Darkside, the drama written by Sir Tom Stoppard for BBC Radio 2, which incorporated music from Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon, is released worldwide as a deluxe CD package on November 25th 2013. As many of you will recall, the play was an original commission by Radio 2 to mark the 40th anniversary of Pink Floyd's album, and broadcast on August 26th this year.

Produced in collaboration with Sir Tom Stoppard’s publishers Faber and Faber, the luxury package resembles a hard-backed book, and includes a CD carrying the 54-minute play, which incorporates the majority of the Dark Side of the Moon album, plus a 56-page bound insert of the play's script. The cover features artwork by Hipgnosis designer Aubrey 'Po' Powell in collaboration with StormStudios, based on the specially-created Aardman Animations piece used to publicise the broadcast. The full play script includes all the dialogue and stage directions, plus Roger Waters' original lyrics from the album. The release also features a bonus disc with text translations in German, French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Japanese, Mandarin and Russian.

David Gilmour said of Darkside: "I found the script of Tom's play fascinating; I can't think of a better way to celebrate The Dark Side of The Moon's 40 year anniversary." Nick Mason added: "I love it. If anyone is going to mess with the crown jewel of albums, Tom is a very good choice."

We will have full ordering details for this release hopefully later today, and will update this news item accordingly. You can currently pre-order the release though this direct link to Amazon UK and through this direct link to Amazon.com. Links for other Amazon stores will be here shortly.

AyseDeniz Gokcin, the pianist who has turned a number of Pink Floyd tracks into classical arrangements, last month (September 2013) recorded an entire concert of Floyd material, taking inspiration from Chopin and Rachmaninov.

The Turkish pianist who previously hit the headlines when she recorded versions of the band's legendary back catalogue such as 'Hey You' and 'Another Brick In The Wall' has posted the concert on her YouTube channel (and can also be seen below).

The 63-minute concert, recorded at the Piano Extravaganza Festival in Sofia, Bulgaria, tours the band's history, starting with Welcome To The Machine, which leads to Set The Controls for the Heart of the Sun, through to diverse tracks such as Another Brick, On The Turning Away, Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Us and Them, and more... Some interesting techniques used too. Well worth a listen. The performance is a taster of a complete album of Floyd reinterpretations by Gokcin, which is due in November this year.

Billboard.com have just reported that Roger Waters, with the ticket sales now in from the final shows of the 2013 European tour, has set the solo artist ticket sales record, eclipsing Madonna and reaching third place in the overall standings (which includes groups). With $81.3 million in ticket sales reported for the final leg through 27 shows in 26 European cities, the tour as a whole totalled an impressive $459 million from 219 performances. For the 2013 show, a total of 830,123 fans attended (from a maximum possible of 915,081)

The tour originally launched in September 2010, and with the amount of equipment, staging, transportation and personnel involved in the complete production, it was never going to be a cheap enterprise to run so we'd be interested to know just how much of this amount ended up as profit. Ticket prices, in particular compared to other performers, were on the whole set at a fair level.

Billboard report that "the $459 million gross surpasses the solo record of $407 million previously set by Madonna with her Sticky & Sweet tour in 2008-09 and grants Waters with the third highest-grossing tour of all time. Only U2 and the Rolling Stones grossed more from a single tour. Sales from U2's 360° tour totalled $736 million (2009-2011) and the Rolling Stones' A Bigger Bang tour grossed $558 million from 2005-2007.

As previously reported, Roger Waters will also be giving the Keynote Q&A at the 10th Annual Billboard Touring Conference, scheduled for November 13th/14th at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City.

We've just found out about a fascinating, timelapse video that was put together by Tait Towers who provided the staging, scenic fabrication and groundbreaking automation for Roger Waters' The Wall Live world tour. It shows the complete set-up of the staging, testing the projections, and is well worth a watch: