A special evening in the company of Pink Floyd and David Gilmour. On Wednesday 29 November, at 11.10pm on Rai5 (then streaming on RaiPlay), “David Gilmour: Wider Horizons” will be broadcast, the documentary that retraces the entire career of the guitarist who, after the exit of the first leader Syd Barrett, contributed significantly to the rise of the English band.
The crew directed by Alan Yentob – creative director of the BBC – captured the key moments of Gilmour's personal and professional life and the crossroads that shaped him as a man and musician. The documentary reveals aspects and curiosities that no one suspected the existence of. In the video, Gilmour himself reveals that he sang on a couple of songs in the 1967 film “Two Weeks in September” with Brigitte Bardot. It was known that David had a “crush” on the actress, as he himself stated in an interview with “Panorama” in 2008: “All I did was wink at her several times while I was performing at a party in Paris. I was playing the guitar and I couldn't move. She smiled at me and left with a German gentleman who was not sexy at all, but much more elegant than me.” But no one was aware that Gilmour had taken part in the soundtrack of one of his films.
Last year David Gilmour returned with a new solo work, “Luck And Strange”, which reached No.1 in the UK Chart (the third time for his solo work), and with a world tour which also saw him perform a series of dates at the Circus Maximus in Rome.
From those shows the concert film “Live al Circo Massimo. Roma” was based, which also landed in Italian cinemas, and the double live album “The Luck And Strange Concerts”. A work that takes on particular importance because it could prove to be a sort of definitive testament, especially if the rumors according to which it was the English guitarist's last tour are confirmed. Furthermore, the album inevitably places itself in dialogue-contrast with the contemporary “This Is Not A Drill” by Roger Waters, since never has the human and artistic distance between the two appeared so evident.
Right at the Circus Maximus, in the heart of Rome, the “Luck and Strange Tour 2024” began, the first after almost ten years of silence. Six consecutive sold-out evenings kicked off a journey that saw sold-outs everywhere: from the warm-up dates at the Brighton Center to the London concerts at the Royal Albert Hall, up to the American shows at the Intuit Dome and the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, concluding with five evenings at Madison Square Garden in New York. In total, the 23 dates of the tour were sold out, confirming the artist's extraordinary following.
The film “Live at the Circus Maximus. Rome”, directed by historical collaborator Gavin Elder, captures the magic of those Roman nights with the imposing backdrop of the ruins of the Circus Maximus. Distributed internationally by Sony Music Vision and Trafalgar Releasing, it will be shown in cinemas and IMAX theaters around the world; in Italy it will arrive as a special event for Nexo Studios, with Virgin Radio as the official radio and in collaboration with MYmovies and D'Alessandro e Galli.
“Luck And Strange”, Gilmour's fifth solo album, reached the top of the charts in the United Kingdom, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Portugal and Austria. It reached number two in France, Italy and Belgium, Top 5 in Spain, Japan, Norway, Denmark and Hungary, and Top 10 in the United States, Australia, Finland, Sweden, Ireland and New Zealand.
Tickets and the list of theaters (standard and IMAX) are available on davidgilmour.film and nexostudios.it.
But it doesn't end there, because David Gilmour also has in mind to make a new studio album. In an interview with Record Collector, taken from the website Floydiani.it, the guitarist and vocalist of Pink Floyd revealed that this time the wait between one album and another could be shorter than usual: “I'm planning to make another album”, he declared, adding that he hopes to soon be able to immerse himself in work with the usual obsessiveness.
Gilmour's solo career has always been marked by long breaks between albums: “David Gilmour” (1978) was followed by “About Face” (1984), then “On An Island” (2006) and “Rattle That Lock” (2015), until the recent “Luck And Strange” (2024). If he keeps his promise, the next wait could be the shortest in his recording history.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
