I was out stimulating the economy Friday evening, spending some hard-earned income at Best Buy, and I ran across a live DVD of David Gilmour. I must pronounce myself disappointed, because over half the program was a rehash of Pink Floyd tunes. Now, I won't begrudge Gilmour his desire to attract an audience by playing stuff they might just want to hear. Yet, Gilmour has a pretty impressive solo repertoire, stretching back to the 1970's. During Floyd's hiatus between Animals and The Wall, he gathered his old, pre-Floyd bandmates (one of whom had since become the bassist for Foreigner) and released a wonderful solo album. Then, after the band disintegrated thanks to Roger Waters' massive ego and the awful The Final Cut, he released About Face. In 1984, after releasing the second album, he toured, and filmed a concert at London's Hammersmith theater, a film broadcast on MTV back when it actually played music.
This first song - the film is missing, but the audio is from the show - is from Gilmour's first solo recording, a song written and performed with the ubiquitous Roy Harper. This is "Short and Sweet":
On About Face, he co-wrote two songs with Pete Townshend. This is "All Lovers Are Deranged":
The last cut on his first solo album, "I Can't Breathe Anymore", is very ominous, yet also mysterious. Always a good combination. Here's a rare performance video recorded in the late 1970's:
