Royal Albert Hall: Night One

Review: The Times; 26th September.

David Gilmour at Royal Albert Hall
The Pink Floyd legend returned for a victory lap after last year’s run and demonstrated that he is still at the top of his game

David Gilmour is an all-time guitar great at the top of his game.

David Gilmour once explained his ethos as “seeking bliss in music”. As the Pink Floyd legend returned to the Albert Hall for a victory lap after last year’s five-date run, the effects of his intentions felt palpable. Just the first languid, yearning note from his guitar on the opening 5AM – the man himself bathed in blue light and a haze of dry ice – soared with such clarity and feeling that it earned a spontaneous ovation.

It set the tone for a evening in which Gilmour’s resistance to mere nostalgia once again made for a precarious balance between totemic Floyd oldies and his less pulse-troubling solo material. While the show’s first half found room for Wish You Were Here, Money and The Great Gig in the Sky (wailed in harmony by three backing singers, like some eerie gospel threnody), it still felt dominated by more recent material, all rendered with dense sonic precision by his eight-piece band.

The Blue offered a showcase of Gilmour’s sky-scraping string bends and glissandos, his fret mastery projected in close-up on the 50ft circular screen – what a treat – while the anti-war In Any Tongue and the dolorous High Hopes moved with the slowness and weight of the Titanic in first gear.

The anticipated sound-and-light sensory assault duly arrived after the interval, as the prog-discotheque drama of One of These Days blew the hall to pieces in a strobing blitzkrieg of swirling green, blue and vermillion; the sense that the controls were now set for the heart of the sun becoming literal in the visuals for a glorious Fat Old Sun.

Yet, even before another retina-frazzling display for Run Like Hell (the band were forced to put on dark glasses), things detoured into the comedown longueurs of On an Island and the supper-club jazz of Girl in the Yellow Dress. It somehow typified the Gilmour live experience of momentum ebbing and flowing – but what stunning peaks. The 70-year-old recently said “God knows when we’ll do this again”; an admission that only deepened the perpetual feeling of being blessed to be watching an all-time guitar great at the top of his game.

Five Stars.

Last night’s setlist was…

First Set: 5 A.M.; Rattle That Lock; Faces Of Stone; What Do You Want From Me; The Blue; The Great Gig In The Sky; A Boat Lies Waiting; Wish You Were Here; Money; In Any Tongue; High Hopes.

Second Set: One Of These Days; Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts 1-5); Fat Old Sun; Coming Back To Life; On An Island; The Girl In The Yellow Dress; Today; Sorrow; Run Like Hell.

Encores: Time/Breathe (reprise); Comfortably Numb.