February 23rd, Australian Pink Floyd, Weber Arena, Oberhausen.
It was the third time for me to see the, in my opinion, best Pink Floyd cover band in the world in the former Köpi Arena, which is now called Weber Arena. This time we had received the cards as a gift from a very dear friend and there was an emotional charge to this evening because the previous times we had always been with one of my, unfortunately deceased, best friends, a big Pink Floyd lover.
The Weber Arena is located in the well-known Westfield Centro shopping center near Oberhausen in Germany. For us a ride of about an hour and a half so that was very doable. After a nice meal in one of the many restaurants in Centro we walked to the Arena and it is always amazing to see how many people come to see this cover band. It is clear that the music of Pink Floyd is still alive, but here too the average age showed that it is questionable how long that will be the case. Despite a number of empty seats, I think there were still about five thousand visitors, a number that many of my favourite bands can only dream of. The phenomenon of cover bands is of course indispensable, just look at all the TV shows where the great artists of the earth are honoured. Still, I dare to say that there are few bands that come as close to the original as the men from down under. Many graphics are identical to Floyd's and occasionally they have been tweaked showing the Australians' sense of humour. In addition to an inflated pig, there was of course also an inflated kangaroo and it happily hopped up and down during One Of These Days.
This time the focus was on my favourite Floyd album, Wish You Were Here and it was immediately played in its entirety. There are two guitarists who uphold the honour of Gilmour and they are both just rock solid and that of course applies to the whole band including three background singers who are in no way inferior to those of the English example. You could say that the vocals are even better than the original since Roger Waters is not a great vocalist but a great composer of course. The sound was perfect and because of the high seated place right in front of the stage it was more than enjoyable.
After the break there was enough room for the majority of all Pink Floyd classics and the audience became more and more enthusiastic, which was of course good for the atmosphere in the rather large Arena. I'm not going to mention all the songs but of course I can't ignore Comfortably Numb with which the show ended in a masterful way. The famous guitar solo was played perfectly and the emotions overwhelmed me a bit because this was the favourite song of my good friend and me. Of course, this song was played at his farewell.
There is a lot to say about whether or not the many cover bands are desirable, but an evening like this indicates the right to exist for me and I can only say, I really enjoyed it.
Photographs taken by Harry Roelofs.