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Review: Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets, Bristol Beacon
When Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason inaugurated his Saucerful of Secrets back in 2018, it seemed as though this was destined to be a short-lived, catch-it-while-you-can affair. The Syd Barrett catalogue that the project is primarily intended to honour is fairly limited after all, and the Saucerful of musicians playing it seemed, on paper, to be rather an odd mix. But then something peculiar happened after we got over the surprise of how good they turned out to be. These exceptional musicians have matured and developed as a unit and are now more comfortable experimenting with the source material.
Tonight, for example, they take a raw Barrett vocal from one of the earliest Pink Floyd recordings, Remember Me, and play live to it in an arrangement by keyboard/harmonica player Dom Beken. The song itself is actually a brief and rather unremarkable piece of beat boom nonsense, originally recorded, Mason tells us, in a failed attempt to take part in a 1966 Melody Maker contest, but it’s great to hear Barrett’s voice booming round this hall for the first time since 1967, when Floyd played here on a bill with Jimi Hendrix, The Nice and The Move. Wouldn’t you just love to have been there?
is needed now More than ever
They stick to the Elder Statesmen of Prog template (see also Yes, Jethro Tull, Steve Hackett and Rick Wakeman) by playing a lengthy two-part show with a 20 minute interval and no support act. After familiar openers Astronomy Domine (with impressive four-part vocals) and the first two Floyd singles Arnold Layne and See Emily Play, accompanied by a suitably psychedelic light show and projections, they stretch out a bit with a lovely version of Obscured by Clouds and an excellent romp through a truncated Atom Heart Mother, although, as Mason explains, they couldn’t bring the orchestra because of “Brexit and budgetary constraints”.
The droll drummer goes on to tell a story about Floyd’s appearance at the Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Rock back in 1970, when they unveiled the piece early in the morning after a very long delay. The orchestra had been getting increasingly drunk as the evening wore on, so Floyd attempted to swap places with Johnny Winter. Alas, it turned out that the albino blues guitarist had just “self-medicated” and feared his drugs might wear off if he didn’t play soon.
Bassist and veteran Floyd sidekick Guy Pratt is rightly concerned that the other deceased member of Pink Floyd, keyboard player Richard Wright, should not be forgotten amid all the Barrett praise. And that’s not just because he was once married to Wright’s daughter. Wright wasn’t the most prolific songwriter, but he made key contributions to this era of Floyd. The gorgeous, nostalgic Remember a Day is beautifully sung by Pratt and remains one of the finest songs in the early Floyd repertoire.
It’s also great to hear The Nile Song – the closest Floyd ever got to heavy metal – with some fabulous guitar work by former Blockhead Lee Harris and Spandau Ballet’s Gary Kemp, who Mason rightly praises for making a “remarkable transition from New Romantic to prog rock god”.
The first set closes with a suitably trippy Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun, which also serves to remind us of Mason’s unique and distinctive drumming style as he works his way round his kit.
Set two is introduced with an audio collage of vintage interviews including Barrett and Roger Waters’ famous encounter with the snooty Hans Keller (“Why has it all got to be so terribly loud?”). Then it’s back to The Piper at the Gates of Dawn for Barrett’s The Scarecrow, accompanied by the song’s original promo film. The languid Fearless, with that You’ll Never Walk Alone sample, is a rare Waters/Gilmour composition played by Saucerful of Secrets, pointing forward as it does to mega-selling ’70s Floyd, while Barrett’s Lucifer Sam remains one of the best songs ever written about a cat.
They finish, of course, with the epic Echoes, whose opening ping brings a huge cheer of recognition. It’s as driving and enticing as when we all first heard it, with the central breakdown superbly handled, principally by Beken and Kemp. Equally driving is its shorter Meddle counterpart One of These Days, with the sampled Nick Mason vocal and quote from the Doctor Who theme tune, which is the first of two encore songs. A grand rendition of A Saucerful of Secrets brings the show to a close, as usual.
It’s all going so well for Saucerful now that it’ll be fascinating to see where Mason takes the band next. How about reviving The Grand Vizier’s Garden Party? It’s never been played live, after all.
All pix by Mike Evans
Read more: Metal & Prog Picks: June 2024
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