Ummagummaa at the Mean Fiddler, London
The thought of seeing early Pink Floyd tunes live got me all excited, I rummaged about for my kaftan, but just my flares were found! Proper psyche out rock was what I was looking forward to.
Obviously they had a pretty hard reputation to live up to, and coming on stage were 4 old blokes playing Pink Floyd, well, I may as well have gone to see.....Pink Floyd...
But hang on, we've got Astronomy Domine, Set the Controls, Echoes, Careful with that Axe, even Saucerful of Secrets including a full on assault of a back stage gong!
Superb musicmanship, I can't deny them that, they all have a pedigree background, but maybe they lacked a bit of the quirky soul. At times they went too 'twiddly' and were verging on a pub rock band out to impress. But it did start to lift off.
We all started to wig out to One of These Days, and by the time of the 'encore' comprising of Syd stuff, Arnold Layne, See Emily Play I was thinking of carbon dating the atmosphere. The set closer, or mind opener, was the full on, tune in and take off Interstellar Overdrive.
The only thing missing was a better DJ to whip us up to start with, instead of a blues CD. All right, it wasn't the UFO club or Middle Earth, but the Mean Fiddler was certainly starting to levitate that night.
Final comment....? Marmalade, I like Marmalade!!
Barney, March 11th.