David Gilmour live review: A great mix of old and new

Times of discover News: David Gilmour, an unassuming rock legend, came on stage and warmed up with some instruments. His two most recent solo albums, 5.A.M. and Black Cat, combine to create a refined, almost classical atmosphere, and Gilmour's guitar - first gliding, then picking notes - is iconic and foremost.

Although Roger Waters was Pink Floyd's main songwriter and conceptualist, Gilmour, who sang most of the songs and played the breaks, defined the band's sound. His set tonight struck a balance between honoring that legacy and asserting his independence. After six nights here, he's performed at London's Albert Hall, California's Hollywood Bowl and Intuit Dome, and New York's Madison Square Garden. This may be his last tour.

The first song was Luck and Strange, the title track from the new album that topped the charts. It's great drive-time rock, not unlike Chris Rea or Dire Straits, with great vocals and an extended duet play-out with impressive second guitarist Ben Worsley.

Gilmour later played the first guitar chord on Pink Floyd's Breathe. Dramatic smoke fills the stage, the audience roars its approval, and as the song changes in time (and the original 1974 film animation plays on the back screen), Gilmour plays a second chord that ends in black, the equivalent of Tony Iommi's The Saturdays' Iron Man . . . .

Time waits for no one: David Gilmour on stage at Rome's Circus Maximus

Everyone sang along, most enjoying the line, "Quiet desperation is the English way." This Floydian line, courtesy of Waters, also inadvertently describes a key element of the band's work, for example in 1971's Medley of Echoes. Gilmour no longer plays that song, but he still plays Fat Old Sun, the band's first solo single. He lacks a few vocal notes, although his biting and piercing guitar breaks more than make up for it.

After the marooned instrumental - one of three songs tonight from Floyd's The Division Bell - which finds Gilmour grooving almost Santana style, the hugely popular 'Wish You Were Here' summons many ghosts from this stadium's past - including Syd Barrett and Rick Wright of Floyd - to the fore.

Gilmour ends the song with a brief "Thank you very much, indeed. Good evening". He likes to talk to his guitar, and it's doubly obvious for a musician if they forget during the band introductions.

The rest of the first set remains buoyant. Between Two Points, played by Gilmour's daughter Romany on harp and vocals, is even more mesmerising live than on the new record. And the 1994 lament High Hopes sounds as much like Pink Floyd as apocalyptic folk artists Current 93.

The second set began with a more than 10-minute version of 1987's Pain, a safety song from an earlier era that again drew comparisons to Dire Straits. Adding to the pessimism, An Great Day for Freedom plays out like an elegy, before Gilmour begins the song with an epic solo - shared with Worsley - that plays with superb melodic fluidity.