The Pink Floyd Experience, Wednesday, Feb. 17, 7:30 p.m., The Kirby Center (71 Public Square, Wilkes-Barre).
Tickets: $25-$35.
Info: 570.826.1100,
If you attend next week’s Pink Floyd Experience concert, expect a 20-foot flying pig, ambient psychedelic lighting and the sounds of cash registers and ticking clocks to all be part of the show. These descriptions may conjure up images of a theater performance rather than a rock show. But if you are Tom Quinn, band leader and guitarist of The Pink Floyd Experience, that is the idea.
Described as a “crusader for all things Pink Floyd,” when Floyd released its landmark album “Dark Side of the Moon” in 1973, Quinn was busy learning how to play his first guitar. Years later, he is keeping himself busy performing songs which initially impacted him in his youth but also finds relevant today.
From a Fort Collins, Colo., tour stop, Quinn took a few minutes to talk about the band’s upcoming show at the Kirby Center in Wilkes-Barre on Wednesday, Feb. 17.
“We’ve been to the Kirby Center before, and we know it’s a rockin’ place,” he says without the slightest hesitation in his voice. “We are looking forward to coming back to P.A.!”
The idea to start a Pink Floyd tribute is, an idea Quinn entertained for many years. Inspired by Floyd’s 1994 tour, Quinn finally decided to “give it a try.” After playing the Southern California club circuit for a few years, Quinn and his bandmates where approached by Annerin Productions, an entertainment company that specializes in promoting tribute bands, to take the band’s Floyd show on the road. Since 2003, The Pink Floyd Experience has played to audiences all across North America.
By limiting the musical scope and focus to one particular group, one would think that being a mockstar would stifle creativity — but not Quinn. He finds total satisfaction in recreating the show and sound of Floyd. There is plenty of room in Pink Floyd’s 40-year catalog to accommodate many of his musical needs.
“David (Gilmour) makes you listen, and Roger (Waters) makes you think,” Quinn says. “It is the combination of the two of them which helped make such a lasting, great classic rock band.”
Quinn obviously has an affinity for Floyd, but he is not alone. The Pink Floyd Experience draws in crowds of all ages. Year by year, the music of Pink Floyd grows a little bit older, but their fans, hungry for the sound of a band who has not toured in more than 16 years, keeps getting younger.
“I never anticipated getting three generations of Floyd fans at the concerts every night,” Quinn says. “I thought it would be the old guard, the old hippies from Woodstock generation that would be filling our halls. It is just great to see the power and impact that the music has throughout the decades.”
In recent years, Syd Barrett and Richard Wright, two of Pink Floyd’s founding members, have died, making any possibility of a reunion with the original lineup impossible. And although guitarist Gilmour and Floyd bassist Waters still tour from time to time, the closest thing fans have to experiencing a circa-1970s concert is through bands like the one Quinn leads.
Other tribute bands, however, such as The Australian Pink Floyd Show and The Machine, have brought the sound of Pink Floyd to audiences for the past 20 years and still continue to tour. These groups compete for the eyes and ears of Floyd fans while all finding their own niche. Quinn and his bandmates are all aware of this and remain confident that their interpretation of Floyd is unique from the rest.
“There are different flavors of (Pink Floyd) that people are drawn to. I’d like to think that we are very passionate,” Quinn explains. “We take a couple of twists and turns with the music, but it’s not a self-indulgent type of thing. It’s all based on something David or Roger has done.”
In other words, The Pink Floyd Experience does not offer a note-for-note replication of the songs but instead models some of them on rare Floyd bootlegs and live performances. This is one reason why, according to Quinn, The Pink Floyd Experience is different from the others in its approach.
“We don’t play the obvious hits every night,” Quinn says. “We like to mix it up with different set lists and are constantly moving forward. There is 40 years of Floyd music to pick from, and it will be a long time before we exhausted all the different combinations of all those ingredients.”
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