Pink Floyd 'beast' won't be unleashed

Though we just saw his contemporaries in The Who and The Doors running over the same old ground, don't expect David Gilmour to be airing out the inflatable pig for a Pink Floyd tour any time soon.

"The Pink Floyd thing is such a weighty thing to pick up," Gilmour told us in a recent interview about his David Gilmour In Concert DVD, due Oct. 22.

"It's such a great lumbering beast. You can't really write, record, produce a record, and put together to make it worthwhile in much under two years."

Gilmour, who has eight kids, isn't about to sacrifice time with his family the way he did in his more ambitious days. He happily described himself as "semi-retired."

"I want to watch the younger ones grow up and enjoy that side of life, before it's too late at my hugely advanced age of 56," he said with a laugh.

David Gilmour In Concert was captured at three rare and intimate performances and is a far cry from what the singer-guitarist called the "over-production that was a Pink Floyd stand-by." He intends to keep his solo work going.

"People aren't encouraged much by their management or record companies to step outside," he said. "It's not in the interest of business. The record company wants to sell records to pay dividends to its shareholders. They know Pink Floyd is the way to do that. So sometimes they're not over-keen."

Last year, Gilmour and his wife sold their London manse and gave the proceeds to a charity for the homeless.

"One suffers a bit of charity-fatigue -- being invited to too many occasions by people who feel they're doing a lot of good by holding a charity ball of some sort," he said. "People could bypass all those arrangements and just send money."

Gilmour spends most of his time in the country. His non-musical pursuits include flying aeroplanes. "Not passenger jets or anything. Just little open bi-planes you can chuck around in and fly upside-down."