David Gilmour kicked off his Luck and Strange world tour Friday night at Circo Massimo in Rome, Italy. The set featured six songs from the new album, multiple guest appearances by Gilmour’s daughter Romany, three tunes from 2015’s Rattle That Lock, and 12 Pink Floyd classics.
Prior to the tour, Gilmour generated headlines all across the world by saying he had an “unwillingness to revisit the Pink Floyd of the Seventies,” and would instead play only songs from his era fronting the band in the Eighties and early Nineties. But as the months ticked by and opening night drew closer, he had a change of heart.
“One has to wake up to reality once in a while,” he told Rolling Stone in August. “I think I will be doing one or two things from that time, but it just seems so long ago. I know people love them, and I love playing them. I’ll be doing ‘Wish You Were Here,’ of course I will. And some of the things that started with me anyway.”
He played not only “Wish You Were Here” on opening night, but also “Breathe (In The Air),” “Time,” “Breathe (Reprise),” “Fat Old Sun,” “The Great Gig in the Sky,” and “Comfortably Numb.” He also did four songs (“Marooned,” “High Hopes,” “A Great Day for Freedom,” “Coming Back to Life”) from 1994’s The Division Bell, and one selection (“Sorrow”) from 1987’s A Momentary Lapse of Reason.
The show was also the official unveiling of his new backing group following a couple of off-the-radar warmup shows in Brighton, England. It includes drummer Adam Betts, guitarist Ben Worsley, keyboardists Rob Gentry and Greg Phillinganes, longtime bassist Guy Pratt, and backup singers Louise Marshall, Charlie Webb, and Hattie Webb.
Romany Gilmour came out to join her father on “The Piper’s Call,” and a cover of the Montgolfier Brothers 1999 song “Between Two Points.” It’s unclear exactly how long she’ll remain on the tour. “I haven’t really worked out quite which [shows] she’ll be able to do,” the elder Gilmour told Rolling Stone. “She’s at university studying in London, and so I don’t know that she’ll be able to do it all.”
Much like just every David Gilmour solo concert in history, stretching all the way back to his first run outside the band in 1984, the evening wrapped up with a soaring “Comfortably Numb.” Just last week, Ice-T’s heavy metal band Body Count released their own take on the song, with Gilmour himself on guitar. The group was stunned when word came back he wanted to re-record his most famous guitar solo for them. “It was really funny,” Ice-T told Rolling Stone. “We were like, ‘Does David need a studio?’ They were like, ‘David owns five studios.’ When the song came back to us, we were like, ‘Fuck. That’s dope!’”
Gilmour has another five shows booked in Rome before he heads over to London for six gigs at the Royal Albert Hall. The U.S. leg begins October 25 in Los Angels at the Intuit Dome. He then heads across town for three shows at the Hollywood Bowl. It wraps up with five evenings at New York’s Madison Square Garden in early November, including one show that will begin just as results start coming in for the presidential election. “I wish I had known about the election night date before I booked those days in, and I think I’d have taken a day off on that day,” Gilmour told Rolling Stone. “Hey, but you Yanks have got to do what you’ve got to do.”
Here’s the complete setlist for David Gilmour’s September 27 show at Circo Massimo in Rome, Italy:
5 A.M.
Black Cat
Luck and Strange
Speak to Me
Breathe (In the Air)
Time
Breathe (Reprise)
Fat Old Sun
Marooned
Wish You Were Here
Vita Brevis
Between Two Points (with Romany Gilmour)
High Hopes
Sorrow
The Piper’s Call (with Romany Gilmour)
A Great Day For Freedom
In Any Tongue
The Great Gig in the Sky
A Boat Lies Waiting
Coming Back to Life
Dark and Velvet Nights
Scattered
Comfortably Numb