Pink Floyd tribute band Brit Floyd brought its Immersion tour to the north shore Monday. Blame it on post-Riverfest musical exhaustion or the earliness in the week, but the perennial arena favorite played to a smallish crowd of 1,218 with a few rowdy flashes.

Likely helping keep things a little sleepy was the faux Floyd’s reliance on David Gilmour-led material (who Brit Floyd’s vocalists most resemble) over the juicier Roger Water stuff. (We knew going in that Syd Barrett was out of the question.) The first half of the show particularly leaned on 1994’s “The Division Bell,” a rather bloodless album even as by the real Floyd. (We know it came out in ‘94 because the Brits projects the release year of the next song behind the band. 1973 – yep, that’s “The Dark Side of the Moon” – got the biggest cheers.) Still, the band ably reproduced the sounds – with these grooves so deeply etched in fans’ ears, there’s little room for improvisation.

Advertisement

Things picked up with the head-banging of 1971’s “One of These Days.” The video projection behind the band switched from depressing stock footage and cheap-looking
animated approximations of Gerald Scarfe’s puppetry to psychedelic blobs, an improvement. The animation was a bit unsubtle, too – a machine for 1975’s “Welcome To The Machine,” a wall and children on a conveyor belt being turned into sausage for 1979’s “Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2).” Even better, a giant inflatable half-pig with lights for eyes came out to bust a move. The position of our seats allowed us to see the stagehands working the pig’s pulleys – but we were already pretty sure that we weren’t tripping.

Arkansas Times: Your voice in the fight

Are you tired of watered-down news and biased reporting? The Arkansas Times has been fighting for truth and justice for 50 years. As an alternative newspaper in Little Rock, we are tough, determined, and unafraid to take on powerful forces. With over 63,000 Facebook followers, 58,000 Twitter followers, 35,000 Arkansas blog followers, and 70,000 daily email blasts, we are making a difference. But we can't do it without you. Join the 3,400 paid subscribers who support our great journalism and help us hire more writers. Sign up for a subscription today or make a donation of as little as $1 and help keep the Arkansas Times feisty for years to come.

Previous article Dumas: The repudiation of Paris holds more ill symbolically than practically Next article Lawsuit says state had knowledge but failed to act on abusive foster parent