Damian Darlington: "We want to do justice to the amazing music of Pink Floyd"

Image Source: CMP Entertainment

Written By: Mark Armstrong

(Thanks to CMP Entertainment for arranging this interview.)

Brit Floyd, a Pink Floyd tribute band formed by Damian Darlington in 2011, are about to begin another tour of the United Kingdom, and their new Immersion World Tour will help to keep the music of one of the most famous British bands of all-time alive. For Damian, this tour is the latest chapter in a long and successful career intertwined with paying respect to Pink Floyd, having previously performed on the Australian Pink Floyd Show for 17 years. We recently spoke to Damian about all of this and more, as well as Pink Floyd's upcoming show in Liverpool on Friday March 3.

First of all, tell us about Brit Floyd.

Brit Floyd is a Pink Floyd tribute show, and we've been around for six years now. We're a nine-piece band that have performed all over the world in places like America and all across Europe. It's a very big production, with lots of lights, lasers, videos, inflatables - everything that you would expect to see at a Pink Floyd concert back in the day. We play a wide variety of Pink Floyd's catalogue of music, from the very beginning right through to The Division Bell album, and we're about to go on tour again around the UK in about two weeks' time.

Had you always been a fan of Pink Floyd growing up?

Yes, from a very early age. My earliest memory of Pink Floyd was from when Another Brick In The Wall was the #1 single at the end of 1979, as a very unlikely Christmas Number One! I started seriously playing the guitar around the age of 13 where I would cover the whole album in its entirety, so that was my first real introduction to Pink Floyd. I was a fan from that point onwards. Some years later, in 1994, I got to join a Pink Floyd tribute show, The Australian Pink Floyd Show, and here I am 23 years later, still playing Pink Floyd music all around the world.

Tell us more about your musical background.

Well, I come from a musical family: I'm one of six brothers and sisters, and five of us are musicians, so it was pretty inevitable that I would follow in the footsteps of some of my older brothers and sisters. I went to a music college from around the age of 16 onwards: I did various music courses, and I was in many different bands at the time from country-western to big (brass) bands, from jazz bands to original material bands looking to get record deals; all sorts, really. I've had an acoustic guitar trio that I've been doing on the side for many, many years playing stuff from the likes of John McLoughlin. Then, as I say, I received the opportunity to join the Australian Pink Floyd Show and to perform full-time.

You were in that group from 1994 until 2011. What were some of the highlights of this period for you?

I suppose one of them was getting to meet David Gilmour (a member of the original Pink Floyd) and getting to perform at his 50th birthday party with Rick Wright. I'd also mention getting to do my first tour of the US; most musicians in the UK dream of going over to the States and trying to break America, so that was a special moment for me to start doing that in 2004. There were a lot of good moments along the way.

Have you always performed in the same capacity throughout your career, or have you transitioned into different roles over time?

I've always been a guitarist first and foremost, but while I was working on the Australian Pink Floyd Show I transitioned into being more of a lead vocalist alongside my guitar-playing, and as time has gone by, I've also become much more involved in all of the other things relating to putting the show on, such as helping the lighting and the video teams. I've become the musical director along the way as well. So, I've increased my responsibilities and gained new skills over time.

What made you decide to form Brit Floyd in 2011?

I just felt it was time to have a bit more freedom and to do my own Pink Floyd tribute show. I'd been doing the Australian show for 17 years, and although it had been very good to me - it enabled me to hone my craft - I felt I needed the chance to put on my own show and do some things a bit differently, work with some different musicians, and hopefully improve the way that this show would be produced along the way.

How has the Brit Floyd experience been so far compared to the previous Australian group that you performed for?

It's been a lot of fun doing Brit Floyd, and it's definitely gotten better. We've gotten so much better at putting this sort of show on, and that's obviously very rewarding for me personally. I'm very passionate about doing this show right, doing justice to this amazing music, performing it in the correct way, so doing Brit Floyd has enabled me to achieve that more, I feel, than I had with the Australian show. But there's still room for improvement, so I never become complacent about it.

What are the future ambitions for Brit Floyd?

We'd like to take the show to some other places in the world, particularly in the Far East to the likes of Japan, China and Australia. They're on the to-do list! And it's generally to just carry on improving the show, to make it bigger, to make it better, to make it more spectacular, and to make it a more faithful representation of Pink Floyd's music.

What makes the Liverpool audience stand out from other crowds when you perform there?

Yeah, they're definitely very passionate about the music. For whatever reason, there seems to be a lot of Pink Floyd fans in the Merseyside area, and it's always been a lot of fun playing there, as it has been for many, many years. My first memory of doing a show in Liverpool was in the Royal Court Theatre in 1994, so it's always been one of the high points and one of the most exciting places to do a show.

Finally, tell us what fans in Liverpool can expect from the new Immersion World Tour on Friday March 3.

If people saw the show last year and in the previous year, they can certainly expect to see a different set list, including some Pink Floyd songs that are brand new to us as we've never played them before. We're also bringing back some songs that we haven't played for a few years (such as Dogs, as this year marks the 40th anniversary of the Animals album and that song is a pretty iconic tune from that album). Also, we'll be performing a lot of tracks from the very beginning, so that it's a very representative spread of Pink Floyd's catalogue of music. Plus, the lighting show has been redeveloped, we've invested in more lights, better projections, all those sorts of things, and we've also created new video footage for these songs for people to see too.

Brit Floyd perform at the Liverpool Echo Arena on Friday March 3. To book your tickets, click here.

For more information about Brit Floyd, visit www.britfloyd.com.

60th Anniversary Of The Cavern Club

Written By: Mark Armstrong

Format: Music Show
Genre: Music
Date: January 16 2017
Location: Liverpool Philharmonic Hall

On January 16 1957, the Cavern Club opened in Liverpool and, in the years that followed, it became the hottest place to be due to the increasingly-popular musical acts who would perform there, not least The Beatles who made it something of a spiritual home en route to becoming the most famous band of all-time. Although it was closed in 1973, it re-opened in 1984 and, since then, it has continued to act as a vital step along the way for inexperienced yet talented acts to make their names before becoming major stars in their own right.

To mark 60 years of the Cavern, a special show was held across two nights at the Philharmonic Hall. I was fortunate enough to attend the second evening, on the very date of the Cavern's Diamond Anniversary, which began specifically at 19:57 in line with the year of its foundation. Although I am too young to remember the Cavern at its 1960s peak, many of those in attendance were not, but regardless of age, this was a very enjoyable trip down memory lane.

The Overtures, a well-known 60s tribute band, were on hand to perform many hits from a large variety of artists. Of course, The Beatles were represented with several numbers, but the producers deserve credit for not making this solely a homage to the Fab Four, great as they were, because as mentioned earlier, the Cavern played host to many famous performers. Amongst those who were spotlighted, generally consisting of their most famous songs, were The Hollies, The Kinks, Gerry & The Pacemakers, Herman's Hermits and many others. A number of guests joined the fray to provide a more faithful rendition of hits from the likes of Cilla Black (whose statue was unveiled by the Cavern earlier in the day), The Rolling Stones and Queen.

It wasn't just local acts who played the Cavern though, and it weren't just British performers either. As the poularity and name value of the Cavern grew, big stars from across the pond came over, wanting to add the famous club to their own resume. Some of those included Stevie Wonder and Chuck Berry, who were also represented. The later stages of the show spotlighted major names from the latter 20th century including Status Quo, Rod Stewart and Oasis, and just before a big finale with Hey Jude, recent stars like The Arctic Monkeys, Adele and Jake Bugg were paid tribute to with their most famous numbers.

The show made good use of colourful strobe lighting, as well as video footage and photographs on screen which not only book-ended sections of the show, but also served to illustrate the actual posters used to promote many of the Cavern gigs. And there was additional variety: In My Life was performed as an instrumental, and a rendition of All Shook Up had me wondering what it would have been like if Elvis Presley, the only musical performer whose name value can match or better that of The Beatles, had performed live from the Cavern.

It's hard to pick out a particularly strong song or performance, simply because the standard was very high across the whole show. It was very much a tribute to all of the aforementioned bands and solo artists, as opposed to an attempt to bring something completely different to a classic hit (besides the instrumental for All My Life, which flowed perfectly with video footage of the destruction of the original Cavern). The wise choice of wigs and costumes during certain tunes added to the feeling that this was a real journey through not only the Cavern itself, but British music history as a whole, since so many performers spanning seven decades have performed there.

Whether you visited the Cavern back in the day or if you were learning about its history for the first time, and regardless of whether you were around during the rise of The Beatles, the evolution of British music in the 1970s and 1980s or if your only connection to the songs being performed came from those artists who have only garnered fame in recent years, this was a thoroughly entertaining nostalgia trip, and a reminder that as much as the world may change, the music industry will always have its strongest ties to Liverpool, and the Cavern Club was, is and will always be the focal point of the world's most famous musical city.

Overall Rating: 9/10 - Outstanding