Echoes Of Pink Floyd @ Hindley Street Music Hall, Adelaide 27/7/2024
Fifteen years ago, guitarist Daniel Hunter formed Echoes of Pink Floyd with drummer Jason Miller and for the last fifteen years they have been spreading their love of Floyd to the Floyd faithful masses around Australia. It can’t be easy being in a tribute band and trying to satisfy everyone, especially Pink Floyd material, whose legacy goes back to 1965. Pink Floyd released seven albums prior to Dark Side of the Moon and seven albums post Dark Side, so what to cover?
I expected Shine on You Crazy Diamond to open the show but first surprise of the evening was the opening song The Happiest Days of Our Lives blending into Another Brick in the Wall. The band were all in black and singer Matt Goodluck marched on stage in a full black trench coat with red arm band to the opening accompaniment.
“We are going to play some old songs and some really old songs” Matt told us after the opening salvo, as Learning to Fly started up. The opening heavy bass riff of Money came next with some enthralling video footage behind the band. Video was used extensively throughout the night but the screen never out wore it’s welcome. The band played a good part of many songs without the video, giving the audience a chance to concentrate on the band and the playing. Money was sung by bass player Will Byrne, who had a good powerful voice.
Stunning video did open the song Welcome to the Machine, which Roger Waters wrote about the music industry as a whole. Back to 1967 for a faithful rendition of Floyd’s first single, Arnold Layne before being told by Matt to “get comfortable and enjoy the journey”. Surprise number two, Echoes was played in its entirety, twenty three minutes in total. Not many acts would cover this, preferring to do four other songs instead, but hat’s off to the band Echoes, for covering it. One small quibble, the guitars could have been a bit more forward in the mix once they got going. However, an outstanding effort, building to a climatic close with drummer Jason standing to pound out the finale.
Set two did commence with Shine on You Crazy Diamond and while a good song it does go on a bit. Some great sax during the outro of the song was amazing though. Throbbing loud bass can only mean One of These Days and the player of the bass, Will, stood rock steady for most of the song in one spot. It was magnificently complimented by Daniel Hunter on steel guitar. In fact, they used the sound of steel guitar for the only spoken piece of the song (“One of these days I’m gonna cut you into little pieces”) and it worked really well.
The announcement of “some songs from Dark Side of the Moon” led to a loud cheer from the audience. Time was sung by Jason, from behind the drums, and a spine-tingling The Great Gig in the Sky was performed superbly by Bree Gregory. It really was a highlight of the set with even the band members clapping her at the conclusion of the song.
For Wish You Were Here, seats were bought out for the guitarists and singer, the song naturally being played acoustically. House lights were bought up as the audience were invited to “sing along” to the song.
“We have never played this song before” Matt told us, “But don’t worry, we have practiced it”, leading into High Hopes from the Division Bell album. Then Matt reappeared wearing the trench coat again for the concluding Run Like Hell, with the stage bathed in red for the entire song.
Surprise number three. The opening song for the encore was Sorrow, a deep cut from the album A Momentary Lapse of Reason. It was a long, wonderful sonic barrage of sound from Daniel Hunter’s guitar that opened the song. As the song concluded we heard a knocking sound and “Time to go” being repeated before the keyboard intro to Comfortably Numb. I rate this song as possibly the greatest song ever in the history of rock ‘n roll (but then who am I to claim that?). A comment was made some time ago that when Roger Waters tours, he has to use two guitars to replicate what David Gilmour did on the album with one guitar. Full credit to the talent of Daniel Hunter, he achieved the guitar sound by himself.
It is highly unlikely Pink Floyd will ever tour again, despite all three remaining members still touring in their own right. Bands like Echoes of Pink Floyd uphold the legacy of the band and give us the chance to relive the magnificence that was Pink Floyd and Echoes of Pink Floyd are possibly one of the best around doing it. Yet there is a surprise number four, but not a good one. No songs whatever from the album Animals. A sad oversight given the number of reissues and remixes released over the last couple years. Maybe next time, in February, when they are previewing a whole new show.
Live Review By Geoff Jenke