(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Sun 25 January 2026 16:00, UK
There’s no way that David Gilmour could have predicted that Pink Floyd would be going on and on in the way that they are today.
The thought of them continuing at all without Syd Barrett was slim to none by the time they got started making music in the early 1970s, but when they decided to fully break from the psychedelic tradition, records like Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here pointed the way forward for what rock and roll could be. Bands could be a lot more ambitious if they wanted to, but there also came a point where Gilmour felt like bands needed to bow out gracefully.
Granted, it’s not like Floyd ever had a proper goodbye like they were supposed to. The Division Bell was intended to be the last album that they ever made, but the fact that The Endless River exists does taint the gravity of those songs just a little bit. And while the closest that the band ever came to a final wave goodbye was the Live 8 concert, it’s safe to say that Gilmour wasn’t exactly on glowing terms with Waters in the same way that he was when they were making their masterpieces.
But rock and roll has never been about drama. It’s about the music at the end of the day, and as long as everyone keeps playing to the best of their abilities, that should be enough, right? Well, yes, but even if a band keeps pushing themselves doesn’t mean that they can’t still run into a few hiccups along the way as well.
Gilmour might still have a lot of chops as a frontman, and Waters’ lyricism was as sharp as ever on some of their newer material, but the guitarist also understood that he wasn’t 25 anymore. A lot of the tunes in his later years have been about reflecting on the life that he has at home, and while that suits his music fine, it’s a little bit tougher to talk about domestic life when you’re someone like Mick Jagger from The Rolling Stones.
After all, the Stones were the epitome of excess back in the day, and half of their appeal was about the energy and the sense of danger they created whenever they made a new record. And while they can try all they want to translate that kind of music to a new generation, Gilmour felt that the band needed to pack it in a few decades ago before things started getting too stale.
Everyone can still play to the best of their abilities, and what Jagger is doing to stay in shape is truly otherworldly, but Gilmour felt like the band’s legacy would have been better had they bowed out long before now, saying, “It’s a powerful drug, 50,000 people appearing to adore you. I’m a big Stones fan but they haven’t done anything that matches their earlier stuff in years. As Bob Dylan shows, it doesn’t have to be that way. He can still come up with material that is completely new and interesting.”
Then again, what The Stones are doing certainly has its place in rock and roll history. They might be known as a nostalgia act, but since the blues has always been about escapism and getting away from the problems that are going on in your life, the least that they could do was do the same thing for their fans when they started making the rounds. The crowd might have to endure one new song, but it’s worth it for them to relive their youth hearing tunes like ‘Satisfaction’.
Because even if Gilmour is a much different musician than he was when he started working with Floyd, The Stones are a much different breed of rock and roll band. For all of the great music that they have made over the years, there’s a certain tribal energy that keeps them coming back, and while it might look like they’re beating a dead horse at times, there’s not a day that goes by that they don’t think that they are doing what they were put on this Earth to do.
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