To quote Lee Harris, guitarist with Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets: “You can’t ignore . It’s where Floyd’s story all starts.” The talented but troubled co-founder is certainly celebrated by Nick Mason’s group, now on their seventh tour in six years, with the Barrett-written in their setlist since day one, in May 2018.
Despite its popularity, that was the first time Emily had been played live by a Pink Floyd member since 1968. The roots of the song go back to the Floyd of 1966, when the group – Barrett, Nick Mason, Rick Wright and – were feeling their way as an experimental rock band, soundtracking the lift-off of LSD and psychedelia. The setlists Mason says, were initially “top twenty songs and R&B, with extended improvisations”.
Soon, however, it was more original material, prompted by Barrett, worked into longer pieces. Within a year – and thanks to being “in the right place at the right time”, says Mason – this avant-garde entity would have a mentor in American producer and promoter Joe Boyd, an important agent, Bryan Morrison, and a major record deal with EMI as word spread about the underground psychedelic scene. Floyd’s first single, , reached No.
20 in the UK four weeks after its release in April 1967. Did entering the mainstream world jar with the band? “We couldn’t care less,” Mason says today, laughing. “I suspect we just wanted to be on .
We understood the way it worked, which was that you made singles, and if that went wel.