• Roger Waters @ 3Arena, Dublin

    June 28, 2018 - By 

    A lone figure sits on a sand dune on the domineering backdrop screen, facing the waves as the ambient clamour of seascape sounds permeate the chatter and hum of 3arena; oh so gradually intensifying. “Come ye in from the bar”, it almost whispers, and crashes, until the air vibrates that bit more and a thrum of bass is joined by choir-like vocals. “Get in, ye bastards”, they seem to beckon in their serene siren voices. And the people come, pints in hand. He knows how to build an air of subtle expectation, does Roger Waters. Always did. There can’t be…

  • The Final Cut, And The Ultimate Act of Protest

    December 1, 2016 - By 

    And now, the tide must turn. With the election of Donald Trump to the Oval Office, the cultural climate in America will inevitably change. These are uncertain times, even more so than in previous elections, as the world waits to see what President Trump will actually do. But regardless of the shape of his presidency, it’s almost certain that there will be an artistic response, capturing the fears and anger from that part of the population who no longer understand the world they’ve woken up in. The George W. Bush era was soundtracked by the pop-punk politics of Green Day…

  • Classic Album: Pink Floyd – Obscured by Clouds

    March 20, 2015 - By 

    In the wake of the solar eclipse that has captured people’s imaginations, and clogged up their social media feeds, Steven Rainey takes a bit of artistic licence and delves back into Pink Floyd’s history to rediscover an album that finds them revelling in the darkness caused by the blotting out of the sun.Technically, Obscured by Clouds is a soundtrack album for the French film La Vallee, a reasonably obscure oddity that finds a woman going on a voyage of self-discovery in New Guinea. I haven’t seen it, and I’m betting you haven’t either (and if you have, fair play to you –…

  • The Smuggest Album Ever Made: Pink Floyd’s The Division Bell

    July 15, 2014 - By 

    Apparently, Pink Floyd are set to release new music. Well, ‘new’ music. It says so on Polly Samson’s Twitter. And frankly, she should know. After all, she wrote most of The Division Bell, and now lists herself as the writer of something called The Endless River, a record made by her husband David Gilmour, featuring various other people, and credited to Pink Floyd. And if all this turns out to be the case (which it does) then there’s every chance that music fans are in for a pretty grim Autumn, as another catastrophically over-content monstrosity will be dumped upon us,…

  • No Good Trying: A Syd Barrett Playlist

    July 7, 2014 - By 

    “I wasn’t always this introverted. I think young people should have a lot of fun. But I never seem to have any.” So said Roger Keith “Syd” Barrett in an interview with Rolling Stone in 1971. Three years on from parting with Pink Floyd – a band he co-founded and named – Barrett had just released his second and final studio album, Barrett, before withdrawing from the limelight, a visionary, plagued genius; victim of psychedelic consumption. Tales of his heavy LSD use and notoriously erratic behaviour are well documented, agonisingly revealing the birth and decay of arguably psychedelia’s brightest star, a beatific songsmith, equally entrenched and liberated by his…