Roger Waters with Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets

Roger Waters joined Nick Mason to play Pink Floyd at Beacon Theatre (watch)

Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets — Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason’s band who perform pre-Dark Side of the Moon material including music from the Syd Barrett era — brought their first-ever North American tour to Beacon Theatre on Thursday night (4/18), and they had an extra special treat in store for this show. Nick’s former bandmate Roger Waters joined the band on stage to sing lead (and play gong) on his song “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun” from 1968’s A Saucerful of Secrets. Nick had introduced Roger’s appearance by joking about how Roger never shared the gong back in the day, and then Nick went over to the gong to start the song as Roger made his entrance to the stage. It was as trippy and awesome as you’d hope, and a super rare reunion of original Pink Floyd members.

Roger returned after the encore to bow with the band, which is what you see in the above photo. Watch full video of Roger’s performance below.

Nick’s band includes Spandau Ballet’s Gary Kemp, Lee Harris of Ian Dury & the Blockheads, composer Dom Beken (who frequently collaborated with Floyd keyboardist Rick Wright) and Guy Pratt, who became Floyd’s bass player in the post-Waters era, and they really do a lot of justice to the early Pink Floyd songs. Roger himself even said to Nick on stage, “You guys sound better than we did back then!” Mason and his band do it again at The Beacon on Friday, and if you’re at all on the fence about going, it’s worth it. (It’s sold out but resale tickets are available.)

They opened with three songs from The Piper at the Gates of Dawn — the lengthy, trippy instrumental “Interstellar Overdrive,” album opener “Astronomy Domine,” and fan fave “Lucifer Sam” — and Nick’s bandmates really tapped in to how driving and psychedelic these songs are meant to be (with the right light show to match). It really felt like the real thing. They played other cool, obscure nuggets like the band’s Syd Barrett-penned debut single “Arnold Layne,” Roger Waters’ hard-rocking relic “The Nile Song,” and the unfinished, heavily bootlegged Syd Barrett song “Vegetable Man.” They also played a handful of post-Barrett songs up through 1972’s Obscured by Clouds. See the full setlist below.

UPDATE: More pictures from Thursday’s show are in the gallery below, and review of Friday’s show HERE.

Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets – Beacon Theatre – 4/18/19 Setlist (via)
Interstellar Overdrive
Astronomy Domine
Lucifer Sam
Fearless
Obscured by Clouds
When You’re In
Remember a Day
Arnold Layne
Vegetable Man
If / Atom Heart Mother / If (Reprise)
The Nile Song
Green Is the Colour
Let There Be More Light
Childhood’s End
Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun (with Roger Waters)
See Emily Play
Bike
One of These Days

Encore:
A Saucerful of Secrets
Point Me at the Sky

photos by Greg Cristman