Capacity: To be confirmed; depends on configuration of seating

Concert starts: 9pm (to be confirmed)

Address of venue: Plac Wolności (Freedom Square), Wrocław, Poland. MAP

Website: www.wroclaw.pl

COMMENTS

David's 2015 tour of Europe was clearly not enough for him, as this date is the first (of a number of shows?) to be announced for 2016. It is in the heart of Wroclaw, one of the two European Capitals of Culture for 2016.

In a change to where the concert was originally said to be sited (Market Square), it is being held in Plac Wolności (Freedom Square) in Wrocław, and promises to be a very special event. The concert will form part of the city's celebrations as European Capital of Culture 2016.

It will be the first show on David's Rattle That Lock tour to include a 30-piece orchestra conducted by long term Gilmour collaborator Zbigniew Preisner and will also include a special guest appearance by Polish pianist Leszek Mozdzer. The special one-off event, located on Freedom Square in front of the National Forum of Music, will be filmed by Aubrey 'Po' Powell and broadcast live on Polish TV. Nearer to the day of the show, we will hopefully have more details of that for those who cannot attend the concert in person.

Tickets are available now from ebilet.pl, priced from PLN 120 - 195.

The last time that David performed in Poland, of course, film of the show ended up as the David Gilmour Live In Gdansk multi-format release. Could he be intending to film this show for future release as well? We certainly hope so!

Our thanks to Vlado Marcinek for sending over a scan of his ticket (middle right), so quickly as well - we received it a few hours after the tickets went on sale!

Thanks too to Steve, who sent in the ticket to the bottom right, which is different to Vlado's ticket...

Our thanks also goes to Tomas Zverbik, for letting us know about the official public information pack that can be downloaded for the concert through this link.

UPDATE: TV BROADCAST INFORMATION:
Television broadcast details are now through for the concert. Those in Poland (who are not attending the sold-out show, that is) should tune in to channel TVP2, who are scheduled to broadcast the first half of the concert between 9:45pm - 11pm local time. Following on, at 11pm is a half-hour interview with David, but no details are provided of when the interview was undertaken. 

The channel's website is at tvp2.tvp.pl.

The second half of the concert is due to air from 11:10pm local time on channel TVP Rozrywka. Our thanks to Cam for letting us know about the channel details. We understand that there will be NO official stream of either channel on the night.

UPDATE: Our thanks to Patryk Bierski who worked on the television production crew for David's Wroclaw concert. He took this photo inside the TV production truck half an hour before the concert started. It shows only a part of the main production control room, pointing out that this truck was much bigger! He said that they used a total of 22 HD cameras to record this concert.
 
 

In the meantime, here's a preview of the show from David's official Twitter feed... 

Finally, our thanks to Paul Baker who was in Wroclaw for the David Gilmour concert. He told us that there is an exhibition there which runs until 29th July showing the work of Ian Emes, focusing on his work with Pink Floyd, including the films he did for One Of These Days and The Dark Side of the Moon.

On Saturday morning Ian gave a talk and answered some questions.

Apparently there is a possibility that the exhibition will be shown in another location but no details yet.

WARNING - SPOILERS AHEAD!

Do not read on if you don't want surprises to be spoilt, regarding what the band played!

The final set of European concerts on David’s Rattle That Lock tour had a great, and appreciative, location to begin. Some ten years after the Gdansk concert, David made a return to Poland and a show broadcast live on the country’s television, with the filming directed by Pink Floyd’s artistic director Aubrey “Po” Powell.

Astronomy Domine and Fat Old Sun have been dropped from the set (well, for this show, at least) and two different songs were brought in, to replace the former: One Of These Days and Dancing Right In Front Of Me. The band were augmented for this particular show with an orchestra, giving a richness and added dimension to the sound.

In terms of the band changes, whilst it is always very sad to see members leave a successful team (and Phil, Jon and Kevin were key members of the band prior to this final set of shows), new boys Greg Phillinganes and Chuck Leavell combined extremely well, and Chuck brought a new element to Faces of Stone, playing an accordion. Chester Kamen took the guitar baton from Phil Manzanera and showed just why David picked him for those duties, with some beautiful playing.

Money was singled out for particular praise from a number of people as a highlight of the first half, and the second half pleased just as much. With the change of set to drop Astronomy for One Of These Days (last played in 1994, by the Floyd, at Earls Court), and Dancing Right In Front Of Me, instead of Fat Old Sun, the rest of the second half was otherwise as before, but again the tightness of the band, despite this being the first show for a chunk of the band, impressed many.

It seems clear that from reports coming in from Poland that the final dates of the Rattle That Lock tour should be worth catching if you are able to. There are still tickets (at time of writing) for some of the shows...

We'd love to know in more detail how the concert went. Did you go? Let us know what YOU thought!

In the meantime, thanks to Jamie Hamlin for sharing the picture shown here - wristbands at the ready before the show started!

REHEARSAL PICTURES by BD CONTRIBUTOR, Kevin Gauci

Here are a few pictures taken at the rehearsal on Thursday (2 days before the concert)...

CONCERT REVIEW and PICTURES by BD CONTRIBUTOR, Vlado Marcinek

The next stop of the tour was beautiful Wroclaw. A historical Polish city, currently a capital of culture of 2016.

I was lucky enough to get to the market square where the concert was to be held, on Thursday and I managed to watch part of the soundcheck. I was able to catch two pieces - Shine On and Dancing Right In Front Of Me, which was a nice surprise! I took a few pics as well.

I went behind the stage and saw the band leaving, but they clearly went the other way. The only one who was walking towards me was the conductor, great Zbigniew Preisner with the bag full of notes. I admire his contributions to On An Island and Rattle That Lock. I asked him for a photo and he happily agreed. My two sons insisted to be in it as well while my wife pressed the button.

The only thing I was afraid of was the weather. It was extremely hot throughout my stay, but the Saturday forecast wasn't that pleasant. Before the gig it looked like it was going to rain, but as the start approached dark clouds and wind disappeared. So what we experienced was a a lovely summer night with stars above us. And one would sense it was not only because of the weather we were about to remember that night.

It was the first gig for the new band members, but you couldn't tell. The band played so tight! They all were enjoying it and the overall feeling and energy was immense. This, combined with the fine sound quality gave everybody what they came for. Perfect musical experience and simply the great show!

I cannot stress enough how terrific the sound quality was! All respect to Colin Norfield and everybody who was involved in the project. It's never easy when the orchestra is involved. But despite all difficult aspects of it the result was outstanding! I’ve witnessed myself some fine big name artists playing acoustically good places and still having mediocre sound.

There were few changes to the setlist. First of all, the goods thing was On An Island wasn't replaced by What Do You Want From Me, because the band played both. Then, Astronomy Domine and Fat Old Sun were left off and replaced by One Of These Days (!!!) and Dancing Right In Front Of Me (!). Coming Back To Life stayed. Wonderful!

The encore was Time/Breathe Reprise and C Numb, during which lasers showed up. For these two pieces Guy Pratt wore a blue t-shirt with EU logo. Speaks for itself. He also threw all of his guitar picks into the audience at the end. Too bad I wasn't able to approach him so he could sign his book for me. Exquisite musician and fine man.

To conclude, I must say music is the best form of art. It's powerful, strong and emotional. There is nothing else like it. You simply cannot get the same feeling just by looking at some picture or beautiful sculpture no matter how wonderful that might be.

You experience it with all of your senses, your whole body.

David Gilmour is an example of an extremely talented artist who's blessed to be able to share his gift during his whole life. Retirement is not an option as he once said. Hence one thing's for sure. David's certainly no #randomman at all. He's a legend.

I want and must thank to David and his band as this was one of the lifetime experiences. Thank you very much!

REHEARSAL/SOUNDCHECK and CONCERT PICTURES by BD CONTRIBUTOR and STRICTLY FX MAIN MAN, Mark Grega

CONCERT COMMENTS and PICTURES by BD CONTRIBUTOR, Peter Cejka

Another mind-blowing experience after the Pula concert! I really hope that this show is going to be released on live DVD with the well-known Pompeii shows which are going to be filmed too. Highlights were too many, but I'll mention two - One Of These Days (what a surprise) and my favourite one - Sorrow! My huge thanks to David and his band(s) for 2 lifetime experiences! I really hope that this tour is going to be followed by the "next one"....

YOUR HELP NEEDED! We want to cover David's concerts the best we can, to share the experience with everyone, especially those who won't be able to attend the shows. We'd love to see ANY pictures, tickets scans, reviews, newspaper reports, and anything else you come across for this show - we look forward to hearing from you!