Antidote For Lost Souls In Fishbowls: Pete Floyd - The Chapel, SF - 7.29.23

My first introduction to Pink Floyd was probably in the mid-70s, when my older brother would bust out his rock and roll records. While searing guitar riffs and big-drum booms wafted from his bedroom in the basement, I would be nearby playing with my dolls, my romper-stompers, or I'd be reading Little Golden Books about pokey puppies and cute ducks. I may not have been paying attention to what he was playing, but that music still made its mark. 

Fast Forward to 1986 and my first acid trip. There were melting faces. There was stomach-quaking laughter around the absurdity of life on top of the shedding of hot tears around the newfound realization that I had a hot date with mortality at some distant point in time. There was also my first viewing of Pink Floyd’s wicked-mindfuck of a masterpiece film The Wall, based on their epic album of the same name. My friends and I were obsessed with Pink Floyd at the time, as any teenage acidhead is prone to be. ​

My friends and I were also grappling with the suicides of two of our crew; young men of 16 years who, for their own reasons, thought dying was better than living. We were only teenagers ourselves, very sheltered, and we did not know how to deal with that kind of loss. That whole summer we were raw, shocked, and wallowing in deep trauma and grief. We needed The Wall; it wrapped up all our fears, angst, anger, and rebellion into a two-record guidebook on how to say FUCK YOU! to a fucked up world. It was brilliant! We lived, breathed, and spoke the Gospel of Floyd. It helped us make sense of the bad shit that went down. In addition, Wish You Were Here and Dark Side Of The Moon were on repeat as we processed our sadness. We used it as an antidote to feeling so lost in the world.

As I grew and changed into adulthood, Pink Floyd ebbed and flowed in and out of my awareness as they too grew and changed as a band. The songs, new and old, continued to tickle my ears with edgy lyrics and heavy, emotional concepts in conjunction with a constant psychedelic dreamscape of sound. ​

It’s interesting when you can pinpoint aspects of your past through reliving musical experiences; it is almost a type of time travel. Hearing songs from my past, especially the intensity of most Pink Floyd songs, is truly bittersweet. My recent experience with SF Bay Area Pink Floyd tribute band Pete Floyd at The Chapel in San Francisco definitely brought back the deep feelings of my youth. Pete Floyd culls its players from the extraordinary North Bay music scene, including founder Pete Delaney, (vocals/guitar), Pete Hale (guitar/vocals), Toby Tyler (Bass), Bob McBain (keys), Alex Garcia (keys/sax), Sean England (drums) and the powerhouse vocal team of Teal Collins and Paige Clem. 

As I witnessed this band’s execution of some of my favorite Floyd songs, I was brought back to the vivid memories of my past and there was nothing to do but pause to feel and honor those memories. I then began to sing; utilizing my voice, shouting the lyrics loud and clear as I did when I was young & wild and trying hard to understand myself. As I stood amid the audience of like-minded music lovers, singing along with these songs I knew so well, I felt a sense of much-missed peace inside my mind; and then there was that familiar feeling of possibility that I am not as alone as I thought.

www.petefloyd.com