Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets - Usher Hall, Edinburgh, 4/5/2022

by John Clarkson

published: 21 / 6 / 2022

Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets - Usher Hall, Edinburgh, 4/5/2022

With photos by Andrew Twambley, John Clarkson enjoys a compelling show from Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets of the music of the early Pink Floyd at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh.

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When Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets formed in 2018, he wanted to do two things, firstly to revive “the spirit” of the young Pink Floyd, and secondly to bring their earlier material to the attention of fans, many of whom had got into them when they became a stadium act after the success of 1973’s ‘The Dark Side of The Moon’. The Pink Floyd that made the seven albums before ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ is long gone, killed twice over by the mental disintegration and departure of their original frontman Syd Barrett in 1968, and then again in the early 1980s by mega-stardom and acrimony. While there is nothing in the two-hour set that was released after 1972, tonight’s songs, however, sound timeless. Drummer Mason, who is now 78, and his bandmates, guitarists Lee Harris and Gary Kemp, bass player Guy Pratt and keyboardist Dom Beken, all of whom have been playing in groups for years, play with the passion and energy of men many years younger. “It helps that we like each other,” quips Mason at one point, who is at the Usher Hall for the first time since Pink Floyd last played there in 1974. Pratt was a session player with Pink Floyd in the 1980s and 1990s after Roger Waters left the band. and was at one point married to their late keyboardist Richard Wright’s daughter. It is, however, Kemp who is the revelation. He was the guitarist and songwriter in Spandau Ballet and is best known for writing treacly ballads such as ‘Gold’ and ‘True’. A Floyd fan since his youth, his vocals, which he co-shares with Pratt, have something of the beautiful, reedy quality of Barrett, and his and Harris’ taut, juggling guitarwork do much to highlight the complexity of Pink Floyd’s arrangements. Songs such as ‘One of These Days’, ‘Astronomy Domine’, and ‘Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun’ are not unknown, just lesser known than the likes of ‘Money’, ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’ and ‘Another Brick in the Wall Part II’. The group, however, dig out some real obscurities, such as ‘Vegetable Man’, which was only available on bootlegs for years before finally emerging on 2016 box set ‘ The Early Years 1965-1972’, and ‘Candy and a Currant Bun’, the little heard B-side to their first single, ‘Arnold Layne’. It is all brought to a close with the twenty minutes plus bubbling ‘Echoes’, before the band come on to do an encore of ‘See Emily Play, ‘A Saucerful of Secrets’ and ‘Bike’. Psychedelic images are bounced off screens on the walls behind the stage throughout, along with images of an already lost looking Barrett and a young cowboy-hatted, heavy moustached Mason. Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets may be at one level simply an e covers ptoject, but this has been a splendid, riveting show and there will be much here left of the UFO Club in 1967 and Pink Floyd’s early stage shows Set List:: First Set: One of These Days Arnold Layne Fearless Obscured by Clouds When You're In Candy and a Currant Bun Vegetable Man If Atom Heart Mother If (reprise) Remember a Day Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun Second Set:: Interstellar Overdrive Astronomy Domine The Nile Song Burning Bridges Childhood's End Lucifer Sam Echoes Encore: See Emily Play A Saucerful of Secrets Bike Photographs by Andrew Twamb;ey www.twambley.com