There is a whole bunch of hubbub and hoopla surrounding Bob Geldof's latest string of charity concerts because there is going to be a Pink Floyd reunion. People are saying to me, "Pink Floyd reunion! Roger is back! Roger!" I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but they are talking about Roger Waters and not Roger Barrett.
So Roger Waters is back, big deal. If they got Roger Keith "Syd" Barrett up on stage I would be impressed. Swap out David Gilmour for Syd Barrett and you've got yourself a reunion. In fact, I'm feeling generous so you can even keep Gilmour. He played on more tunes for A Saucerful Of Secrets than Syd so let's have them both! But without Syd, it's not a Pink Floyd reunion.
At least the article that CEB sent to me said it was the classic lineup and not the original lineup. I approved of the fact that correct terminology was used, but not of the subject line in CEB's email. It was titled Please Tour... and I said, you know CEB, maybe you should send that email to Pink Floyd. They have more to say about it than I, and if I did have any say I certainly wouldn't let them tour. Where's Syd? No Syd, no Floyd.
Well! CEB was not amused. I got a lecture on how it would be a hot ticket and they could probably charge huge prices and so on and so forth. I had no idea that CEB felt that strongly about Pink Floyd! It's never come up because I have absolutely no reason to talk about Pink Floyd unless I am talking about Syd Barrett. I told him that LCG was on my side too! (Have I finally, permanently become one of The Syd Barrett People? Maybe!)
I don't mind telling you that CEB was even less amused than he had been previously. He informed me that most people would be excited about Roger Waters and that LCG and myself were a very small segment of the population who were going to hold that view. That's nothing new. We are not strangers to being Pink Floyd parade rainers, but I do have a feeling it's going to come up more often than usual.
While I had a brush with being one of the Syd Barrett People when I bought The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn (which is now back on my shopping list) it didn't really solidify until I did my Syd research last fall. There isn't too much information on Syd that can actually be backed up but the stuff that was available made me think that Syd isn't crazy, he's just done being Syd Barrett Of Pink Floyd. I was so taken with that idea that my enjoyment of Syd came back better than ever. And even LCG took up the Syd enthusiasm! I had never once heard him mention Syd Barrett but since last fall it's come up a couple of times.
As it turns out, he has always liked what he has heard of early Pink Floyd. Hey! Me too! Pink Floyd never really comes up in conversation because it was long ago established that neither of us like them. It seems like we belong to a very small club too. This winter we were talking to this angry guy LCG knows and he was talking about the movie The Wall and how it was so great. I will always cut the Angry Guy some slack because he's super (just prone to expressing job stress in very angry ways) and he actually saw it when it came out.
But the look on his face when LCG said he didn't like Pink Floyd was priceless. It was as if LCG had suddenly started speaking a foreign language. It did not compute and Angry Guy walked off muttering. A few months later LCG had a conversation that I did not witness, but I kind of wish I had. Angry Guy had heard rumors that Pink Floyd might go on tour.
AG: ...and old boy's gonna go out too.
LCG: Not the old boy I care about.
AG: What?
LCG: The wrong old boy is coming back.
AG: Are you talking about Syd motherfucking Barrett?!
LCG: Yep.
And AG walked off muttering. If you are ever lucky enough to have a similar conversation with LCG, be sure to stick with it until you get to my favorite part of his argument about why he likes Syd. "That's when they made pop songs!" It never fails to get a reaction. Although I must say, once you tell someone you only like Pink Floyd with Syd the conversation about Pink Floyd tends to stop. Either they understand about the style change or they just don't want to talk to one of the Syd Barrett People. Not all people want to talk about Pink Floyd if they can't enthuse about Roger Waters.
I can't enthuse about Roger Waters but that is for a completely different reason. I don't particularly care for his work and I really don't care that he's going to work with Pink Floyd again. Lots of people are hoping for more than just one show but it really doesn't matter to me. Without Syd Barrett, it's not Pink Floyd.