During the pandemic when everything was locked down, musicians could not perform but that didn’t stop them from playing and recording.
Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters was one such musician and he is now releasing some of that music in a new album he is calling “The Lockdown Sessions”. Waters and Gus Seyffert recorded the album that includes Floyd tunes “Mother”, “Vera”, “Two Sins in the Sunset”, and “The Gunner’s Dream”. Though not recorded during the lock down, the album will also include Water’s new version of “Comfortably Numb”.
Waters spoke on the album saying, “’Our Us and Them Tour’ lasted three years…At every gig we did an encore after the main show closed with ‘Comfortably Numb’…the encore was always ‘Mother’…I can’t remember why I decided to start doing other songs?…Anyway, at some point after the end of the tour…I started thinking, it could make an interesting album, all those encores…’The Encores’. ‘”Yeah, has a nice ring to it!’ Then…I’m in England doing the Ginger Baker tribute gig one Tuesday night at the Hammersmith Odeon with Eric Clapton and…the following Saturday marching from The Australian Embassy to Parliament Square to make a speech in support of Julian Assange, when bugger me, Covid…Schlummmm! For me it was Friday March 13th 2020. Lockdown! So much for the ‘Encores’ project. Unless… “
He added, “we’ve tacked C. Numb on the end of the collection, as an appropriate exclamation point in closing this circle of love.”
Speaking on the new version of “Comfortably Numb”, Waters said, “I pitched it a whole step down, in A Minor, to make it darker and arranged it with no solos, except over the outro chord sequence, where there is a heartrendingly beautiful female vocal solo from Shanay Johnson, one of our new singers.”
feature photo credit: Roger Waters 18 May 2008 London O2 Arena.jpg