The Pink Floyd member David Gilmour, who turned 69 yesterday (March 6), announced that he will launch another solo album, whose title is yet undisclosed. In September, he will start a short Europe tour to promote the new songs. Beginning in Croatia and including locations as diverse as Verona (Italy), Orange (France), and Oberhausen (Germany), the circuit will end with three nights of concerting at the Royal Albert Hall in London, on September 23-25, 2015. The other locations will be just as glamorous: Arena Pula in the city of Pula, Croatia, Verona Arena in Italy, Teatro Le Mulina in Florence, Italy, Theatre Antique in Orange, France, and Konig-Pilsener Arena in Oberhausen, Germany. Gilmour considers them “some of the world’s most beautiful cities and venues” and says he has selected these Roman-era Theatres in order to suit the atmosphere he hopes to evoke in his new songs.
This being the first solo album that Gilmour releases since the 2006 On an Island, which reworks some of the psychedelic sounds in early Pink Floyd albums into a nevertheless very personal set of songs, fans are wondering whether they will hear a different Gilmour from the one in collective Pink Floyd albums.
The Endless River, the most recent of these albums, has just been launched last November. Containing pieces written by David Gilmour, Nick Mason, and the late Richard Wright, the song collection is regarded by remaining Pink Floyd members as their final word, in a series of albums that began almost half a century ago with Pink Floyd’s first release, the 1967 11-track collection The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, composed by early band member Syd Barett, before Gilmour joined Pink Floyd. Gilmour has been a member since December 1967, his first record with the band being A Saucerful of Secrets, launched in 1968. Gilmour began recording solo albums a decade later, in 1978.
After The Endless River, which earned Pink Floyd their first top spot on the charts in decades, and after former Pink Floyd member Roger Waters’s 2013 “The Wall” tour, which was a roaring success (the highest grossing tour for a solo musician, exceeding the sales of previous record holder, Madonna), David Gilmour’s tour has high expectations to meet.
Some sketches have yet to be finished, Gilmour told Rolling Stone. He’s looking at a few months’ work before everything is put together and he hopes that the final version of the new record will appear in 2016. Gilmour modestly added that the 2015 tour is “an old man’s tour, not a 200-date sort of thing”, which is why the series of concerts isn’t a long one.
Tickets for the concerts have become available yesterday, March 6, and the exact dates are as follows:
Croatia, Arena Pula, September 12 Italy, Verona Arena, September 14 Italy, Teatro Le Mulina in Florence, September 15 France, Theatre Antique in Orange, September 17 Germany, Konig-Pilsener Arena in Oberhausen, September 19
UK – Royal Albert Hall in London, September 23-25.