It takes a special kind of guy to rock a shipyard - with an orchestra yet. And David Gilmour is just the type of guy to pull it off.
On September 15, 2008 comes David Gilmour Live In Gdansk, a double live CD and DVD. The set is a document of Gilmour's concert held in front of 50,000 in the shipyards of Gdansk, Poland, the final performance of his critically acclaimed 2006 tour. It also features the first-ever recording of selected Pink Floyd classics performed with an orchestra.
"This was the first time I have played in Poland and it was a thrill to be there helping to mark one of the most important anniversaries in recent European history," says Gilmour. "The Gdansk shipyard is a deeply symbolic place and it was an honor to perform our music there. It was particularly exciting to have my friend Zbigniew Preisner there conducting the Polish Baltic Philharmonic Orchestra and to be able to perform my album for the first time as it was intended."
Gilmour sounds positively humbled. Maybe it's because Former President of Poland Lech Walesa and Mayor of Gdansk Pawel Adamowicz invited the guitarist and his band to perform to help mark the 26th Anniversary of the founding of trade union Solidarity. The concert was titled "It Started In Gdansk - The Space Of Freedom" and was held on August 26, a national holiday for the Polish people commemorating the founding in 1980 of the Solidarity Trade union. Nine years later, it toppled the Communist Government, with its leader Lech Walesa elected President of a democratic Poland.
DVD includes documentary, rehearsals and more
The two-and-a-half hour DVD which accompanies the live album portrays the drama of the Gdansk concert, set against the urban landscape of the shipyard and crane-filled skyline. As well as 113 minutes of concert footage, the DVD includes a 36-minute documentary which includes Gilmour's private meeting with former President Lech Walesa, chats with the band and crew, concert rehearsals and a moving wreath-laying with Walesa at the Memorial to the shipyard workers killed in the 1970 uprising.
Of course, the real important question is this: Did they perform Young Lust? We don't have a track listing yet, but when we do, we'll gladly report back.
