On Monday, March 17th, 2003, I received an email
from an old friend. The title said it all: "FW: Invitation to Sony and Capitol Records Press Event for Pink Floyd's DSOTM...". I
dashed through the email and went right to the attachment.... on Monday, March
24th, Sony and Capitol Records would celebrate the release of the
SACD version of “Dark Side of the Moon.”
What really had me was the line that the event would include special
guests... my mind wandered.
Before
returning my friend’s email, I checked out the train schedule - I’m a few hours
away from New York City. Even though the party was on a Monday, I
could get out of work... again, the “special guests” had my mind
wandering.
I booked
the ticket - a long day ahead of me... up and back all in a day. I contacted my friend and told him I was
coming; we were both so excited. He was the one with me back in college when I
got my first David Gilmour autograph. He
promised he wouldn’t let me get too excited at the party.
The
entire week of waiting was filled with excitement, then, I got another
email. It was another forward and all my
friend typed was “see below...” There
was a note from one of the reps. It said that one of the band members would be
there. I about lost it.
The rest
of the week took forever! I didn’t sleep
much the entire weekend - just filled with excitement. Finally, the day came. I went into work for a few hours, unable to
think about anything but the trip to NYC.
I took an
early afternoon ride and was in NYC by 4pm
or so. I met my friend and we headed
straight for the Hayden Planetarium - see photo above. The building was beautiful, especially on the
perfect, cool spring day. The sun set
through the building – some great pictures.
We walked around (since we were there early) and hypothesized who’d be
there. I had my money on Waters, seeing
as he has a place near NYC. My friend
hoped for Gilmour, since I’m such a big fan, he wanted to see how big of a fool
I’d be if he was there.
We
entered the planetarium and immediately noticed the open environment- whoever
was there would definitely be approachable (good thing I packed my
Sharpie!)
I took a few shoots of a
group being photographed... I didn’t notice any of the Floyd and at that point
I was a little disappointed. I figured,
if they were there, they’d be in the photo.
The event
soon opened and we made our way down. My
friend knew several of the media contacts.
I was introduced as the fan... kinda embarrassing but one of the reps
insisted on bringing James over to meet me.
Shortly thereafter, a smiling James Guthrie appeared. James is the long time Floyd
engineer/friend.
He was great! He warmly introduced himself, we had a few
quick words and said to come up to him after the speeches. I was a little in shock... but then the event
began. A few of the Sony/Capitol reps
spoke, then the floor was given the James.
James, who I was later told hates public speaking, gave a great account
of working on the SACD DSOTM re-release.
He said he’s a fan of SACD over DVD Audio and wanted to do something
special with the 30th anniversary, as opposed to “just another
re-release.” The result was the amazing
sounding CD.
James gave accounts of
being stuck in a great blizzard in his home studio in California.
The deadline kept creeping closer- and he didn’t have any power! James mentioned that he hoped to get “a
couple of the band members to attend” but that their schedules didn’t
permit.
Needless to say this was a big
disappointment but during the middle of James’ speech, I noticed a familiar
face in the crowd... Holding a camera
and documenting the occasion was... Jon Carin of Waters/Floyd fame! He freely moved around and no one noticed
him...
Back to James... another great tidbit, he revealed that Storm Thorgerson
worked on a series of artwork for a 3-3-03 release. The artwork focused on the series of “3”s in
the date, as well as the “current” number in the band and 30th anniversary... too bad we couldn’t see any of it!
James wrapped up and we were invited into the
listening area (below the prism projection.)
The sound was truly amazing. It
was provided by ATC/Acoustic Engineers.
The front and rear speakers were each 3+ feet tall and gave me the
feeling that the 70s model Floyd were playing right in front of me.
At this
point, we were free to roam. Having
listened to a better part of the album near the listening area, we decided to
take James up on his offer. He and Jon
stood together, with never more than a few people around them. I worked up some nerve and walked up to Jon,
patted him on the shoulder and asked if I was the first person to recognize
him. James proclaimed that he knew someone
would recognize Jon. They had a good
chuckle.
My friend and I proceeded to
have a great visit with Jon and James.
James spoke about how rough the Floyd/Waters relationship really is...
he would be on the phone- one line would be Gilmour, the other Waters. They still don’t speak! Jon was especially friendly. I was again introduced as the fan- Jon wanted
to know all the times I saw Waters/Floyd live.
I recounted a Waters’ show near Scranton,
Pennsylvania- it poured for the
whole show. The show was outdoors and
that summer (1999) was a bad drought for much of the east coast. For whatever reason, it decided to rain that
night. A few songs in, the skies opened
and it poured! Lightning,
thunder!!! Jon couldn’t believe
that I (and most of the audience)
stayed! He was really amused- and
flattered, I think.
Jon is amazingly
humble. He had a funny story in that he
loaded up a hard drive with all of his sounds for Waters’ son, Harry, for the
latest round of live shows. Jon couldn’t
tour because he and his wife had just had their first child.
We continued to chat- I asked about the
latest Waters’ studio album- he confirmed that Waters’ was still working on his
opera and that that was demanding a lot of time. He did mention that he had just spent a month
working on the new studio album!!! He
said the songs were great!!! As expected
though, the process is a slow one- no one would ever agree that Waters isn’t a
perfectionist! Jon did not mention when
the album would be released.
Jon and
James began joking about James’ speech- Jon said he came to document the
occasion because James hates public speaking.
Who knows, maybe his photos will end up in Waters or Gilmour’s hands?
Before we
left for the evening, I had a chance to get my photo taken with both Jon and
James. I can’t say enough good things
about them- they were both wonderfully friendly and genuinely appreciative of
the praise they received....
You may remember
at the beginning of this account that I mentioned there’d be a member of the
band at the event. Well, I can’t say I
wasn’t disappointed that none of the “big four” were there.
However, Jon and James were great and
technically, there was a band member there!
The rep, who earlier in the evening grabbed James and introduced us,
told us she’d make up for that... so you may get another story out of me!
The trip
home was long- it had been a long day... I kept thinking about the evening-
recounting all of the conversations and replaying the great tunes in my head.
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