REMEMBER THAT NIGHT: LIVE AT THE ROYAL ALBERT HALL

AFAIK, this is to be the last release that Rick Wright played before his untimely passing away, so it was not without a certain shiver I took this DVD home from the library. While refusing to reform Floyd, (possibly avoiding some possible bad blood with Waters), Gilmour took care of Wright's envy of Floyd by taking him on the road while promoting his latest solo album, the very soporific On An Island, which makes the second bulk of the set list, after the Floyd material. And while the potential emotional charge is enormous (the stellar cast), the over-emphasis of such a mediocre album such OAI is not able to fulfil the promised excitement, precisely because of the boring sleep-inducing average songwriting. I was hoping that these would gain from getting a live exposition, but was cruelly deceived, despite some good Gilmourian solos.

Probably attracting more glances from the public than his role would allow him, Wright plays a very nice second fiddle, certainly more visible than Manzanera (despite hiding all the wayto the left stage), who is also playing second guitar to David. With the now-standard Dick Parry on sax (soon to be playing second sax behind David, since Gilmour made his coming out on Red Sky), other familiar names such as Pratt and Carin are regulars? After a first DSOTM run opening the concert, the set plunges in the OIA album with some moments of graces (the odd brilliant solo, the star-studded guest list) and some complete flops (some songs, David playing the banjo, even Wyatt's fine cornet solo during a boring song). Once in a while, one can ask himself if David really needs that many musicians on stage for the amount of decibels delivered and notes played. Soooo after an exciting start, the first set comes to a close with another snoozer and the intermission is a welcome wake-up call to fill the glasses.

The second set is almost entirely Floyd stuff and opens on the amazing Crazy Diamond, but unfortunately, it isn't that good, despite the return of Crosby and Nash on back up vocals and Dick's Parrytone sax solo, etc? If most Floyd tracks go down easy, Echoes is the real attention grabber, where both Rick and David probably had fun trading those lines at the end of part one. Played in its entirety and followed up with the track WYWH (how come Roy Harper didn't show up to this gig for a cigar?), the night finally gets emotional, but it's a little late, although the end with Bowie's appearance in the all-too obvious (but excellent) Comfortably Numb adds some more emotions. No encore, apparently.

The second disc gives us a bunch of other tracks at the same venue, but another day, and this includes an Arnold Layne with Wright singing for Barrett, a cool rockumentary about the tour, some of the tour's other dates extracts and plenty more "bonus stuff" that is not called as such. Certainly immensely more enjoyable than the previous Gilmour DVD (the acoustic tour), I seem to enjoy more the throw-it-all-in disc's first part rather than the concert disc, which has this huge

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