David Gilmour stuns fans at Intuit Dome in first US show in eight years: concert review

Will the last remaining true classic-rock guitar-god frontman turn out the lights? And then, naturally, put on a big light show?

David Gilmour may not have sole possession of that title (Eric Clapton preceded him when he passed through LA just two weeks ago), but there isn't much competition for the place he holds in rock culture. It's safe to say that the four shows he's doing in SoCal will be a significant draw even if he tours more than once every eight years (that's a gap since the last time, though, not average)… and even if his North American “road Trip” this time was not limited to only two cities. Throw in the scarcity caused by the aforementioned factors and it's no wonder that there's an element of David Gilmour tourism in the Southland this week, with national and even international Pink Floyd fans flying in and posting “you want to be here” messages on their social media from the beautiful town of Inglewood. .

Gilmour's first U.S. show since April 2016 took place Friday at the Intuit Dome, just one of the nearly brand-new venues booked ahead of the three dates she's performing this week from Tuesday through Thursday at the more familiar clime of the Hollywood Bowl. . From there it's on to New York's Madison Square Garden for five nights, November 4-10. And then, Brigadoon goes back into the mist, and we get her back… when? 2032? Perhaps less frequently than that, since he indicated that recording his fifth solo album, “Luck and Strange,” charged him with making music on a more regular schedule. Or maybe never, since Gilmour seems like a guy who honestly loves the English countryside more than we do.

Regardless of what Gilmour's travel regimen may or may not turn out to be in the coming years, the Intuit Dome was a great place to be alive and well in the moment Friday, under the spell of a man very careful with that ax. As always, he sounded like a rocker gifted with two voices: the one coming out of his mouth, which has acquired just a touch of rasp around the edges with age, and the one coming from his hands, which feels emotional. As expressive as any literal voice ever could be. The eternal irony stands out: Gilmour, utterly unrepentant and ineffective as a stage persona, effectively breaks down in tears once or twice per song, giving the human familiar a gentle sob.

Gilmour's US opening-night setlist matched what audiences in Europe had seen a few weeks earlier in a split of dates in England and Rome. Roger Waters-era Pink Floyd (seven tracks), solo-led by Gilmour, the post-Waters Floyd albums (five songs), Gilmour's previous solo album, “stretched to nearly three hours, with an intermission containing a healthy mix of selections from. Rattle That Lock” (number three) and “Luck and Strange” (track nine).

There will no doubt be some fans who would prefer to hear more classic Floyd cuts instead of the newer two — but it's better to have an artist who's inspired and engaged than an artist who feels contractually obligated to perform. “Money.” The songs are good, and sometimes not just good but all the time, but what everyone pays the most for here is the single. And to that end, she could sing “Pink Pony Club,” until she blew her chops as part of the deal. That's not to diminish the new songs — mostly written with his wife, Polly Samson, as always, from 1994's “The Division Bell” forward — as the delivery system for that instrumentally spectacular payoff. Until a climactic point, surprisingly, the night's biggest standing ovation came for Gilmour's fireworks capping one of the new songs, “The Piper's Call,” early in the second half. A thrillingly effective single like that doesn't scale its peak on its own, and the warnings Samson wrote into those songs may have served as a piper to bring out the best in Gilmour when she finally let it rip.

But the best song on “Luck and Strange” might be one that Gilmour didn't co-write or sing. That would be “Between Two Points,” a cover of a cult-favorite Montgolfier Brothers song now being toured by, according to records, the artist's daughter, Romani Gilmore. Ironically, the sadistic, doomsday songs that read as the album's closest come across in the kind of blasphemous sound that Roger Waters turned out to be, and Romani's simple, unaffected delivery adds a poignancy to them that might not have been there. If only Sr. Gilmore had provided the cover himself. Of course the concert version ended in yet another firepower from the father, half or perhaps explosively protective of his daughter, taking his instrument for a few terrifying minutes.

Once Romani emerged for “Between Two Points” late in the first half, she remained onstage for the rest of the show, taking her place with three other women who formed a vocalist-instrumentalist chorus, the Webb Sisters and Louise Marshall. Romany sometimes picked up a portable harp, which complemented Hattie Webb's larger harp; It was the only rock show in LA Friday night to boast any twin-harp-attack moments.

That doesn't seem to detract from the star's vocal numbers, but arguably Friday night's best number was another in which Gilmour relinquished her position as lead singer to female vocals. “The Great Gig in the Sky,” the track that Claire Torry legendarily wailed to end Side 1 of “The Dark Side of the Moon,” could be a concert highlight if one of the touring Floyd frontmen could find a way to pull it off… Which they both have. Waters did a tour where he got vocal duo Lucious to impressively double Tori's powerful vocal parts. Gilmour found it difficult to top or even find a different approach to it… and the last time he toured the States, he left the tune off his setlist. This time, he's offering an innovative arrangement where all four women on stage sing it – Romani, Marshall and Hattie and Charlie Webb – sitting around the piano with Marshall playing, while the front man plays his trademark lap-steel part. the other end. It's a wordless vocal number where almost anyone who tries it breaks a lung, a la Torrie. But here, four women took the approach of singing the whole thing softly… really going softly into that good night, and going beautifully.

This is somehow symbolic of a softer approach that Gilmer takes in almost all cases. Waters' approach to Pink Floyd emphasized elements that were haunting, even terrifying. Some of these are embedded in songs that are still part of Gilmour's sets, such as the “Breathe”/”Time” medley of “Dark Side”, which served as a news warning to the next generation of young people that they were going to die one day. (It's a dirty job, but some songs have to do it.) But this kind of material never felt like it was coming from Gilmour's residency. The early Floyd song in the set that feels most reflective of the artist's true atomic heart is the vintage single “Fat Old Sun,” which, if it's not the happiest song in the band's catalog, certainly comes close.

There is a peacefulness to Gilmore's overall ethos that is at odds with his former partner's concerns. And so when you go to one of his concerts, you know, good or bad, it's not going to be a message show… outside of the message that life is bitter. There will be inflatables, but not a giant pig, where you're going to be nervous about what annoying logo is branded. Rather, for “High Hopes,” the tune that ends Act 1, giant balloons are launched into the audience, sending everyone into the ecstatic lobby as they wait for what's to come in the second half.

It's not a super-high-tech show, or at least not an overtly envelope-pushing show by Floyd standards. The big screen behind the band often presents visuals in a giant circle, just like in the 70s. In the divorce, Gilmer even got the rights to (or at least a share of) the vintage “Time” animations of the rotating clock. There's a monochrome, pencil-sketch animation of soldiers scaring children during battle, showing that the artist isn't afraid to present a momentarily disturbing scene, amid overall calmness. Com Kal is a colorful new animation for “Dark and Velvet Nights”. There are some fresh wrinkles to the lighting scheme — notably, in Act 2 opener “Sorrow,” when the entire stage seems enveloped from bottom to top in a strobe-packed thunderstorm. But towards the end, what really makes the audience ooh and aah is some green lasers… just like before.

The show ended with its only encore, “Comfortably Numb,” which in strictly thematic terms is not a great way to end a concert, on the note of drugging yourself into oblivion. But Gilmour can't help it if he and Waters wrote a sad song that no more upbeat song could reasonably follow. It contains not just one but two of the greatest guitar solos ever to appear on a Steely Dan record, and at age 78, Gilmour will blow your mind again with expansive versions of both of them.

Through it all his playing is bluesy – much more bluesy than it's usually given credit for – but certainly a strangely ethereal version of the blues, transported from heaven and sent back. Gilmore might have been called a “slow hand” if that label hadn't been slapped on Clapton first; After hearing him perform at a show like this, fans may feel ready to finally hand over the title “…Is God”.

Setlist for David Gilmour at Intuit Dome, Inglewood, Calif., October 25, 2024:

Set 1:
5 am
black cat
fate and strange – instr
breathe in (air)
the time
breathe (again)
Fat Old Sunshine
kill
A single spark
you want here
life is short
between two points
high hopes

Set 2:
sadness
The piper's call
A great day for freedom
in any language
Brief discussion
The Great Gig in the Sky
A boat is waiting
Coming back to life
Dark and velvety night
sings
distracted
comfortably numb