Pink Floyd news :: Brain Damage - David Gilmour's return to Pompeii and honorary citizenship

Latest Additions

Current most popular items

Statistics

Visitors: 99533234

Pink Floyd The Black Strat book by Phil Taylor

Pink Floyd 1987 WELCOME TO THE 25th YEAR OF BRAIN DAMAGE, YOUR PINK FLOYD, DAVID GILMOUR, NICK MASON, AND ROGER WATERS NEWS RESOURCE!

David Gilmour's superb new album, Luck and Strange, has now been released in a variety of formats, and a selection of coloured vinyls. A limited number of concert dates were announced, and these have now begun, thrilling crowds in Brighton, England and Rome, Italy - see all the confirmed David Gilmour concert dates here. We're also eager for your views on each of the shows, and really welcome comments, reviews, pictures or anything else you'd be willing to share with the Floyd community - [email protected] is the address to use - thank you!

Sadly, the European dates for the Nick Mason's Saucerful Of Secrets 2024 Set The Controls tour have come to their end. The gigs revealed a band in even better form than the 2022/23 shows which managed to exceed everyone's hopes and expectations! Our sincerest hopes are that they continue. Don't forget that there's the live recording from London's Roundhouse on Blu-ray, DVD/2CD, and 2LP which is really excellent.

Finally, Roger Waters read three extracts from his memoirs in October 2023 at the London Palladium, so it might not be too long before that is published...he's also working on his new album based around The Bar - we'll let you know as soon as we get all the info!

HOW TO HELP THE SITE: If you want to contribute anything - such as concert reviews, articles or pictures - we'd love to hear from you; please email us.

A sincere note of thanks to those who use our affiliate links to Ticketmaster.com, Ticketmaster.co.uk, Seetickets.com, Eventim UK, the various Amazon stores (as an Amazon Associate we earn commission from qualifying purchases); iTunes; Zavvi.com; HMV.com; and to those kind souls who make a Paypal donation toward running costs.

All these give much-needed help with things such as site hosting fees, and we really appreciate it. We get no funding, so every penny/cent helps keep the site running. Thanks! Finally, we use cookies to enhance your experience - but we use these purely to remember the size and width settings if you change these. External links may have their own cookies. By staying on our website you agree to our use of cookies.

VERY BEST WISHES
- your friends at Brain Damage

Home

David Gilmour's return to Pompeii and honorary citizenship

Written by Matt

Monday, 11 July 2016

Last week, David Gilmour and his band performed the pair of spectacular shows at the legendary Anfiteatro di Pompei in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius, marking the first time he has played there in 45 years. The performances were the first-ever rock concerts for an audience in the stone Roman amphitheatre which was built in 90BC and entombed in ash when Vesuvius erupted in AD79.

The amphitheatre was only uncovered after the Second World War and David's concerts were the first time that there has been an audience present in the arena in almost 2000 years. To mark the occasion of David's return, he was officially named an honorary citizen of Pompeii by local Mayor Ferdinando Uliano, in a special ceremony on July 6th, the day before the first show. Our thanks to Roger Leleu for the photos below, taken at the ceremony.

As noted elsewhere on this site, the lucky audience members were treated to an audio visual spectacular featuring lasers, pyrotechnics and a setlist featuring songs from throughout David's career. Tracks performed over the two nights ranged from his latest album 'Rattle That Lock' to the Pink Floyd classic 'One Of These Days', the only song that was also performed at the 1971 show.

Both concerts also saw very special performances of 'The Great Gig In The Sky' which David has rarely played as a solo artist (one of those rare performances was in Paris, 2006, with Sam Brown on vocals). A special guest at the second show was the world renowned classicist Mary Beard, an expert on Ancient Rome as well as a lifelong Pink Floyd fan, who treated David and his wife Polly Samson to a guided tour of the amphitheatre.