Friday night was David Gilmour Night on BBC Four, and Gilmour also appeared on Later the same night. I should have been like the proverbial pig in shit, but somehow the timing of it, with Richard Wright so recently dead, sucked a lot of the enjoyment out of it all.
Richard Wright had been supposed to join Gilmour on Later but texted him a few weeks before to say that he probably would not be able to make it. Somehow the huge understatement there feels totally appropriate because Wright was always understated. He was like the John le Mesurier of prog rock: effortlessly good at what he did, unassuming and happy to let the limelight wash over everyone else while he just gets on with it. The diametric opposite to ‘flashy’. In recent film clips of him he was even starting to look like John le Mes!
Details of Wright’s illness are not in the public domain (and why should they be?) so it is not clear when he knew that he was so ill. it sounds like it was quick and so he probably didn’t know back in August 2006 when the Gdansk concert was filmed but even so it was terribly poignant to see the end of that show with him singing Comfortably Numb what with all it’s medical connotations.  That song always gives me goose bumps at the best of times.
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Watched it. Great concert and very sad in view of Richard’s death.
I would have liked to have seen a brief note at the end along the lines of ‘In memory of…’. I’ve seen it done on other programmes, sometimes within a very short time after the relevant death, so I think an opportunity was missed.
I thought ‘Remember a Day…’ was a most appropriate choice, an almost unspoken ‘In Memory Of..’ epitaph for our departed friend Rick. Among many Pink Floyd works, this piece speaks deeply to me, I can’t remember a day. Rick could, and for us all his quiet insight will remain a beckon in passages like ‘Climb your favorite apple tree… Try to catch the sun ‘. As sad a piece as it is, this shines hope for all who embrace these words. I’m forever touched by this and all of Rick’s compositions. Rest in peace my friend, try to catch the sun…