Live In Gdansk David Gilmour Reviewed By : Tim Kernutt

A new Pink Floyd album now looks like an absolute improbability given Richard Wright’s recent passing. Which makes any record produced by any of Pink Floyd’s founding band-members an exciting proposition.
  
David Gilmour has been steadily treading a solo career-path for some time now, and he recently released ‘On an Island’ which is possibly the best of his three solo albums to date. The material from this album features heavily on ‘Live in Gdansk’. However, this live album is a joy for other reasons as it features many of Pink Floyd’s classic tunes. Fans of Pink Floyd have a lot to thank David Gilmour for as he managed to record this album with Richard Wright on keyboards and vocals, which may be among his last recorded material. 
 
Admittedly, for long-term fans of Pink Floyd, this album is not filled with too many surprises and most of the material (apart from David Gilmour’s solo songs) is covered on ‘Pulse’ and ‘Delicate Sound of Thunder’. However, this is a lavishly recorded album and the Baltic Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra features heavily.
 
The acoustic-driven version of ‘Shine on You Crazy Diamond’ is compelling, the 25-minute rendition of the all-time classic ‘Echoes’ is simply epic and ‘Wish You Were Here’ is lush with keyboards. Out of David Gilmour’s solo songs, it is the screaming, guitar-infused ‘Castellorizon’ and the reflective ‘On an Island’ which stand out.
 
‘Live in Gdansk’ is a stellar performance by David Gilmour, who shows that he still has it (and probably never lost it). That said, I’m probably biased − Pink Floyd had me at “hello”.

9/10

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