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Anderson Council
(Pink Floyd Live Experience)
October 19th 1997,
Brummen, The Netherlands
By Ed Sander
Live at the Brummen Pink Floyd Convention
I visited this gig with a couple of friends from the Pink Floyd Mailing List Echoes.
I had seen these guys a couple of times before and had enjoyed it most of the time, although they are far from being musical
talents. I was a bit disappointed that they were the leading act on a Floyd convention again. Why not try another band for
a change (for instance Pros & Cons) ?
The complete setlist was:
Let There Be More Light
The Embryo
(including long improvisation and snippet of 'Funky Dung')
Cymbaline
Welcome to the Machine
Have a Cigar
Shine on You Crazy Diamond II
Time/Breathe (reprise)
Sheep
What Do You Want From Me
Another Brick in the Wall I (instrumental)/Hey You
Celestial Voices
Echoes
There were a lot of different opinions about the band. In my opinion the first three songs were not that bad, although far
from technically flawless. Anderson Council had always been specialized in the pre-Dark Side of the Moon stuff.
However, it was apparent that the guitar player did not have his day. I've seen him play a bit better in previous gigs. The
bass player was playing quiet good, and the keyboard guy really did his best. Most of his solos were rather good but the
timing (especially with the lyrics) was still far from perfect. The drummer was plainly awful, which someone in the audience
made perfectly clear by yelling:"Drummer, wake up !!".
The band had a hard time playing in time with the Moog rythm during Wwlcome to the Machine, played Shine On II far
too slow, the drum solo in Time was pathetic and the end solo in Sheep could hardly be heard. Only a couple of songs
worked well; Let There be More Light, Embryo, Cymbaline and Celestial Voices (to which the whole hall sang along).
As far as I'm concerned this was the worst performance by Anderson Coucil I have ever seen. I had expected them to
become a bit better through the yaers .... well, they haven't. What's more, the band members don't seem to be having a
whole lot of fun on stage. I've never seen such sour, uninterested faces (except for the keyboard player, who's quite a nice
fellow).
The late encore of Echoes, which was played quite reasonable, made up a lot for the moderate performance. They did
have some problems with the transition to the whale/seagull part.
After Anderson Coucil's performance a jam session would follow. Although some of us still had the intention to do a Dutch
version of Careful with that Axe, Eugene (Voorzichtig met die Bijl, Eugene), complete with the two note bass part on
beer bottles, it was getting rather late and since it looked like it might take quite a while before the equipment would be
changed we decided to begin the journey home (which was quite a long one for some of us) at 1.30 AM. |
