In nine years of blogging, I seem to have only mentioned The Pink Floyd about four times. I have no idea why this is, as they have been one of my (if not the) favourite bands for far longer than the lifetime of DaveWhite.Net.  I never got to see them play, to my great distress. In fact, I had the opportunity to see them on two occasions, but circumstances played against me. 

The first time was for the Division Bell tour in 1994.  There was a Rocky Horror Picture Show convention on in London that we (as cast members of the Irish Rocky) were supposed to go to.  I had quit my job about two weeks before that so I didn't go because I thought it would be a waste of money.  Little did I know that Pink Floyd played their famous Earl's Court gigs that weekend and that there were tickets for us to go to see them.  Those concerts were later immortalised on the P•U•L•S•E album. I found out about it on the Monday when someone came back and told me that the concerts were the best thing they had ever seen.  Typical.  The second time was for the Live 8 gig.  The problem with that one was that Anna came home from a trip to the US early, sick, and in need of care.  That trumps a concert in my eyes.

I have seen David Gilmour play in concert at the Royal Albert Hall for his On An Island tour, and that was awesome.  The particular night we were there was the one where David Bowie sang Arnold Layne and Comfortably Numb, and ranks up there with the best concerts I have ever seen.  I do have the DVDs, but I haven't ever looked at them to see if we can be seen, being usually too concerned with what was happening on the stage.  I think we (Trev, Dennis, Seamus, Duncan, me) should be pretty visible, as we were in a box centred on the left wall.  I must check that out sometime.

I have all of Pink Floyd's albums, and have downloaded some bootlegs and variations I haven't found in physical format.  Most of the albums are in CD format, but I think there's actually a couple of vinyl albums back in Ireland, that I'll have to dig out at some point.  They are all of course digitised and on my MP3 player, and taking up a lot of room as I have them ripped at a high bit rate.  Again, at some point in the future I'm going to make lossless rips of them (and possibly my U2 collection, actually probably most of our CDs, but that's a project for a later time) and to hell with the size implications.  Disks are cheap now days, right? One that I don't have (yet) is the new boxed set Oh By The Way that they just released.  Each of the CDs on it are miniature versions of the original albums and presented inside sleeves that look like the album slip covers.  I also have a couple of their VHS videos - Live at Pompeii and a recorded-from-TV Earls Court concert.

I have also seen the Australian Pink Floyd many many times.  They are perhaps one of the best tribute bands in the world, and have been around for a long time now.  Stumbling across their updated web site yesterday prompted me to write this post, though I can't remember the impetus for looking at their site in the first place.  It might have been something somebody on Twitter mentioned, but it eludes me now. Anyway, your chances of seeing them in concert are far better than seeing the originals, and while nothing will ever match the real thing, they're pretty damn good.  We've also seen them in the Albert Hall, where they performed the 30th anniversary tour of Dark Side of the Moon, which was pretty special.  Oh, I remember now what made me think of them.  There was a track that I was looking for online which is their version of Shine On You Crazy Diamond, which had a sequence of sound before it (effects like the Skippy theme, Neighbours theme etc building into a slight crescendo and then fading rapidly to leave you with the familiar G minor opening sequence. It was in fact a rare moment that caused the hairs on the back of my neck to stand up when I first heard it.  I couldn't find it online, although some of the effects are audible on some sequences of the embedded songs on their site.

I guess its pretty safe to assume that they are my favourite band.  As a general rule I listen to anything from metal to classical, but I have some staples in my taste.  Rock and Roll, a la Pink Floyd, U2 and Bruce Springsteen being my most listened to genre. Those are the bands that I used to go asleep to when I was younger, and the ones that I now have on my MP3 player and routinely play.

They're making a sequel to the Lost Boys.  Corey Haim and Corey Feldman are in it and the trailer actually looks fucking awesome!  IMDB Page, and Trailer on MTV.Com.  If nothing else, put some headphones on and watch the trailer with the volume up.  The music is gonna blow you away..

So I'm sitting here,  being pretty anti-social, and listening to Mark Geary with my new Bose QuietComfort™ 2 Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphones.  I ordered them last Monday, and they arrived here this afternoon, when I was in work.  That pissed me off no end - I had to wait about four hours to try them.  As it is, I've just gone through dinner with Anna while wearing them ;-)  Anyway, suffice to say that they're incredible. I've waited a LONG time to find headphones that are this comfortable, and sound this good. Of course, I should have tried Bose first, but I didn't... I tried all manner of cheap shit first. I've been through two pairs of Sennheisers too - one that lasted me for about ten years, and were fantastic, and one that lasted me 4 months, and were also fantastic, but now don't work. So now I have these, and they're worth the price I think.

After about twenty seconds of nagging this evening, I caved in, and decided that it would be ok to go through my hardware collection and chuck out the extraneous shit. It turns out that I had a lot more shit than I thought... I dumped two black sacks full of cables, and am going to list several of the more valuable items on ebay. Anybody want a Zip Drive, Colorado Travan T-1000 tape drive or a Courier iModem? Make me an offer! Hey, I was reading another review today of Bruce Springsteens's latest album - The Rising. Seems like its a really good album; the E-Street band are back together, and the music is deeper than most of the shit around at the moment. It is political though, which might be a problem. I'm a little ambivalent in my feelings about the US war on terror.
Anna was at the Passage again today, and they've asked her to come back and work with them again. She's going to do a couple of days a week with them fairly soon :-) How cool is that :-))))

The music running through my head : The Miracle by Queen. Specifically the last repeated line..."The time will come one day you'll see when we can all be friends"

I'm listening to Music of the Millennium at the moment, and its all nostalgia :-) Songs like Phil Collins' In the Air Tonight, Beautiful South's A Little Time, and Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights... I have to get home so I can play soon :-)

Amex called. They couldn't get tickets :-( They tried several different places (ones I hadn't tried already) and there just aren't any available. I wonder if I could have gotten some if I'd had their black card?

Sometime early last year American Express cut off my corporate card because I didn't pay the thing on time. The bastards. I didn't mind that much to be honest, I never found them helpful or useful. Their call centre staff (whom I only had to talk to when I hadn't done my expenses on time) were usually snide and annoying, and they pissed me off lots. I used my own credit card from then on. Fast forward to December... Virgin Atlantic sent out a mailing to their gold card members (thats me!) proclaiming "Guaranteed Approval" to the Amex Platinum Card. I read through it, saw that it was Amex, and that the card was going to cost £200 a year, and promptly started to crumple it up for the bin. Then something caught my eye... 25000 frequent flyer miles if you applied for (and were accepted) the card. I simply HAD to do that... twenty five thousand miles wasn't to be scoffed at :-) So, I sent the application away, and forgot about it. You can imagine how surprised I was when The Card arrived in the post a few weeks later! Initially I wasn't that impressed with the card... it was simply a debit card with a high annual rate and some pretty good travel insurance. It also had a certain mystique... the kind that only comes with a card which is usually only given to those earning more than £100,000 a year. There are other benefits too... they have a service called Concierge, where they do things like source flowers & chocolates & travel and tickets etc. So I decided to put them to the test... and see if they could get tickets for me to see Dido on Thursday. They said they'd call me back and let me know how it goes. I have to say though, the treatment the platinum people give you is very very different from the treatment the green card people dish out ;-) Love it :-)

Yesterday, when we went to the Wharf, I went into a music shop to see if I could find Tina Arena's first album. They didn't have it, but I did find a new U2 compilation CD which I hadn't head before, and which had a really good selection of tracks on it. God what a great buy this was - the tracks are all from the 80's, in the rock'n'roll period, and all are remastered. They all seem more rounded and well balanced than the original versions… it kicks ass big time :-)

My parents went to the Grand Prix in Barcelona today, I wonder if they enjoyed it as much as I think they did???