Pink Floyd guitarist releases new dvd

David Gilmour wants you to know that if you're not interested in his new DVD, Remember That Night - Live AT The Royal Albert Hall, that's fine with him.

"It's more for me than anyone," said the Pink Floyd guitarist, adding that he's even less concerned if college-aged students pick it up, "I'm not going to go out of my way for you, the younger generation, to listen to it. It's there for you if you want it."

According to Gilmour if this DVD is for anyone, it's for the people that wanted to see him live but didn't get a chance during his brief US tour in support of his latest CD On An Island.

"It's the next best thing to going to a gig," said Gilmour.

To help deliver that promise, he personally oversaw much of the production of the DVD, from the sound mixing to the editing and lighting levels. "I'm afraid I'm a bit anal about it. I keep my hand in on everything.

And nothing gets on there that I haven't seen and approved thoroughly. It's very, very hard to keep tabs on absolutely everything I can tell you, but I do my very best to do so."

While David is not performing with Pink Floyd on the DVD, he's hardly going solo. In addition to fellow Pink Floyd member Richard Wright on keyboards, Gilmour is also joined by Graham Nash and David Crosby throughout much of the concert, and David Bowie makes a surprise appearance at the end of the show to lend his vocal talents to "Arnold Layne" and "Comfortably Numb."

The entire On An Island CD is performed live on Remember That Night, but fans of Pink Floyd unfamiliar with Gilmour's solo work should find plenty to enjoy as well. Several classic Floyd tunes like "Breathe (In The Air)", "Time" and Shine On You Crazy Diamond" are performed by David and company and devoted followers of the group will be especially happy to see the return of the fan-favorite "Echoes", a twenty-plus minute tune from the 1971 album Meddle which Gilmour had not performed live in 20 years.

"I had a ball doing it, I can tell you" said Gilmour.

More rarely played songs make their way onto the special features section of the two-disc set, including the Syd Barrett song "Dark Globe". Syd Barrett was the original front man of Pink Floyd in the late 60s, but was forced to leave the band because of mounting mental problems. He died in 2006.

"That was the first concert I had done since he died and I just thought that would be a nice tribute to Syd, who was an old friend of mine. I thought it was a great performance and a great moment and it was filled with a sort of emotion about a death of my friend."

Although Gilmour enjoys revisiting classic Pink Floyd tunes, he prefers touring under his own name than with the band that made him famous, saying that it allows him more freedom. "I enjoyed this tour as much as any I've ever done. I don't have to do things the way I feel I ought to with Pink Floyd" he said.

With talk like that it's not surprising that a Pink Floyd reunion is not something that is on Gilmour's mind, although fans of the band have been clamoring for one for years and even got their wish in 2005, when the group reunited to perform one-night-only at Live 8.

"I don't think I want to go back to doing and working and writing in that Pink Floyd framework again, with or without Roger," Gilmour said, referencing his strained relationship with the main creative force of the band, Roger Waters. "It just feels to me like I've been there and done that. At some point in life you have to move on and do something different and try and satisfy your own self in other ways."

Even though Gilmour has moved on from Pink Floyd, he cannot deny the importance that the band played in his life, both personally and professionally, and looks back on those days rather fondly.

"In all those years I had the absolute best of times. It's something I look back on with an enormous amount of satisfaction."