Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets make a welcome return

NICK MASON’S SAUCERFUL OF SECRETS – BRIGHTON DOME 26.6.24

When Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets first announced their existence to the world with London gigs at Camden Dingwalls and Putney Half Moon in 2018, I assumed that they would be a short-lived project. Nick Mason wanted to re-acquaint himself with playing drums in a band, and thought that it would be nice to do so by playing early Pink Floyd material that had been released pre-‘Dark Side Of The Moon’, in the kind of venue that they would have played back in the day. I assumed that he would play a few gigs, maybe tour, and then Nick would go back to tinkering with his hugely impressive automotive collection. I certainly didn’t think that they would still be doing the rounds six years later. Yet, here they are.

One thing that needs to be got out of the way before we go any further is that this is not a tribute band. Good grief no. The Floyd, certainly early on, were an extraordinarily experimental band, and this band honours that tradition. They don’t slavishly reproduce the songs as they were recorded. The songs are recognizable for sure. They don’t do the full Dylan on them, but they do make them their own. In terms of musicianship they are a far better band than the early Pink Floyd were. The Floyd were very young when they recorded the songs that we hear tonight. The musicians in this band, not least Nick Mason, have decades of experience behind them. 

This is the third time that I’ve seen Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets, and like the previous two occasions, tonight is a treat. The first set begins with ‘Astronomy Domine’, which was the opening track of the Floyd’s first album, ‘Piper At The Gates Of Dawn’. There are two small children sitting in front of me and I wonder whether they will find the sound of the song frightening. They don’t. In fact they’re lapping it up. 

Nick Mason is seemingly quite a chatty bloke, and every two or three songs he stops to tell the audience something interesting. For example, he tells us that the first time Pink Floyd played in Brighton was in 1967, when they were on the bill for Jimi Hendrix’s UK tour. Apparently one night Syd Barrett failed to turn up, and Davey O’List from The Nice deputised on guitar, which must have been a challenge and a half.

Tonight’s musicians add some nice little touches throughout the show. Early on bassist Guy Pratt plays a snippet of the bassline to The Who’s ‘5.15’ during early Floyd single ‘Arnold Layne’, and guitarist Lee Harris plays slide guitar during the intro to ‘See Emily Play’. The first real surprise of the night comes when they play an unreleased Pink Floyd song from 1965 entitled ‘Remember Me’. However, the real surprise here is that they have isolated Syd Barrett’s vocal from the original track and the band play along to that. Welcome back Syd! The song is quite unlike anything else the Floyd have ever released, being classic mid 1960s freakbeat. It would fit very well on the famous ‘Nuggets’ album compiled by Lenny Kaye (from The Patti Smith Group). Keyboardist Dom Beken plays a blueswailing harmonica solo to go with it.     

‘Remember A Day’ is a reminder of how good a songwriter Rick Wright was. Tonight bassist Guy Pratt sings, Lee Harris plays an impressive slide intro, whilst Gary Kemp switches to acoustic guitar. Nick Mason tells us that tonight is the 500th time that he and Guy Pratt have played together, including Guy’s gigs with Pink Floyd. Guy doesn’t get a gold watch or anything though. 

Next up, the band announce that they are going to play ‘Atom Heart Mother’ minus an orchestra. Initially this sounds as if it is going to be quite difficult. However, with 21st Century synthesiser technology the orchestra is broadly replicated by the keyboards. The piece is book-ended by a verse or two of ‘If’, from the same album, which is a nice touch. Gary Kemp plays a sweet acoustic solo, then later on there’s some dual lead guitar work, with Gary on slide. 

Guy Pratt asks us: “Oo’s up for some ‘eavy metal?” There’s only really one song that this can be: ‘The Nile Song’. Guy sings, inserting a snippet of the Sex Pistols’ ‘Holidays In The Sun’. Gary contributes a searing guitar solo, followed by Lee Harris doing the same. This is a very untypical Pink Floyd song, which they recorded for the soundtrack to the film ‘More’. It rocks like a very rocky thing. 

Nick tells us a story about the Pink Floyd gong. During the days of Floyd he never got to play it as it was played by Roger Waters. Whilst he’s explaining about this, he takes a call from a person he claims is the aforementioned Waters. The voice on the ‘phone is spewing forth some unintelligible ranting. Apparently ‘Roger’ is asking where his gong is (it’s behind Mason’s kit). Nick says he doesn’t know but will look for it. Then he tells ‘Roger’ that he’s sitting at home watching ‘Midsomer Murders’. This is actually funnier than it appears written down. I guess you had to be there. Nick actually gets to play the gong during the intro to ‘Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun’. You can almost see the delight in his eyes!!! However, later during the song Guy Pratt puts down his bass and he plays the gong! Perhaps it’s a bassist’s prerogative? Towards the end of the song Dom Beken and Gary Kemp are on synths to conjure effects using technology that simply wasn’t available when the song was recorded. It sounds utterly brilliant. Nick is happy too as he is back on the gong to end the song. Thus endeth the first set.

There is a twenty minute break whilst band and audience toddle off to do whatever bands and audiences do during intermissions. The band restart with the simpler, more innocent climes of early Pink Floyd number ‘Scarecrow’. Here the most sophisticated additional instrumentation is a wooden block played by Lee Harris. ‘Fearless’ from ‘Meddle’ still features Liverpool FC’s Kop Choir, and is sung by Martin and Guy. ‘Lucifer Sam’ is an absolute highlight with Guy on vocals and a very chunky sounding Rickenbacker bass. ‘Echoes’ is perhaps a greater highlight, with the audience recognising the song from the first “ping”! Gary plays his guitar solo with an e-bow, and there’s an excellent keyboard solo too. The band manage to capture the track’s ethereal quality, with whale noises emanating from the synth. As the song ends the globes on the screen get smaller with each successive “ping”. This is a typical Pink Floyd characteristic: every small detail of the show is clearly carefully considered. 

With the last “ping” the band leave the stage. I’m desperately trying to remember whether they’ve played encores or not when I’ve seen them before. Well, whatever they’ve done before, they come back for encores tonight. The first encore is ‘One Of These Days’ from ‘Meddle’, an album which has been well represented in tonight’s setlist. It’s accompanied by lasers! I remember when venue managers worried that lasers might slice off the tops of the heads of audience members. Dom chips in with a snippet of the ‘Doctor Who’ theme and Guy plays a bass solo. 

There’s yet more! We get ‘A Saucerful Of Secrets’ which features a slide bass solo from Guy, and Gary Kemp tapping, which quite honestly is something I never imagined that I’d see! It’s a storming finale, and one which the band seem to enjoy as much as the audience. Indeed that goes for the entire set. This is clearly something that Nick and his friends started as a fun project, and it very much seems still to be a fun project. Long may it continue.

Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets:
Nick Mason – drums
Gary Kemp – guitar and vocals 
Lee Harris – guitar
Guy Pratt – bass
Dom Beken – keys

Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets ‘Pink Floyd’ covers setlist:
Set 1:
‘Astronomy Domine’
‘Arnold Layne’ 
‘See Emily Play’
‘Remember Me’ 
‘Obscured By Clouds’ 
‘When You’re In’ 
‘Remember A Day’ 
‘If’ 
‘Atom Heart Mother’ 
‘If (Reprise)’ 
‘The Nile Song’ 
‘Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun’ 

Set 2:
‘The Scarecrow’ 
‘Fearless’ 
‘Childhood’s End’ 
‘Lucifer Sam’ 
‘Echoes’ 
(encore)
‘One Of These Days’ 
‘A Saucerful Of Secrets’

www.thesaucerfulofsecrets.com