With enough equipment to launch an attack on a small country and box office revenues that approach the defense budget of an emerging nation, Pink Floyd arrived at the Oakland Coliseum on Wednesday poised to be impressive.
A half-dome stage in centerfield the size of the Hollywood Bowl was swamped in imaginative, colored lighting designs and, while the band performed through a crystalline sound system flanking the enormous stage, ambient speakers atop the third deck supplied sonic atmospheres, like the airplane noises that preceeded the group's appearance.
The dimensions of the show, the first of three, quickly diminished the role of the human musicians to the point where they virtually disappeared underneath the barrage of lights, staging, special effects, and thick coats of high-toned, bloodless art-rock delivered with the steely precision of an accountant working on an adding machine.
Part extravaganza, part empty ritual, the first Bay Area performance by Pink Floyd in seven years mingled elements prominent in Floyd concerts for the past 20 years with a sprinkling of fresh material from the indifferent new album The Division Bell. But nothing much was added to the band's luster or legacy.
Opening with Astronomy Domine, an early psychedelic instrumental written by the band's original lead vocalist Syd Barrett, Pink Floyd convened the proceedings by staking a claim to the entire breadth of the group's rather remarkable body of work, before immediately focusing on the relatively pedestrian works found on the new album and its 1987 predecessor, A Momentary Lapse of Reason, the two albums the three remaining members have produced since the departure of Roger Waters, the post-Barrett vocalist-lyricist responsible for the band's greatest works.
But guitarist David Gilmour, drummer Nick Mason and keyboardist Richard Wright did not face the capacity stadium crowd without considerable support. According to the tour program, at least eight additional musicians joined the trio onstage, but that was difficult to confirm given that the tiny figures were constantly enshrouded in shadows and strange lighting schemes throughout the more than 2 1/2 hour concert.
Production ruled out the performance, and the sound quality was nothing short of amazing. When Tim Renwick strummed his acoustic guitar to start Wish You Were Here, the strings snapped crisply and clearly, as if he were sitting in his living room in front of the fire. Lasers sprayed the chilly Oakland skies and light patterns scraped the inside of the stage shell.
After a mundane, meandering first half, the band returned for the second act of the performance with a sparkling Shine On You Crazy Diamond, the Waters tribute to the mentally ill Syd Barrett, while a movie unspooled on the gigantic circular screen, about 30 feet across, that hung above the band. For the remainder of the performance, the band and the production laid it on with a trowel - lights, lasers, films, hit songs from Dark Side of the Moon, the 1973 album that became the third best-selling album of all time and spent 15 years on the Billboard charts.
The inflatable pigs, a fixture of Floyd shows since the 1977 Animals tour that have since somehow become associated with the piece One of These Days from the Meddle album, once again made their ritual appearance. The evening closed with a giant mirrored ball rising out of a light shed over home plate, covering the entire interior of the stadium with glints of flashing light, while the band played Comfortably Numb from The Wall.
The irony of climaxing the epic but rote production with a song about a rock star's alienation from the world surrounding him may have been lost on the avid audience, who cheered the special effects more than the music.
The human element was absent from the performance. Every time guitarist Gilmour took the microphone to address the crowd, which happened all of about three times during the evening, it practically came as a shock to hear the sound of a person talking. Over the years, Floyd concerts have grown to proportions so immense, the band itself has become virtually lost in a kind of arms race.
Nevertheless, even with but three remaining members, the group presides over one of the most distinguished repertoires in the history of rock, a rich panoply of enduring compositions that deserve to be commemorated in live performances, even something as ultimately perfunctory as the current stadium shows.
