Latest Drum News
Kelli Skye Fadroski of the Orange County Register wrote this article published September 3rd. The experience will run daily through Jan. 9, 2022 at the Vogue Multicultural Museum on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles.
Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason with one of his favorite drum kits which is now part of the The Pink Floyd Exhibition: Their Mortal Remains Friday, September 3, 2021. The new show at the Vogue Theater in Hollywood is an immersive walk-thru experience that deep dives into the career of Pink Floyd. The show runs through January 2022.
Nick Mason, the drummer of British rock band Pink Floyd, officially kicked off the run of Pink Floyd: Their Mortal Remains, an immersive exhibition that will run daily through Jan. 9, 2022, at the Vogue Multicultural Museum in Los Angeles on Friday, Sept. 3.
As fans of all ages with opening day tickets lined the sidewalks out on Hollywood Boulevard, Mason took a stroll through the exhibition, which features over 350 Pink Floyd artifacts including oversized stage sets, props and private collection items from the band members themselves, such as instruments, handwritten song lyrics, original artwork and more.
Mason paused in front of a display of his “Hokusai Wave” drum kit, which features “The Great Wave” painting by Japanese artist Hokusai. Inspired by a tour in Japan, Mason commissioned artist Katy Hepburn to paint the drum heads in 1973.
“It’s just a favorite painting of mine anyway, but we actually used it as a tour logo in ’72, I think,” he said examining the vintage Ludwig drum kit. “It lasted really well and I’m very fond of it. I love the drums as sort of objet d’art. I have enormous affection for it, in fact, I’m having another kit made to look more or less the same because I don’t want to take this one out on tour so I’m making a new one.”
Visitors check out the The Pink Floyd Exhibition: Their Mortal Remains Friday, September 3, 2021. The new show at the Vogue Theater in Hollywood is an immersive walk-thru experience that deep dives into the career of Pink Floyd. The show runs through January 2022. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
The exhibition was originally scheduled to open in early August but was pushed back by a month as shipping containers filled with pieces for the exhibition were delayed due to COVID-19. Pink Floyd: Their Mortal Remains has already been seen by hundreds of thousands of fans in Europe, including at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum.
Los Angeles-based promoter Diego Gonzalez was one of those patrons and said he knew he had to bring the experience to Southern California. Gonzalez, who has brought exhibitions featuring the works of directors Tim Burton and Guillermo Del Toro and Swiss artist H.R. Giger to Mexico City, said he was impressed with the quality of this traveling multi-sensory exhibition because it gave both diehard fans and new generations the opportunity to experience the band’s live show within a museum.
“There’s a generation of people that were never able to see Pink Floyd [live],” Gonzalez said during a Zoom video chat last month. “It’s just impressive. I think people will love it. I see people saying they’re coming to see it in Los Angeles that also saw it in London and it’s exciting to see the reaction people are having to it. My favorite thing to do is stand near the exit and see the smile on people’s faces. You have fans that can listen to ‘Wish You Were Here’ on repeat and don’t get tired of it and people who see the guitar that David Gilmour wrote that song on and they have a strong connection to that instrument and there have been tears.”
Mason said he can’t choose just one item he likes the best, referring to the collection as more like a scrapbook of the band’s five-decade career. He compared watching excited fans react to items in the exhibit to receiving a roar of applause at a live concert.
“There’s going to be something different for everyone,” he said. “Some people are going to be more interested in the guitars and other people are going to be more interested in maybe the artwork and are Syd Barrett fans. You can be drawn to one thing, but then come see this collection of things all together.”
Much like the band, which was heavy into studio experimentation and used any and all available technology of the time to record albums like “Dark Side of the Moon,” “Wish You Were Here” and “The Wall,” the exhibition is sonically and visually high-tech and interactive. It’s in chronological order, starting with the underground scene in London in 1967 and wrapping up in the Performance Zone, an audio-visual space that includes a large inflatable flying pig and a video recreation of the last performance the band gave of “Comfortably Numb” at Live 8 in 2005.
Fans can also hear from the band members themselves as recordings play featuring Syd Barrett, Roger Waters, Richard Wright, David Gilmour and Mason commenting on various aspects of their careers on portable audio devices distributed at the door. The exhibition features an original painting by Barrett as well as a replica of his well-known mirrored Fender guitar. Also on display are Waters’ sketches from “The Wall,” a black leather stage cloak and his Ovation bass guitar used from ’74-’78. And the iconic album cover artwork by exhibition co-creator Aubrey ‘Po’ Powell and the late Storm Thorgerson of the Hipgnosis design agency are represented.
As the exhibition moves about the world, new items are found and added, Mason said. For its first run in North America, Michael Kamen’s 170-page annotated music score for “The Wall” has been included.
Mason said he’s fascinated and grateful that younger generations of fans are enjoying Pink Floyd’s music – though a few younger fans cruised right by Mason in the exhibition and he went unrecognized.
“None of us expected rock music to last any length of time anyway,” he said. “I remember Ringo Starr saying he was going to join a chain of hairdressers just after [The Beatles] second album. We all thought we collected our audience in a nice age group, which was our peer group, probably, but if we can have some relevance to a younger audience that’s enormously flattering.”
The Pink Floyd Exhibition: Their Mortal Remains
When: 11-6 p.m. Monday-Friday; 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Saturday-Sunday Sept. 3-Jan. 9, 2022
Where: Vogue Multicultural Museum, 6675 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles
Tickets: $46 per person in advance at vmmla.com
Original article: HERE
