David Gilmour

Circus Maximus, Rome, Italy, 28 September 2024

Photos: Jill Furmanovsky

Everyone loves an old ruin and the magnificent Circo Massimo in south-central Rome doesn’t disappoint. Once a huge stadium where crowds of 150,000 gathered to watch deathly chariot races, duels with wild animals and ceremonies celebrating the sun and moon, tonight it’s a more orderly affair with seating for 15,000 and an impeccably rehearsed feast of sound and visuals.

No petrified elephants. Just one unassuming rock legend, David Gilmour, who walks onto the stage and warms up with a couple of instrumentals. 5.A.M. and Black Cat, from his two most recent solo albums, combine to create a refined, almost classical ambience, with Gilmour’s guitar – first gliding, then picking out notes – distinguished and to the fore.

Though Roger Waters was Pink Floyd’s chief songwriter and conceptualist, Gilmour, who sang most of the songs and played the breaks, defined the band’s sound. His set tonight strikes a balance between honouring that legacy and emphasising his independence. After six nights here, he plays runs at London’s Albert Hall, the Hollywood Bowl and Intuit Dome in California and New York’s Madison Square Garden. It may be his last tour.

The first song per se is Luck And Strange, the title track from his new chart-topping album. It’s accomplished drive-time rock, not a million miles from Chris Rea or Dire Straits, with a hearty vocal and an extended dual play-out with impressive second guitarist Ben Worsley.

Then Gilmour unrolls that first guitar chord on Pink Floyd’s Breathe. Theatrical smoke fills the stage, the audience roars its approval, and as the song segues into Time (and the original 1974 film animation plays out on the back-screen), Gilmour strikes a second chord that’s the equal of Tony Iommi’s on Black Sabbath’s Iron Man.

Everyone sings along, most cheerfully to the line, “Quiet desperation is the English way”. That most Floydian of lines, courtesy of Waters, also inadvertently describes a key element in the band’s work, exemplified by Echoes on 1971’s Meddle. Gilmour no longer plays that one, but he’s still playing Fat Old Sun, his first solo vocal song for the band. He misses a few vocal notes, though his biting, piercing guitar break more than compensates.

After instrumental Marooned – one of three songs tonight from Floyd’s The Division Bell – which finds Gilmour shredding almost Santana-style, the ecstatically received Wish You Were Here is a reminder of the many ghosts that haunt this ancient stadium – the Floyd’s Syd Barrett and Rick Wright, too.

Gilmour ends the song with a brief “Thank you very much, indeed. Good evening.” He prefers to let his guitar do the talking, something that’s made doubly clear when he forgets one of the musicians during the band introductions.

The remainder of the first set continues the high. Between Two Points, featuring Gilmour’s daughter Romany on harp and vocals, is more mesmerising live than it is on the new record. And lament High Hopes from 1994 sounds as much like apocalyptic folk act Current 93 as it does Pink Floyd.

The second set begins with a 10-minute-plus version of Sorrow from 1987, a safety-first song typical of the era that again bears comparison with Dire Straits. Piling on the pessimism, A Great Day For Freedom moves dirge-like before Gilmour cracks the song open with an epic solo – shared with Worsley – playing with a wonderfully honeyed fluidity.

In Any Tongue keeps up the high if sombre standards, with Romany whistling, Worsley revealing a belter of a voice and Gilmour wrenching every drop of emotion from his guitar during a soaring, teeth-grinding solo. An unexpected crowd-pleaser.

Similarly unexpected is The Great Gig In The Sky stripped of its soaring, sanctified vocal lead. Instead, it’s given a more contemporary four-part arrangement. Momentarily, the set stares down a black hole. A Boat Lies Waiting quickly settles into something akin to a Radiohead piano piece overlaid by Because-like Beatle vocals, though the result is underwhelming.

Perhaps the brief lull is all part of the ‘journey’ because everything changes with Coming Back To Life, prefaced by a dedication to his wife, “the most brilliant lyricist ever” Polly Samson. We’ve now hit the most personal section of the night – after Gilmour’s rock bottom during the 1980s, the rebirth. On cue, both stage and stadium are bathed in light.

Then, almost two hours into the show, one of those ghosts appears. Rick Wright’s aquatic opening keyboard part on Echoes is replicated during the first part of Scattered, a likely candidate for Gilmour’s best new song and a lengthy, melancholy meditation on time passing, something that at 78 the legend is acutely aware of.

After a brief exit, the ensemble returns for Comfortably Numb that has the crowd singing and rushing the stage. It’s a genuine moment of healing. All smiles, Gilmour and his band do a quick can-can and leave the stage to a roar of approval loud enough to raise up the dead.

Setlist

Act 1:

5.A.M.

Black Cat

Luck And Strange

Breathe (In The Air)/Time/Breathe (Reprise)

Fat Old Sun

Marooned

Wish You Were Here

Vita Brevis

Between Two Points

High Hopes

Act 2:

Sorrow

The Piper’s Call

A Great Day For Freedom

In Any Tongue

The Great Gig In The Sky

A Boat Lies Waiting

Coming Back To Life

Dark And Velvet Nights

Scattered

Encore:

Comfortably Numb