Nick Mason doesn’t have to be here. Instead of hitting the road for the first time in over 20 years, the 74-year-old Pink Floyd drummer could be racing his classic cars, flying his helicopter, crafting a follow up to his meticulous autobiography Inside Out, or, frankly, doing absolutely nothing at all. With a personal fortune of some £90-million, he obviously doesn’t need the money.
Then again, neither does Spandau Ballet’s Gary Kemp, the man behind such perennials as Gold. And yet here he is too, having interrupted his own down time to sing and play on songs that soundtracked his own youth. He first saw The Floyd live in the early ‘70s and at one point confesses that, even as an aspiring guitarist, he couldn’t take his eyes off Mason “mostly because he was the only thing moving on stage”.
Nils van der Linden 