Nick Mason to Perform Early Pink Floyd Live

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A new band calling itself Saucerful of Secrets—featuring Pink Floyd co-founder Nick Mason—will perform four gigs in England in May. The five-piece band, which also features Gary Kemp of Spandau Ballet and former Block Lee Harris on guitars, producer/composer Dom Beken on keyboards, session bassist Guy Pratt—will perform only material from Pink Floyd’s earliest years, 1967-72.

Pratt worked with Pink Floyd after the departure of Roger Waters and Beken worked with the late Floyd keyboardist Rick Wright. Also, Bekem and Pratt worked together in an electronic outfit called Transit Kings.

According to the announcement, “This is a unique opportunity to experience Pink Floyd’s celebrated and significant early body of work played live, including songs from albums The Piper at the Gates of Dawn and A Saucerful of Secrets.”

The announcement continued, “Very few bands are as culturally important as Pink Floyd. They are one of the best-selling music artists of all time and Nick Mason is a founder and the only constant member of the band performing on all of their albums as well as all of their live shows.”

The shows mark Mason’s first live musical outing since Pink Floyd played at the 2005 Live 8 concert in London.

Early Pink Floyd (l. to r.): Roger Waters, Syd Barrett, Nick Mason, Richard Wright

Former Pink Floyd bassist/vocalist Roger Waters recently returned to the stage in Europe. For a recap of the first show from the current leg of the “Us + Them” tour, which launched in Barcelona, go here.

David Gilmour, the former Floyd guitarist, has been hinting that he may release a new album. He released the film David Gilmour – Live At Pompeii in various formats last fall. Read more about that set here.

In a 2012 interview, Mason was asked if the early Pink Floyd material held up well. “Yeah, it does,” he said. “One thing is that Syd [Barrett, the late co-founder] was a wonderfully gifted songwriter and also, there are a lot of germs of ideas that came up later, in Rick’s playing in particular. Tracks like ‘Interstellar Overdrive’ have that whole thing about finding ideas and pushing them around, even in the recording studio.”

The four dates, already sold out, are as follows:

5/20—Camden Dingwalls
5/21, 5/23, 5/24—Putney, The Half Moon

Watch “One of These Days” from Nick Mason’s Live at Pompeii film