With the near biblical flooding that we suffered across South Wales on Friday it was a bit of a surprise to arrive at the club on Friday and see the band's transit sitting in the car park and most of Pure Floyd already set up on the stage. Only the bass player was missing and he was travelling all the way from Aberporth (rather him than me).

The band have undergone a couple of changes of personnel since their last appearance at the club, gone was the second guitarist who I seem to remember handled most of the vocal duties and a new bass player and keyboard player had also been recruited. In a change from the norm , the band had decided that they would rather control the sound from the stage, using their own mixing desk. When I enquired what was the reason for this decision I was told that it was what they were used to and it would make it easier to control their click tracks. Oh dear .... click tracks ! ( I'm not a big fan). Excellent, a night off for me and a chance to sit down and enjoy the show for a change.

We were pleased to see that the weather hadn't stopped a large crowd turning up , many of whom had seen the band's last gig at the club and were back for more.

Now I'm a massive fan of Floyd and thought that Pure Floyd had done an excellent job the last time I'd seen them, I was rather less impressed this time unfortunately. The lack of a second guitarist was probably the main reason for this as well as a less than perfect vocal performance from the band's "Gilmour".  The sound was adequate at best and although all the musicians were obviously accomplished players  I felt that the rigidity of using so many backing / click tracks stiffled any creativity and we were treated to mechanical , souless versions of tracks that ought to have reached far greater heights. Yes they played all the right tracks and were musically faultless but they totally failed to communicate any of the emotional intensity of the originals.

Not a glowing review unfortunately but that's the way I saw it.

Feel free to disagree.

There are a few shots of the band on the Photos section of the site courtesy of Glo @ South Wales Bands.

 

Well said Mike, your criticisms are well observed, i was beginning to think that you would never give an astute review (even if the band deserves it) to any band that played the district

Having missed PURE FLOYD's previous appearances at the District, i was looking forward to finally seeing them live (for the first time) having heard glowing reports... and news that they were to perform a wide-ranging set including a couple of new songs and 'Darkside Of the Moon' was most welcome... musically they were great, but the lead vocals certainly took a few tracks to settle into the distinctive, Gilmouresque style - a bit more effect/echo on the voice may have helped... i guess the recent line-up changes have not quite gelled yet in the band transmitting the Floyd experience... additionally, i think the bands decision to mix the sound themselves (from the stage) probably contributed, somewhat, to the performance coming across as a bit mechanical in part - i was certainly looking forward to Mike enhancing the sound from stage-front, but it was not to be... unfortunate, to say the least as comments from a couple of the regular crowd confirmed this show was not up with their previous performances, so hopefully it's only a temporary glitch and here's to their next visit... some tracks from 'Meddle', 'A Saucerful Of Secrets' or 'The Final Cut' would go down a treat...:-?