Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour and pianist Jools Holland, both at today's Buckingham Palace Investiture Ceremony to receive their CBE and OBE respectively, said they were more nervous receiving honours from the Queen than playing concerts for large crowds. Holland and Gilmour both said they could never have imagined their music would take them as far as Buckingham Palace. Gilmour, receiving a CBE for services to music, joked that the Queen had probably never even listened to Pink Floyd.

"I suspect that if she has listened to Pink Floyd it has been one of her children or grandchildren playing it and she is more likely to be the one to say 'turn it off'," said the guitarist. "But I do not know her taste in music."

When asked what the Queen had said when he collected his honour Gilmour remarked: "She said Pink Floyd had been doing it for a very long time and I had to agree."

The guitarist, who attended the investiture with his wife Polly and two of his eight children, said the CBE was a fantastic honour but he admitted he had felt nervous about meeting the Queen. "Playing to one-hundred thousand people is not so nerve wracking, playing to a few people is much harder," he said. "It was not so bad today, but I was a bit nervous." He added: "I hope that primarily it (the CBE) is for what I have done in music, but if some of my recent more publicised charity work has made a difference then I am happy about that."