Review: The Australian Pink Floyd Show in Cambridge
This spectacular and long-running tribute to the great Pink Floyd rolled into the Corn Exchange on Thursday (December 5).
Selling four million tickets worldwide and viewed as one of the finest tribute shows of its kind, The Australian Pink Floyd Show gave its first ever concert in Adelaide, Australia in 1988.
Since then, this group of virtuoso musicians have performed in more than 35 countries, played at David Gilmour’s 50th birthday celebration and were once even joined on stage by late Pink Floyd keyboard player, Rick Wright.
Two guitarists, a bass player, keyboard player, drummer and vocalist were joined on stage by three female backing singers to run through a selection of some of Pink Floyd's best-known songs.
An amazing light show and images and videos displayed on the screen behind augmented stunning, note-perfect renditions of Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2) (from their timeless 1979 album, The Wall) and Welcome to the Machine, while Wish You Were Here and The Great Gig in the Sky were truly sublime.
Interestingly, the band brought their own touches, visually, to the work of Pink Floyd - adding kangaroos into creative motifs, showing videos of Neighbours and Crocodile Dundee, and even bringing out a large inflatable kangaroo towards the end.
The second half began with the anthemic Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I-V), surely one of the greatest pieces of music from the second half of the 20th century.
The classics kept on coming, reminding the audience of Pink Floyd's breathtaking legacy, and the group acknowledged the importance of Cambridge to the Pink Floyd story - images of Syd Barrett, one of Cambridge's favourite sons, were shown at various moments throughout.
After the phenomenal Time, the highlight of the evening for me, the band got the crowd up on their feet for One of These Days and Run Like Hell, once again revisiting The Wall.
Having run through many of the songs that most Pink Floyd fans would want to hear, there was still one left to play - one glaring omission - and, sure enough, it arrived in the encore.
Comfortably Numb was the ideal way to round off what had been an invigorating sensory experience.
