Roger Waters officially released a collection of reworked Pink Floyd songs recorded remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Lockdown Sessions also includes a version of “Comfortably Numb” recorded during his recently concluded North American tour.
Waters posted videos of the songs being performed at home between 2020 and 2021. Waters co-produced The Lockdown Sessions with Gus Seyffert who also played bass and cello. Additional musicians who were part of the sessions include drummer Joey Waronker, guitarists Jonathan Wilson and Dave Kilminster, keyboardists Joe Carin and Bo Koster, saxophonist Ian Ritchie and Lucius vocalists Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig.
The The Lockdown Sessions tracklist is made up of “Mother” and “Vera” from Pink Floyd’s The Wall, “Two Suns In The Sunset” and “The Gunner’s Dream” from Waters final Pink Floyd album, The Final Cut and “The Bravery of Being Out Of Range” from Waters’ 1992 solo album, Amused To Death. The release ends with the aforementioned “Comfortably Numb 2022.”
Regarding The Lockdown Sessions, Waters stated:
Our Us and Them Tour lasted three years…At every gig we did an encore after the main show closed with Comfortably Numb…the encore was always Mother…I can’t remember why I decided to start doing other songs?…Anyway, at some point after the end of the tour…I started thinking, “It could make an interesting album, all those encores”…“The Encores”. ”Yeah, has a nice ring to it!” Then…I’m in England doing the Ginger Baker tribute gig one Tuesday night at the Hammersmith Odeon with Eric Clapton and…the following Saturday marching from The Australian Embassy to Parliament Square to make a speech in support of Julian Assange, when bugger me, Covid…Schlummmm! For me it was Friday March 13th 2020. Lockdown! So much for the “Encores” project. Unless…
We’ve tacked C. Numb on the end of the collection, as an appropriate exclamation point in closing this circle of love.
Listen to The Lockdown Sessions below:
