THE ENDLESS JOURNEY_50 Years Of Pink Floyd by Mick Wall by Mick Wall

Author:Mick Wall
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-11-10T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Which One is Pink?

If the first five years of their post-Barrett career had found Pink Floyd scrambling to establish a truly convincing new musical identity for itself, the next five years would be a period of short-lived celebration, long-term commercial consolidation, and, all too quickly, artistic hubris followed by the first angst-ridden signs of total disintegration. The only thing they all agreed on, at the end of it, was that the railroading, all-consuming success of The Dark Side Of The Moon was, as Rick Wright put it, “the beginning of the end.” Or as Roger Waters would put it years later, “Dark Side Of The Moon finished the Pink Floyd off once and for all. To be that successful is the aim of every group. And once you’ve cracked it, it’s all over. In hindsight, I think the Pink Floyd was finished as long ago as that.”

But all that came later. At first, Pink Floyd revelled in their new-found commercial success and the rejuvenated critical status that came with it. Not least in America, where they were now superstars. Indeed, almost all their touring in 1973 took place in America: 33 arena shows between March and June interrupted only by two spectacular shows at London’s Earl’s Court Exhibition Centre, on May 18 and 19. After that there were only four more shows spread across England, Germany and Austria, including a benefit appearance at London’s Rainbow Theatre on November 4, for former Soft Machine drummer Robert Wyatt, who had been paralysed from the waist down after a fall from a fourth floor window earlier in the year – an event that raised over £10,000 towards the rehabilitation of the beleaguered musician.

Nick Mason would go on to produce Wyatt’s first solo album, Rock Bottom – a gallows humour pun on his newly paraplegic state – in 1974, and now regarded as one of the most significant albums of the Seventies. The same year he also produced the album Round One for the Principal Edwards Magic Theatre music and arts collective. This may have been partially to do with the fact that, although no one noticed it yet, Mason would from this point on become increasingly sidelined from the Pink Floyd creative process. In fact, he would not receive a songwriting credit or co-credit or any other Floyd studio album after Dark Side. With time – and money – on his hands he began instead a lifelong pursuit of classic cars, from vintage Bugattis to futuristic Ferraris, famously competing in them at the 24-hour Le Mans rally and other events. A “hobby” he would later parlay into a business, renting out his vintage vehicles for various movie and TV productions. He also acquired a pilot’s license and became fond of travelling in his own helicopter.

But that was Nick: he may have favoured a leather hat and droopy hippy moustache but at heart he was a clubbable middle-class Londoner who hated confrontation. Born in Birmingham in January 1944, younger than Waters but older

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