[PFD]

In a way, Rick Wright’s death today, marks the end of an era for me.

I’ve been a Pink Floyd fan almost as long as I’ve enjoyed music. Certainly the bulk of my defining teenage years were spent listening to Floyd as loud as my tinny, tiny speakers would allow.

I probably wore “Pink Floyd” shirts throughout my high school days. I scribbled Floyd lyrics on my history books instead of listening to boring lectures on the construction of the Great Canadian Railway. Some of my friends called me “Pink” in deference to my obsession with the band.

I was in mourning when I heard that Pink Floyd broke up in 1983 after the Final Cut. Thankfully that “breakup” was shortlived (well, at least as far as David Gilmour, Rick Wright and Nick Mason were concerned---but I won’t get into that here); and in 1987 I was delighted to hear that Pink Floyd were in fact putting out an album AND TOURING.

Finally at 21, I got see my favourite band of all time ™ perform live and in a way, it is ironic that the first thing I heard was the sound of Rick pinging away the introduction to Echoes.

In a way, Rick’s death means more to me than the death of the band’s founder Syd Barrett two years ago. Prolific as he may have been, Syd was always this mysterious figure who only recorded one album with the band. Rick, on the other hand, was always with the band except for the recording of The Final Cut. [He was fired by the band during the recording of The Wall—but we won’t get into that here either]. Gilmour reinstated him in 1987, feeling, no doubt, that adding Rick gave his resurrection of the band some authenticity.

It’s not that I held even a glimmer of hope that Pink Floyd would reunite some day. In fact, I didn’t really want them to---the last thing I would want is to pay some umpteen hundred dollars to see a band past its prime performing in a cold stadium to 80,000 people. But Rick’s death, in a way, puts the final nail in that Floyd coffin.
Yeah, Gilmour or Waters’s deaths would probably be more pronounced, but Wright is the first of the band to go to that Great Gig in the Sky.

And say what you want about his (lack of) contribution to the band creatively, I’ve always held that one of my favourite Floydian moments is that last bit of Shine On, that mournful, haunting keyboard solo. Always brings goose bumps that one. And, of course, that song, ironically about death, The Great Gig in the Sky, was written over one of his compositions.

I’m glad I saw David Gilmour on tour two years ago. He played small, 3-5,000 seat arenas. Rick Wright performed with him as well. And one of the moments I’ll forever cherish is watching them perform that old Floyd classic Echoes. I was close enough (weren’t we all) in Massey Hall, that veritable old concert hall downtown Toronto, to see Rick smile as he sang those eerie verses. It’s the way I’ll always remember Rick.

I’m not trying to be over sentimental. I didn’t know Rick. Never met the guy. He didn’t know me. But as I’ve said, Rick’s passing is the end of an era for me--the Pink Floyd Dude.