I’m a big fan of Theatre based digital broadcasts. And I’m a big fan of Pink Floyd/David Gilmour. So, I made a special excursion from my summer book tour to screen the May theatre broadcast of Gilmour‘s March 2006 London concert.

Through a chain of unfortunate circumstances, I missed the first few minutes and some minutes in the in between. That said, here is my review.

Of course, I quite enjoyed David and his sweetly slow heartfelt leads in such an intimate environment. It’s a theatre, but we were all Gilmour fans and the feeling was mostly warm. Gilmour was not actually there, but the feeling was like mom reading a letter from a far away sibling while the family gathered ‘round.

I actually prefer this method of enjoying a concert. Why? No parking hassles, no crowds, no one spilling beer on my shoes. However, there are some drawbacks. First, in this particular event, people felt they could carry on conversations as if they were in a concert -- sort of yell over the music. But the music wasn’t that loud and I didn’t really care to hear their conversations -- their distractions. Secondly, I’m at the mercy of the director as to which view of the artists I’m going to see -- and the duration of that angle.

At this particular broadcast, I found the angles were fine, but the durations were much too short. This is Gilmour, his leads are patient, lingering. The choice to quick cut between cameras disrupted the organic flow of this music. That’s a shame.

Also, digital broadcast resolution quality of the video on screen is much lower than what you’ll expect from an ordinary cinema experience, it is still nonetheless quite sufficient to enjoy the concert experience. But, you should expect that it will have more of the big screen TV look than 35mm projection. Also, not sure if it was a creative choice, but the blues in the lighting rather saturated the video. I found that mildly annoying.

The camera crew employed a robo-cam controlled by remote on stage near the keyboard player. That is cool technology that provides some nice angles while not cluttering the stage with camera guys.

At this particular screening, the sound was set too low for this kind of music and I sensed no surround sound. This was disappointing. The mix itself was nothing more than average, perhaps slightly below. That also disappointed. The sound systems available in theatres should blow us away, not leave us using the word “average.” This could be the fault of the broadcast or of the theatre. Not sure.

Overall, I enjoyed Old Gilmour enjoying himself on stage. He has a way of getting right down to the heart of the matter. Leaving you with the feeling that you didn’t just hear some sweet music -- but that you heard straight from his soul.

To see the schedule for the next digital broadcast near you goto: Bigscreenconcerts.com

Recorded Live in concert in London on March, 7th, 2006 Presented by Bigscreenconcerts and Network Live.

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