On Friday night, October 16th, Roger Waters participated in this year's Music Heals benefit concert in aid of MusiCorps. Joining Roger was Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan, as well as Tom Morello, GE Smith, and the MusiCorps Band.

The event raises money for MusiCorps - a charity supporting injured service men and women and their families. MusiCorps Band is made up of injured service members who have learned, and in some cases relearned, how to play instruments through the charity.

The concert was held at the DAR Constitution Hall in Washington DC, a venue which seats around 3,700. Roger has supported MusiCorps for a number of years and served as a mentor to members of the MusiCorps Band, playing with the veterans at the Walter Reed Hospital in Washington DC and encouraging their love of music as part of the rehabilitation process.

The setlist, shown below, included some unusual and unexpected choices, to please the crowd, and initial reports are that the performances were highly impressive throughout. We are expecting some show reports through shortly, but in the meantime, here's what was played:

As a reminder, David Gilmour is part of the bill of "I'm With The Banned - Staging A Revolution" which is being held at a sold-out Koko in London's Camden this evening. He will be performing with Ukrainian supergroup Boombox, who fronted the Maidan demonstrations in Kiev with Okean Elzy and Ruslana. They are now banned from performing in Russia because of their pro-freedom stance.

Other artists on the bill include Neil Tennant & Nicolai Khalezin, Pussy Riot, Viktoria Modesta, Belarus Is Not Sexy with Kim Cattrall, Brutto, and Juliet Stevenson & Jeremy Irons.

Just announced by the BBC is a live stream from tonight's event - which is scheduled to be through this direct link. It will give all those unable to attend due to either geographical reasons, or because tickets are sold out, a chance to enjoy the show too. We don't know, though, if the stream will be available post-concert.

Friday night, London's Barbican was the scene of the UK premiere of the finished version of director Roddy Bogawa's fascinating documentary, Taken By Storm.

The film is an absorbing and affectionate look at the incredible body of work created by Storm Thorgerson and his colleagues in Hipgnosis and StormStudios. Full of archive footage, along with more recent interview material - featuring the likes of David Gilmour, Peter Gabriel, Robert Plant and more - the 85 minute film is something that music fans of all persuasions will thoroughly enjoy. Storm's unique way of working comes across clearly, revealing the lengths he would go to, to realise his visions and ideas.

After the screening, conducted in front of a packed audience that included many notable figures from the world of music (and in particular, the Floyd world), there was an absorbing Q&A with Bogawa, along with Aubrey 'Po' Powell, Peter Curzon (StormStudios) and producer Orian Williams.

The film is shortly to be released on DVD and download. The DVD is housed in a digipak with some typically excellent design work by StormStudios, honouring their friend and colleague, and can now be preordered from www.TakenByStormFilm.com. If you are yet to see it, here's the trailer...

Last night (Thursday, October 15th), David Gilmour and Polly Samson participated in a fascinating public discussion, an evening part of a wider initiative called 5x15 which has involved a wide range of personalities talking about their own spheres of experience.

David and Polly's event was held at London's ornate Porchester Hall, scene of the launch event for Pink Floyd's The Endless River. The event had the pair discussing their creative relationship, as well as music, inspiration and their artistic processes, with author Andrew O'Hagan asking the majority of questions (and facilitating a range of interesting questions from the audience).

As the introduction acknowledged, the roots of last night's chat were in June's Borris House Festival of Writing and Ideas appearance, which covered similar ground and gave the lucky few a sneak preview of a couple of tracks from the Rattle That Lock album. During the London event, the discussion covered similar ground but expanded on certain areas - and early (or demo) versions of a number of David's more recent works were aired courtesy of his iPhone. He also had an acoustic guitar to his side which was called upon at various points during the evening.

Thus, we got to hear an early Smile (which originally - amongst David's children at least - was known as Donkey Poo), In Any Tongue (which Polly pointed out, had David almost scatting the words "Haagen Dazs" - the ice cream company - through the early, rough version). There was also an early version of Girl With The Yellow Dress played back, which featured a lot less instrumentation. O'Hagan concentrated on the genesis of these and other recent works, which made for a fascinating insight into the creative process, particularly related to A Boat Lies Waiting, of which Polly related the difficulty in resolving the subject matter and lyric for.

Some of the explanations were familiar to those who have been reading, watching, or listening to, the recent range of interviews, such as Polly coming up with the lyrics to Rattle That Lock while studying Milton's Paradise Lost & researching The Kindness. There were a number of other areas that were less trodden roads, including wider discussions of music (including David's opinion of why, or more accurately who was responsible for, The Beatles breaking up). However, as David noted at one point, "conflict has led to a lot of great music".

One added bonus last night for many was the unexpected signing session which followed the event, with David and Polly happily autographing various items for the audience.

At present, there are no announced plans for any further discussion sessions.