Dave Gilmour wrote about Syd Barrett, who can be agreed to be one of the most tragic figures known to world rock and roll in the late sixties, if not the tragic jewel in the crown. I admit that I wasn’t born with the innate knowledge of “who is Syd Barrett” either, and at 14 I must have needed a phone friend to find out the correct answer. Pink Floyd as a whole was a different story: Dark Side of the Moon, the bass line in Money, the “Cow” record, Gilmore with the black guitar, and later we all also hummed We Don’t Need No… with all the usual mispronunciations.
Since we did our homework, we dived into the early period of the band, and without detracting from the musical professorship of a considerable number of its members, the dean and blowing spirit of the band at that time was without a shadow of a doubt Sid Barrett – a special and complex person. His success in making a hybrid between colorful texts and seemingly simple chord movements gave birth to a musical font that you can love and you can also dislike, but you can’t ignore it. As sometimes happens (in the best families), Sid also received a summons for a hearing and the conversation “it’s not you – it’s us” and parted ways with the band in 1968. After he had trouble functioning in it due to the acute effects of the hallucinogenic drugs he consumed.
Pink Floyd continued without Barrett as the main engine and for that matter there is no need to rediscover America. There is an urban legend (probably true) that in 1975, when Pink Floyd were in the midst of work on Wish You Were Here, Barrett appeared in the studio looking delusional – his underwear was cut off and his eyebrows were shaved. He began walking around the studio, until one of them asked to find out who was walking around among the musical equipment scattered in the recording room. He was not recognized until Waters admitted that it was Bart. Waters and Gilmore burst into tears at the sight of the virdo standing in front of them, who looked completely different from the one before them who was an object of admiration, beautiful, a pure diamond. The band enthusiastically played a track from the upcoming album to the old friend. Bart said something to Connie.
It is impossible to know how Pink Floyd would have developed as a band, if Barrett had remained part of the group and continued his artistic leadership, the expression of which was summed up in the band’s first two albums and a little more. It is possible that even the rock and roll we know today would have taken a turn in an unknown direction.
The picture is also a tribute to Sid Barrett. Roquefort (Photo: PR)
at our performance at the amplifier festival (8.12, 22:30, Enav Cultural Center), we chose to play songs by Barrett starting from his days as the leader of Pink Floyd’s artistic line in the middle of the Swinging Sixties and his (and the band’s) special interpretation of the concept of psychedelia. In addition, we will upload Barrett’s songs from his solo albums after his departure from his bandmates. The repertoire we played was mostly reworked – different rhythm, temperament and energy, which bring us as a band as close as possible to meeting Barrett’s unpretentious truth.
>> Roquefort’s tribute show to Syd Barrett (will take place as part of the Magbar Festival, Enav Center for Culture, 7-10.12 // more details on the festival website