The Pink Floyd Song That David Gilmour Will Not Play Without Richard Wright

Pink Floyd’s “Echoes” stands alone as the band’s most towering epic. They’ve got plenty of epic albums, but as far as a single track goes, “Echoes” is it. Appearing on the quartet’s 1971 album, Meddle, the studio version stretches to over 23 minutes, taking up the entirety of the LP’s second side.

Today marks what would have been founding Pink Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright’s 80th birthday. Guitarist David Gilmour, who joined the band in 1968 just ahead of founding guitarist Syd Barrett’s departure, and Wright have a synergy on “Echoes” that holds the sprawling track together. From Wright’s first “ping!,” to the guitarist and keyboardist’s locked vocal harmonies and on to their spicy interplay on the song’s killer groove — “Echoes” is a conversation between two masters.

While “Echoes” triumphantly concludes Meddle, perhaps the most iconic rendition of the song is Pink Floyd’s performance at the ancient amphitheater in Pompeii, the Roman city destroyed and entombed by a volcanic eruption from Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. Filmed in 1971, the performance was immortalized in the 1972 concert film, Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii.

Roughly 45 years after the film was made, David Gilmour returned to Pompeii to perform. But “Echoes” was off the table as Richard Wright passed away on September 15, 2008. For Gilmour, playing “Echoes” without Richard was out of the question.

“Yes, it would be lovely to play ‘Echoes’ [at Pompeii], but I wouldn’t do that without Rick,” Gilmour told Rolling Stone in 2016. “There’s something that’s specifically so individual about the way that Rick and I play in that, that you can’t get someone to learn it and do it just like that. That’s not what music’s about.”

Thankfully, the two longtime bandmates hooked up to perform the masterpiece for Gilmour’s solo On an Island Tour Tour stop in Gdańsk Shipyard, Poland in 2008 to celebrate the founding of the Solidarity trade union. Making it all the more special, it was Richard Wright’s last performance of “Echoes.”

In honor of Rick Wright, watch him perform “Echoes” with David Gilmour below:

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Source: JamBase.com