Cover bands all over the world get paid to play hit songs that audiences appreciate. Tribute bands take things a little further, honoring a band’s specific sound and catalog while adding costuming and more.
Yet others—like the Australian Pink Floyd Show—take things even further. They’ve added production aspects and crafted a touring stage show complete with lasers and inflatables.
Since 1988, the group has gone from simply performing Floyd songs, to being to a full band with multiple singers and musicians, all backed by the aforementioned spectacular stage show. They were even invited to perform at David Gilmour’s 50th birthday party, and jammed with members of Pink Floyd.
You can catch the #DarkSide50 tour, in celebration of 50 years of The Dark Side of the Moon, at 8 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 19, at Fantasy Springs Resort Casino.
During a recent phone interview with vocalist Chris Barnes, who joined the band in 2015, he talked about his first interaction with TAPFS.
“I first saw the band back in 1999 with my then-girlfriend, now-wife, and I was super-impressed by the fact they were playing all this great Pink Floyd music,” Barnes said. “My brother-in-law had been nagging me to go see the band for many years, and I was always working or something was always happening. Fast-forward a few years; I was running a kids’ music workshop, like the Jack Black School of Rock film, and one of our pupils was the drummer’s daughter. He came off tour once and came into the place, and we got to talking one night while packing equipment away. I explained what I had done musically before then, and he said, ‘If the opportunity arises, would you be interested in auditioning?’”
A deeper connection was formed when TAPFS used Barnes’ students for a special performance.
“It was ‘Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2,’ the iconic, ‘We don’t need no education’ (song), and they played it at our local venue in Manchester, in the U.K.,” he said. “I kind of got to know the guys in the band at that point. I stayed in touch with a few of the guys via emails and social media, and then I was approached that there was a position for a vocalist. … I auditioned, and that was it. I remember we went for a meal after my audition, and we were just trading Pink Floyd stories all night.
“It was like literally joining a bunch of friends, and now as time has gone on, and I’ve been in the band seven years, they’ve become like family, really. We’re all very, very close.”
The band currently has 12 members, with a number of other production and crew members.
“I always say I’m just a really small cog in a pretty big machine, but we’re all big Pink Floyd fans, and everyone’s opinion is valued,” Barnes said. “There’s no one person in charge. Everyone’s pitching in with ideas for the setlist for the coming tour, and it’s great to be involved in those kinds of decisions. For instance, if a new song is suggested, it might not be decided immediately who’s going to sing the song. It might be myself; it could be Ricky Howard, the bass player; or David Domminney Fowler, the guitarist … or we might sing sections. It’s just down to whose voice fits. No one’s kind of precious over, ‘Well, I should be singing this, because I’m the singer.’”
One of the most difficult aspects involves choosing which of Pink Floyd’s 160-plus songs to select for each show.
“There are so many great songs that people expect to hear—’Wish You Were Here,’ ‘Money,’ ‘Great Gig in the Sky’ or ‘Comfortably Numb’—so it’s about what other songs can we put in, because there are so many great songs in the Floyd catalog, and it covers so many different genres of music, so many different styles,” Barnes said. “It is very difficult sometimes to come to the decision of, ‘Oh, we should play that, because we’ve not played that for 10 years,’ or something like that.”
Album anniversaries sometimes help with setlist decisions. The Australian Pink Floyd Show has performed numerous Floyd albums front-to-back in the past, and this year’s tour features a run-through of The Dark Side of the Moon.
“We have played Dark Side before, since I’ve been in the band, all the way through, but this year is the 50th anniversary,” Barnes said. “We’re hitting that period now where albums are coming up for significant anniversaries, so they need to be featured in the set. Obviously, something as huge as Dark Side, we’re playing front-to-back. It’s a wonderful piece of music to play. The minute that it starts, people realize, then the heartbeats go in, and then the sound effects—and then as soon as that first chord hits, everyone’s in on the journey for 50 minutes.”
Even though playing Pink Floyd music is Barnes’ job, he’s still a huge fan.
“I’m not one of the people who distance themselves from Pink Floyd because I do it for a job,” Barnes said. “I could get in the car, and my kids might say, ‘Oh, Dad, can you put Dark Side of the Moon on?’ What, am I going to say, ‘No, I have to put up with singing that for six months’? I don’t do that, because I’ve been a fan of it since I was about 5 or 6. I do like a lot of stuff that we don’t play. I really like the early material.”
Technology has come a long way since Pink Floyd was touring, and The Australian Pink Floyd Show of today, in some ways, has modernized the Pink Floyd experience.
“Certainly in my time in the band, technology has changed things quite a bit,” Barnes said. “The video screen we use has gone from being a projector on a camera to a video wall that we transport around with us. When Floyd played ‘Brain Damage’ with a screen in ’74, political figures appeared on that screen who were the people of the day. Most people in our audience aren’t going to know the president or the prime minister of various countries from the mid-’70s, so we keep things relevant and up to date. Some of the visuals are more modern, but in the same style.”
In terms of music, the band is very serious, sticking strictly to the recordings. However, in the case of the patented Pink Floyd inflatables, TAPFS takes some liberties.
“The only thing that we probably do have our own spin on would be some of the visuals and some of the imagery that we use,” Barnes said. “Obviously, it’s got the Australian flavor, with the band originating in Australia, so the merchandise is Floyd-ian, but with an Aussie-twist. Floyd were known for the inflatable pig, and we do have an inflatable pig—but the key iconic figure in our stage show is a 26-foot-high inflatable kangaroo, just to kind of hammer home the message and Australian vibe. He’s called Skippy.”
The Australian Pink Floyd Show will perform at 8 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 19, at Fantasy Springs Resort Casino, 84245 Indio Springs Parkway, in Indio. Tickets start at $39. For tickets or more information, call 760-342-5000, or visit www.fantasyspringsresort.com.
