Review: Cultural Time Travel - MSMT Presents FLOYDIAN TRIP

With their concert subscription series such a huge success this season, Maine State Music Theatre scheduled one final treat for fans of historic rock ‘n’ roll. On August 19 Pink Floyd tribute band, Floydian Trip, took the stage at the Pickard Theater to present two concerts combining many of Pink Floyd’s signature hits into one single event. The seven musicians comprising the band led the audience on an explosive journey through pulsating sound, visual effects, and recreation of the era of psychedelic rock.

The British band, Pink Floyd, burst upon the scene in 1965 and in successive decades became one of the primary forces shaping the evolution of what was to become hard rock and progressive rock. Pink Floyd’s performances were marked by compositions of extended length that allowed for intricate musical solos, abstract lyrics, sonic experiments and elaborately staged live shows. The psychedelic dimension of the music derived, in part, from the inventive use of the instruments to produce unusual sounds and the mining of studio techniques to create trippy effects like reverb and distortion. These were employed to create an overall ambiance  of disassociation from grounded reality and to conjure up of a realm of kinetic, often wildly heightened perception.

For many, Pink Floyd concerts were literally trips (often accompanied by hallucinogenic drugs) journeys into wildly, imaginative spaces, whereas the tribute concert presented by Floydian Trip offers fiery artistry and high intensity music making that takes the audience on a metaphorical voyage through time, aesthetics, and culture.

The musicians are all exceptional instrumentalists. Jerry Burrus conjures up Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour on guitar and vocals and, together with Mike “Forgy” Forgette, supply most of the strong vocals. Their singing and guitar playing make for a true, often improvisatorial conversation and add electric excitement to the mix. Ryan Allen tackles the intricate keyboard sounds and harmonies of Pink Floyd’s original Richard Wright, while multi-instrumentalist Jonathan Hilgendorf is dazzling on the saxophone and reeds, recalling Dick Perry, and providing many essential parts of Pink Floyd‘s soundscape. Stephanie Jones handles all the vocal arrangements for the concert and contributes her own lovely voice to some iconic solos like Pink Floyd’s “The Great Gig in the Sky.” Finally, it is Adam Clymer, Floydian Trip’s band leader and drummer, who channels the unforgettable beat of Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason.

Floydian Trip’s program artfully combines iconic moments from many of Pink Floyd’s tours (largely from “The Dark Side of the Moon” and “The Wall” albums) into this single concert playlist. The band’s sound is throbbing with ethereal dissonances and the intricate layering of textures and harmonies. Among the program highlights are: “Shine On You Crazy Diamond,” “The Wall,” “Welcome to the Machine,” “Time”, “Mother,” and “Wish You Were Here.”

As was true of any Pink Floyd concert, visual stimulation is part of the entire experience. Pink Floyd experimented with early projections and film effects in their concerts, so it is entirely appropriate that MSMT’s tech team –(praised by the band for their extraordinary video design creativity) - provides a barrage of video projections and special lighting effects. These range from swirling amoebas, oozing primeval slime, bombed out buildings, dancing clocks, and even scurrying piglets that somehow combine to create a jarring apocalyptic vision. And just as Floydian Trip carefully recreates the sound of Pink Floyd’s concerts, so, too, does MSMT’s sound team deliver the kind of sonic experience that truly energizes the house.

Floydian Trip offers an electric evening of high-octane music making and a chance to travel back to a tumultuous cultural revolution in American history. If Pink Floyd’s music was meant to express the alienation of the 1960s and 1970s, it also aimed to explore the transcendent, transformative spaces that  experimental music  - indeed, ALL music -can afford.

 

Photos courtesy MSMT

Floydian Trip played 2 performances at MSMT’s Pickard Theater on the campus of Bowden College, 1 Bath Rd., Brunswick, ME, on August 19, 2024

www.msmt.org    207-725-8769

 

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