" to it. His voice sounds much better on Green Is The Colour...still a great pop song, made even more pop by the country-rock coda, and still great. On Childhood's End his voice is almost perfect.

Some words about Mick's drumming: after many years of silence he appears in a very good shape and it's like being free from the two PF bosses has let him improve his skill. Not the usual metronome as we know him. Also Guy Pratt has more freedom and can even slap sometimes.

The most impressive arrangement is for me the electronic intro of Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun. Just one minute, but for my tastes I would have appreciated a 20 minutes version of that stuff. Unlike on If, Kemp here is able to give the song the right mood without resembling Waters in any way. This is the only old song still present in Roger Waters' shows. Believe me, this is its best live version after Pompeii. Mason does a great work on percussions. This song makes me trip even if I'm just drinking milk.

After having seen Emily play and listened to the ducks on bike, Guy Pratt has some fun with the only Pink Floyd's song on which Nick Mason's voice has been heard..."One Of These Days". Not much to arrange here. It can't be much different from the dozens of other live versions published during the years. Just a bit more psychedelia in the middle part introducing to the "vocals".

Saucerful of Secrets is shortened but it's still a good trip. It misses the "first movement" but of course has the metronomic drumming of the "second movement". Definitely a trip, but why so short? The third movement is longer and includes a guitar solo. Good but it makes it quite a "regular" song.

The story ends with the aborted soundtrack of Zabriskie Point. Point me At the Sky isn't the best Pink Floyd short song and very far from being a masterpiece. I've always considered it as one of the best Beatles' songs. But this is likely the reason why it has been used as closer: it's so stuck into its time, and ends with a "goodbye".

4 PA stars, 5 Octopus stars even with the little defects, especially in the vocals. I regret having missed them when they came to my country, even if at 600km from my city.