I was curious about this when I heard the commercial for it on the radio back in November, and with the lack of information about it online (apart from the official site) I was a bit hesitant to order tickets to go see it, but I decided to anyway. What else was I to do on a Saturday night?

Well, my take on the whole shindig is mixed. It is worthwhile to see, but the first half of the show clearly outclassed the second. Playing Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety was great, and the laser show was a good companion to the music (which sounded fantastic, I might add—the bass was wonderfully hard-hitting, a feat considering it was recorded in the 70s). What didn’t excite me was the second half of the show, which was little more than “The best of Pink Floyd,” except with no real progression of the music. Whereas Dark Side has a wonderful pacing to it, the excerpts from The Wall and various later albums were a little scatterbrained. They did play several hits, but the projected video on several occasions was more interesting than the laser light show.

The special glasses they hand out for the lasers were nice; there was one pair that were to be used to view the 3D images the main laser contraption projected (It’s hard to explain—see the website). The other pair was useful for just about everything else, multiplying everything visible by four to create an absolute overload of psychedelic weirdness. Comments heard after the fading heartbeats on “Eclipse” indicated that those who wore both pair over top of each other were witness to “a whole different show” than those who chose to wear one or the other. Trying this on the second portion of the show, I would have to agree.

I would say that it is fun to hear Dark Side of the Moon on equipment that far outclasses any of the sound systems one typically can hear the album played on, but as a complete experience it just doesn’t approach having the actual band there. Audience participation was pretty much absent in the second half of the show, and the song selection left much to be desired. The finale delivered a rousing rendition of “One Of These Days”, which was more than decent. The biggest qualm I have about the show as a whole is I firmly believe the person who designed the show appreciates the music of Pink Floyd, but does not really “get” the idea behind the music, and instead of enhancing what is being heard, just merely echoes it onto the screen.

Not a bad show, but for one that has been touring for over 20 years, I would have expected more.

I had the opportunity to attend a Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert last night, the first time for me. From the energy of the crowd, it seemed most of those in attendance had been before. What I expected was a few Christmas songs in the mixed heavy metal style they are known so well for and a neat light show. What we got was a ton of music, not exclusive to only Christmas, and the fanciest light show I think I have ever seen (and I say this after purchasing the Pulse DVD by Pink Floyd). In every sense of the word apart from literally, they blew the doors off the venue. Fireworks, ten foot-tall jets of orange and green flame, and crazy awesome lasers were all prominently featured in full glory.

Also impressive is how personable they are. One of the founding members of the group, whose name escapes me at this moment, actually said it was their greatest selling concert of the tour so far, and that everyone was invited to the after party to hang out (which, with a near sold-out audience, is not an insignificant number of people). Someone was also a guest on the local radio station to donate an $8000+ keyboard and tour jacket to a local charity project the station is putting on, and they presented a check for over twelve thousand dollars to the food bank just before the show started. As if that wasn’t enough, a dollar from every ticket sold went to another local charity. That was really quite something.

At any rate, it was fantastic—hands-down one of the finest concerts I have ever seen.

I did something totally crazy this weekend: I drove to Boise, ID to go to a They Might Be Giants concert. Five hours one way, the trip was pretty boring. Still, the concert was awesome (if my count is correct, this is the fifth performance I have been to), and I stayed with my sister and brother-in-law overnight. I also picked up a signed vinyl copy of The Else, which is neat, even if useless 😉