Richard Wright, in memoriam

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I realize not all of you care about Pink Floyd the way I do, but I wanted tonight to post a bit more on Richard Wright, who died on Monday.

You can read what I wrote last night -- my lengthy personal reflections on Wright, his music, and the Floyd -- here.

Below are three videos and a photo.

The photo was sent to me by one of our readers, Joe. It's from a Floyd concert at Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1971. He was there -- and says it was "unbelievable" -- and the photo was taken by a friend. That's Gilmour on the left, playing guitar; Mason on drums; Waters in the middle on bass; and Wright somewhere over on the rights, playing keyboards. This is relatively minimalist, pre-Dark Side floyd, without the backing band and singers, without the huge projection screen behind them, without all the inflatable pigs and crashing airplanes that would make up so much of their later live shows. Joe tells me there wasn't even a laser show, just "spotlights flying around the theater" and "huge speakers mounted on the sides and in the back of the auditorium." But no matter: "[T]he music was more than enough by itself."

And I wish I'd been there. I wish I'd been able to see them at London's UFO Club during the psychedelic hey-days of the late-'60s, and throughout the '70s, and performing The Wall live in '80-'81. But at least I got to see them on the Pulse tour in '94. And at least I've seen Gilmour/Wright and Waters since -- if not together, alas.

Joe can't remember exactly when it was, but, looking through my copy of Pink Floyd: In the Flesh -- The Complete Performance History, which has some fantastic photos, it looks like it must have been October 28, 1971, with a set-list of "The Embryo," "Fat Old Sun," "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun," "Atom Heart Mother," "One of These Days," "Careful With That Axe, Eugene," "Cymbaline," and "Echoes." (Thanks, Joe!)

The first video is an ITN (U.K.) report on Wright's death.

The second and third videos are from Remember That Night, Gilmour live in concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London. The first song is "Time," from Dark Side of the Moon, co-written by Waters and Wright. The second is "Wearing the Inside Out," from The Division Bell, Wright's most deeply personal song, a song about his struggle and liberation.

Enjoy them. And remember Richard Wright.

Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time

Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines

Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way

The time is gone, the song is over,

Thought I'd something more to say.