LIVE REVIEW - To the Dark Side and Back!
Pink Floyd Niagara is one mean machine

Oh, to be a poor Pink Floyd fan these days. No more inflatable pigs. The last album was 14 years ago. Nothing to look forward to. Still, you got your hopes up a few years ago when Roger Waters and David Gilmour buried the hatchet to play Live 8. Could this be it, you wondered? Is the real Pink Floyd going to tour again?

There’ll be no more ‘Aaaaaaah!’  Not a chance. Now you feel a little sick. Which means, like it or not, your best bet for a Floyd fix is a good tribute band. We don’t mean you and your goofy buddies jamming to “Young Lust” in the garage – it has to be the total package. Lights, video, quad sound, back-up singers … the works. You could hike hundreds of kilometres to see a good one. Or you could head to Epworth Circle to see one in your backyard.

Pink Floyd Niagara is wrapping up its second summer in Niagara Falls, and unless word gets out, they may not be back next year. This is a dazzling, $500,000 production Floyd fans from across Ontario will dig, not just Niagara Falls. If they can find it. Yes, the Niagara Centre for the Arts is nice to have, but tucked away on a residential street, it never was and never will be on the radar of tourists.

Unfortunately, it’s also the only place this massive show can go. It’s simply too big to be dismantled and brought somewhere else every week. Which means the masses must seek it out, and despite winning the Entertainer of the year Award at March’s Niagara Music Awards, it hasn’t been easy.

Frankly, it's amazing that just one of the Classic Albums Live shows over at Zooz in Stevensville will probably attract more people than Pink Floyd Niagara's entire two-month run, which ends next weekend.

Being indoors doesn't help, nor does the conspicuous absence of alcohol. But if you're going strictly for the music, it's absolutely first-rate.

Designed to mimic Pink Floyd's immense "Pulse" tour of 1994 -when every show reportedly cost $1,000,000 to put on - it puts 11 musicians and singers on stage to pump out plenty of Floyd classics. For the most part, they're exactly as you hear them on the albums: "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" opens the show with a slow-building rush, leading into meticulously produced gems like "Have a Cigar" and "Pigs (Three Different Ones)".

The only place the show falters early on is with tracks from 1987's weak "A Momentary Lapse of Reason." There's a reason most Floyd fans refuse to acknowledge anything after 1983, when Waters departed.

After an intermission comes the show's main event: "Dark Side of the Moon" performed in its entirety. And while it's not an exact replica - a few moments have been embellished to punch things up live - it's still a rush to hear this masterpiece performed by real people. For countless fans, it exists only in their headphones.

The band benefits from knowing every trick in the Floyd playbook after two years, pulling off tough numbers like "On the Run" and "In the Flesh". Everyone gets the spotlight, though it's bassist Mike Berardelli and lead guitarist Mark Christopher who anchor the classic Floyd sound. There's simply no room for error on "Comfortably Numb" where Christopher stares down one of the greatest solos in rock history and nails it. Keyboardists Greg Johns and Larry Swiercz fill out the speakers, while Eric Price adds a theatrical touch by donning the guise of the demented teacher in "Another Brick in the Wall" and the corporate fat cat in "Have a Cigar". It may not be the great gig in the sky, but Pink Floyd Niagara is close enough. And with only four shows left, you need to run, not walk, like hell to see it.