Monday 18 June 2018

Best musicians I've seen - 4.4 David Gilmour

Sifting through the mists of time, I reckon the first gig I went to was Tyrannosaurus Rex, still (just) in their acoustic hippy progressive era before Marc Bolan sold out, went electric and cleaned up with a string of the poppiest songs from any 20th Century Boy. Actually he did pick up an electric guitar for the last few songs of the set I saw at the Liverpool Phil, circa 1969 and the audience didn't know what to make of it. Although I enjoyed both versions of T Rex, Bolan isn't on my best guitarists list.

The next three gigs I saw were The Nice (see Best Musicians I've Seen 2, 26 October 2017 on Keith Emerson), Deep Purple (see Best Musicians I've Seen 4.2, Richie Blackmore, 22 April) and Pink Floyd. I can't remember the order of these but they were all in late 1969 or early 1970. Three amazing gigs actually!

Floyd, still in their fairly early post Syd Barrett days, played the Liverpool Empire around the time of the release of their double album Ummagumma, with its live recordings of already released tracks on one disc and a rather odd collection of pieces, though with the notable highlight of Grantchester Meadows on the second, studio recorded disc. Although I can remember general impressions from the gig, I can vividly remember one particular song: the Syd Barrett composition Astrominy Domine. Part way through it, as the other three musicians let Rick Wight play his quiet keyboard solo, David Gilmour crouched down on the floor of the stage, hunched over his guitar, fiddling with it. And he was still fiddling with it when Wright looked up, puzzled, as the guitar was meant to be coming back in. Then Gilmour lept up, waved and started playing. He had been replacing a string. Now the back cover of Ummagumma has a photo of the band's roadies with what looked to us, then, like a huge array of musical equipment in front of a medium sized van, rather than the pantechnicons that ferry band equipment now. There's a decent number of amps and speakers, a standard drumkit with some extra timpani (and a gong), various bits and pieces - but only two guitars and two basses. The two guitars both look like Fenders but might have been set up for different songs. So Gilmour had no spare when the string broke. And, needless to say, no guitar roadie to fix it for him. (Or to play along in the wings, beefing up the sound. In those days we knew who was actually playing!). So Gilmour fitted the new string himself. And was presumably having a go at tuning it, which would be why he was almost lying on the floor, trying to hear. Sometimes it's when things go wrong (see my piece on Richie Blackmore already referenced) that make for a memorable moment.

I've been extremely fond of Astrominy Domine ever since. Along with Rope Ladder to the Moon (the Collosseum Live! version, see Best Musicians I've Seen, 30 September 2017 and Best Musicians I've Seen 3, 16 March 2018) and Rondo 69  from The Nice's eponymously titled album, it is one of the tracks I have most listened to over the nearly 50 intervening years. I don't listen to many live albums but these three are all live recordings.

As for Gilmour, I hadn't seen many guitarists by then, but he was impressive, as were the band. I saw Floyd and Gilmour again at the Manchester Free Trade Hall. I guess this would have been 1972 as they were touring Meddle. While all three early Floyd albums had been top 10 hits in the UK, Ummagumma had achieved their highest album chart position to date. I bought the next one - Atom Heart Mother - which was their flirtation with playing with an orchestra and was their first number one seller. I've always liked it, though I didn't listen to it as much as The Nice's Five Bridges Suite. Like Ummagumma it's first half live, second half studio, with each band member contributing material to the latter. According to Nick Mason*, Gilmour - with little song writing experience at that point - was ordered to remain in the Abbey Road studios until he had composed a song suitable for inclusion on the album. The result, Fat Old Sun, is a gorgeous track and one of Gilmour's personal favourites.

The point I am moving towards here is that, in the late 60s and early 70s Gilmour was still developing as a musician, whereas the superficially more impressive Blackmore was pretty well the finished article. By then Deep Purple had found their musical identity with the release of their seminal - and breakthrough - album Deep Purple In Rock. In contrast Gilmour was just about to train on, as Floyd switched from their early era approach based on sound textures, soundscapes you might say, to writing actual songs and albums that flowed and soared, with Gilmour taking over from Rick Wright as arguably the key element in the band's sound, if not the major song writer.

I didn't enjoy the Meddle material as much as Ummagumma so, with student budget restrictions, I didn't buy it. At the time King Crimson, Traffic, Roy Harper and Soft Machine were all higher priorities to see and hear. The next Floyd album, Obscured By Clouds, sold well but was a bit of a stop gap, being based on a film soundtrack they had done. So I lost interest in their new material. This was more than a bit of a mistake, as their next offering was their definitive recording, Dark Side of the Moon, which features high on many pundits lists for the best album of all time. Although I soon caught up with this, by then my student years were over. Going to gigs was in abeyance to save money for the deposit on a house. Things don't change that much, youngsters! It was no holidays - ok, one week in a caravan in Wales in 3 years - no gigs and not much going out. After all, when we got the house we had no television or washing machine. Or anything much to sit on either. Do all those commenting today on the difficulty of getting on the housing ladder make the same sacrifices, I wonder? After all, not seeing Gilmour in the Floyd's mid 70s pomp was some sacrifice, in retrospect!

While Gilmour can play as fast as you like, his best stuff is the opposite of frantic: melodic and with a lot of sustain. A buddy who is a big Pink Floyd fan brought home a superb book from last year's V&A exhibition. A section on Gilmour's playing style describes how he often plays above and below the main melody, bending notes and swooping down and soaring up to join it. Breathe, the Gilmour track that kicks off Dark Side, is a classic example. Apparently Gilmour tended to use a lap steel or pedal steel guitar for these parts though they can be played as a conventional slide guitar part** - though Gilmour makes it sound nothing like a standard bit of slide playing. Not many guitarists pull off anything quite like it. As a compare and contrast, I like Muse and its front man Matt Bellamy a lot and I've seen them live twice. But Bellamy's playing can be the epitome of frantic. When we bought the superb but flawed Muse album Black Holes and Revelations and heard the track Invincible, which starts quietly with some almost Gilmour-esque long notes, but decends into a hectic and rather simplistic guitar break, I was heard to mutter to Mrs H "on tracks like this he couldn't half do with a lesson from David Gilmour". I've seen Muse twice and Bellamy is good, but no Gilmour.

Wikipedia notes that Gilmour's style is  characterised by "expressive note bends and sustain". Gilmour says of himself that his fingers make a distinctive sound: they "aren't very fast but I think I am instantly recognisable".

Indeed. So, while I didn't see Gilmour at his apogee, he's a fine guitarist and an outstanding musician and he is the first on my guitarists shortlist. Which is, as they say, in "no particular order". Since, although I think I've decided on it and the "winner", my indecision could yet prove to be final!

*Nick Mason's book Inside Out is a great read and highly recommended. But I can't write this stuff without checking some facts on Wikipedia, of course.

** Guitar Player, David Gilmour's Dark Side - a deep look at his rhythm and lead techniques. If you can play guitar - which I can't - this article tells you how to sound just like him.


2 comments:

  1. Talking of guitarists, although one of a very type, I'm going to see George Benson at the Phil' in Liverpool tomorrow night.

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