7:30pm | 17105 North Outer 40 Road, Chesterfield | All ages | $39.50 – $79.50
On Wednesday September 4th, the Australian Pink Floyd Show will return to The Factory in St. Louis MO on their 2024 world tour. Founded in 1988, TAPFS has become one of the world’s preeminent Pink Floyd tribute bands, getting even Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour’s stamp of approval when he invited the band to play at his 50th birthday party. In preparation for this world class show’s return, I had the chance to talk with the lead singer, Chris Barnes.
The Arts STL: So Chris, this is not the first time that The Australian Pink Floyd Tribute show came to America, correct? Was 2004 the first year?
I believe, yeah. It’s before I joined the band. I’m pretty sure they may have done some, preview shows the year before, but I’m pretty sure that the first year that they came to the States was 2004.
TAPFS has been traveling all over in the States already this summer. You all were just in New Orleans and I think was Florida.
We just got to Florida the other day, had a couple of days off, and now we’ve got a run of about three gigs in Florida, then we go over to Atlanta and then we head up to your part of the world.
What are some key things in the way the band operates to bring the live shows with the heart of the original Pink Floyd
So yeah, [founding members] Steve [Mac, guitars], Jason [Sawford, keyboards], and Colin [Wilson, former bassist] are still actively involved in stuff that we do. Steve particularly will be in regular contact over various things, having conversations about all different areas in all different departments. We’re following the blueprint, that they started in 1988. It’s just a different band, you know. There’s people in this band have been in it, you know, everyone’s been in it 20, 26 years. You know, once you’re in, you’re in for life.
Yeah, so you’re one of the newer members, joining in 2015?
I can still see myself as a new guy. Yeah, you know, I mean, obviously, what is it, coming up for nine years this year? But yeah, I still feel pretty new. You know, every day is [still] interesting. It’s obviously nice to go back to places, like we’re talking about The Factory there [The band last played The Factory in 2022, and has also performed at Enterprise Center and multiple shows over the years at the Fabulous Fox Theatre—Ed.], [and it’s] nice to explore new places and see your huge country, go and check out different areas, play to different people. Every day seems like an adventure, really.
The band consists of member from different areas of the world?
Yeah, very much so. We’ve got one of our guitarists is French, there’s two Americans in the band: we have Lorelei [McBroom], one of our backing vocalists, toured with Floyd back in the ’80s, and then our sax player [Mike Kidson] is from Chicago, and everybody else is from the UK.
TAPFS seems to tour year-round?
That’s right. It’s kind of broken into chunks, so we’ll do two months in Europe and then we’ll do a couple of legs in America, which I think this year totals about 13 weeks, 14 weeks, something like that. And then when this finishes—this run now finishes in mid-September—we’ve got a couple of weeks at home and then we’ve got eight weeks
around the UK and Ireland to do, so things will wrap up this year the first couple of weeks of December. Then we get time off for good behavior over Christmas and then it all kicks into gear again in Europe in February next year. And before that, there’ll be a production rehearsal somewhere in the UK, we’ll have a few days together with the new look and the new set list and all the crew will be there. It’s like Groundhog Day, but with a different audience each night.
TAPFS have toured the USA and worldwide since 2004. What would you say is different this tour then in previous?
Well, the tour last year was the 50th anniversary of Dark Side of the Moon, and next year is the 50th anniversary of Wish You Were Here. Obviously, a note: of course, we’re playing those albums in their entirety. But this year, because it lands in between those, we’re kind of doing like a greatest hits. I mean, every year we do try and cover everything, but this year, we’ve got more of an opportunity to spread out and spread our wings through the catalogue and see what we can sort of cherry pick. Obviously, you’re going to get all the big hits because people expect to hear “Comfortably Numb,” “Wish You Were Here,” and “Shine On” and “Great Gig” and “Money” and all those kind of things, but we’ve had an opportunity to pick out some other things, which has been really interesting.
And this year is obviously the 30th anniversary of The Division Bell. So we’re playing a few tracks from that album. We’re not playing the whole thing, but we are sort of doffing the cap, as it were, to that album and playing a couple of tracks, including the track from that album that the band has never done in its entire 36-year career. We decided this year we’d give that a go and it’s an instrumental, so as a vocalist, I get to stand at the side stage and listen to it as a fan of the band, as in Pink Floyd, and just be a fan for a few minutes and just enjoy listening to that music being played. That’s going down really well. That instrumental is a real highlight of the set second half, definitely.
What is the process of deciding which songs get in there?
Well, there are obviously songs we have to play every year, and that when you look at the timeline of the show, that maybe leaves a certain amount of time where we can rotate numbers…maybe, like I said, there was something we wanted to try [that] we’ve never done before, or maybe it’s something that the band haven’t played for a long time, so it gives you the opportunity to pick songs from the catalogue.
But when it comes to The Division Bell, the songs that we play from it are well-known Pink Floyd songs that they played on the Division Bell tour. The live album Pulse came from that and the concert at Earls Court, which was broadcast and recorded and [is] now on DVDs. And the numbers that we play are songs that are known, if you like, to the Floyd fanbase. We don’t play those songs every year, so it’s nice to have something fresh in.
What kind of relationship does TAPFS have with Pink Floyd themselves?
I mean obviously the band are aware of Aussie Floyd, and they played David Gilmour’s 50th birthday party, so the band is obviously aware of who we are and what we do, and Nick Mason’s had said nothing but nice things about us.
Any highlights that you would point out you find in the show?
For me personally, I like the journey that the current set list takes the audience on. We’re covering all different eras of Floyd, but the way that the set is structured, there’s kind of sections. We’ve got a section from The Wall. We’ve got a section from the Dark Side. We’ve got a section from Wish You Were Here and some Division Bell songs back-to-back, and the pace of the show works really well. You lead people up to a climax, if you will, and you drop it down a little bit.
It brings back up again the way that it’s been thought out this year—which I hold my hands up, I had nothing to do with—is really well thought out and I think it really, really works. You know, when you get like a slight lull and then all of a sudden bang, something loud appears, you’re rocking a track and you see the reaction in the crowd. It’s fantastic—it’s a real journey that we all go on, you know! | Matthew Klose
For more information and to purchase tickets, visit thefactorystl.com. For more information on the Australian Pink Floyd Show, visit aussiefloyd.com.
