It’s not Roosevelt Stadium in the 1970s, but when The Pink Floyd Experience returns to the Count Basie this Friday, they’ll illuminate “the dark side of the room” with a laser-precise tribute to four Floydian favorites.
When Pink Floyd played Jersey City’s long-gone Roosevelt Stadium in those pre-Meadowlands days of Summer 1973, they served up a live recreation of Dark Side of the Moon on a quadrophonic sound system that was specially installed for the occasion. And when Quad was briefly a thing in home entertainment centers, Floyd’s breakthrough LP was among the first albums to be rejiggered for “people with four ears.”
Here in 2015, the touring force of nature that is The Pink Floyd Experience just can’t quit the quad — and when that “celebration of the music, the themes, and the theatrical experience of a truly innovative band” makes its dependably annual appearance at the Count Basie Theatre on Friday, February 27, they’ll be bringing a Four Sides of Floyd stage show that focuses laser-like on “four complete album sides off of four beloved classic Pink Floyd albums.” It’s an enterprise backed by some $2.5 million in gear that includes spectacular lights, flying pig, collapsing Wall, and, you guessed it, quadrophonic sound.
As the Canada-based Annerin Productions emphasizes, The Pink Floyd Experience is NOT an impostor show, but “a truly unforgettable interpretation and celebration of one of the great musical and theatrical concert experiences of all time.” Harkening back to the original heyday of vinyl rock albums and their (often carefully programmed) sides, guitarist-bandleader Tom Quinn and his six-piece Experience will be playing one sequence of songs from Dark Side, as well as Wish You Were Here, Animals and The Wall. They’ll be on stage at 8 pm this Friday, with tickets ($25 – $59) available right here — and they’re sure to return to Red Bank, when pigs fly.
