Inside Pink Floyd’s 1968 ban from Royal Albert Hall: ‘That didn’t go down at all well’

Pink Floyd didn’t conform to the conventions expected at the Royal Albert Hall during a raucous performance in 1968, and were subsequently banned from the august venue. In fact, it would be 2006, when David Gilmour returned with late bandmate Richard Wright in tow for a solo performance, before Pink Floyd’s music would again echo off those ornate walls.

Blame Nick Mason, or at least his drum kit.

“We were officially banned for life from the Albert Hall,” Gilmour confirms in a newly posted conversation with the BBC. “It was partly to do with nailing the bass drum onto a brand-new stage that had new wood put on. One of our road crew was finding that Nick’s drums were moving as he was thumping that bass drum. So, they got some of those great big, huge nails and hammered a few of them in to stop the bass drum moving. That didn’t go down at all well. We also a couple of Waterloo cannon that we let off during the show, which I guess we probably didn’t have permission for.”

As for his 2006 return, Gilmour isn’t so sure all had been forgiven, even by then. “Forgiven, maybe,” he quips. “Forgotten, I think we can rely on.”

Issued as Remember That Night, Gilmour’s Royal Albert Hall show also featured latter-era Pink Floyd collaborators Phil Manzanera, Guy Pratt and Jon Carin — as well as Dick Parry, who began working with the group in the Dark Side of the Moon era. Amongst the featured Floyd favorites was “Echoes,” “Speak To Me,” “Fat Old Sun,” “Shine On You Crazy Diamond,” “Arnold Layne,” “Coming Back to Life” and “Wish You Were Here,” among others.

Pink Floyd’s controversial 1968 show has more recently been memorialized forever on The Endless River, a 2014 comeback recording that features a portion of Wright’s turn on the Royal Albert Hall’s pipe organ.

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