Quoting Rod Gasson to Neil Skepper in message dated 20 Jul 1996:

 NS> I went and saw a Floyd cover band the other night, "Beyond the
 NS> Darkside".

 RG> Is this the name of the band, or the name of the show ?

Both I think.

 NS> I saw the real thing when they toured about 7 (?) years
 NS> ago,

 RG> Me too..  :-)

Mighty fine show that! Mind you, it was a hell of an eventfull day really.

We got about 30km away from Whyalla on the way to Adelaide when I realised
I'd left the tickets for me and my 4 passengers at home!
After returning to collect them, we got as far as the Pt Germain turn off
and got run off the road by a semi-trailer.
We jemmied the rear fender off the wheel to make the car driveable and got
to Adelaide, booked into the hotel, got in the mood 8-) and went to the
concert.
Went to the casino afterwards and all 5 of us won between $50 and $200  8-)

 RG> Then three weeks later I saw a local Floyd cover band, going under
 RG> the name of "Think Floyd" ..  their show, although scaled down was
 RG> almost as impressive as the real thing..  I heard no more of this
 RG> band (Think Floyd) until a few months ago when I was doing a bit of
 RG> WWW browsing, and came across a homepage for a band touring europe
 RG> under the name of "The Australian Pink Floyd show"..   I know it
 RG> was the same band, 'cos the WWW page listed the group members, one
 RG> of whom I recognised..   apparently this band is the only Floyd
 RG> cover band that have been "officially recognised by Pink Floyd
 RG> themselves".

I never saw them, but I did see another lot called Floyd Time at a place in
Hindley St, The Office I think it might have been. They didn't do too bad a
job musically, but there was no attempt to reproduce live Pink Floyd and
the sound quality was pretty crap.

There are some pretty good cover bands around, I saw the Australian Doors
Show last year at the Bridgeway. After a while I had to remind myself that
I wasn't looking at Jimbo  8-)

 RG> I'd be curious as to whether the band you are referring to is the
 RG> same one ?

I got the impression that they hadn't been live on stage a hell of a lot,
the singer/guitarist seemed very nervous when speaking to the audience.
They had 2 keyboard players, one who played sax also. The other one looked
like a uni geek.
And did I mention that the backing singer was a honey?

 NS> awesome and the blonde backing singer with the gyrating hips and 
 NS> the skimpy black dress was a HONEY  8-)

Oh, I did. 8-)

 RG> Hmmm, the show I saw had a dark haired backing singer (Debbie
 RG> Horne). She was a bit of a honey too..  'course, if it is the same
 RG> band, she may have dyed her hair.

 NS> the Moon in it's entirety. The afforementioned girly did The Great
 NS> Gig in the Sky admirably.

 RG> As did Debbie.
 RG> Actually, when I saw this band locally and realised that I knew the
 RG> lead singer (I did one of my electronics courses with him) I had a
 RG> chat with him, and got permission to set up my video camera and
 RG> record the show..   it is still one of my favourite tapes, and the
 RG> great gig in the sky track is the one track I tend to keep playing
 RG> over and over again.

It was always one of my favourites. The mixer had her quite muted in the
background for the first half of the show, so her main impact was visual,
but during the break everyone was waiting to hear her do her stuff (we knew
they were doing the entire DSOTM). She really launched herself at it.

 NS> If you like(d) Floyd, and this mob comes within reach, book a 
 NS> ticket,
 NS> ring your local dealer for supplies, and have a look.

 RG> I for one will certainly be looking out for them if they do a show
 RG> in Adelaide ...  especially if it is the same band..  they were
 RG> excellent way back in '89 (when they first formed)....  with 7
 RG> years of practice and development behind them they'll sure be a
 RG> hard cover band to beat. Assuming it is the same group of course.

Dunno whether it is or not, but worth a look anyway. It's definitely the
closest to the real thing I've seen.
The only thing they did wrong was playing at a theatre rather than a hotel.
In one way it was good, comfy seats, good view etc, but being able to buy a
drink through the show would have warmed the audience up a little more.
At the end the singer said he would be coming out into the foyer for a
chat, but most people buggered off - not really the sort of thing that
Floyd fans would feel comfortable with. Now if it had been at a hotel...

Cheers,

Neil.

--- timEd/386 1.10