David Gilmour has added even more U.S. dates for his 2024 tour, his first since 2016. On May 16, he added a third show at the Hollywood Bowl and fourth and fifth concerts at New York’s Madison Square Garden. [One day earlier, when the pre-sale for the two venues began, a third concert at MSG was added “due to overwhelming demand.”] That brings the total to 20 concerts in support of his upcoming first studio album since 2015. On May 10, Gilmour announced six shows—all at Rome’s Circo Massimo in late September and early October 2024. That announcement followed the news exactly one week earlier of six October concerts at London’s Royal Albert Hall. (The Italy and U.K. performances are the only European dates.) Luck and Strange will be released on September 6, 2024, on Sony Music. The newest MSG dates on November 9-10 and the Hollywood Bowl on October 31 will go on general sale beginning May 17 at 10 a.m. local time here. Tickets for the Royal Albert Hall concerts quickly sold-out.
Gilmour shared the first track from the album, “The Piper’s Call,” featuring a blistering guitar solo, on April 25. [One of the CD’s two bonus tracks, “Yes, I Have Ghosts,” was released in 2020. Listen to both below.] The album is being released in a variety of formats and is available now to pre-order in the U.S. here and in the U.K. here.
In an electronic press kit of his Live at Pompeii album from 2017, Gilmour addressed the subject of whether he’d be touring. “I feel very uncomfortable heading off out and doing another tour without having made new music. There are several songs that are close to being complete which didn’t make it onto this album. I can’t see myself doing another tour without making another album first and that takes me a while. It took 10 years last time. I’m really hoping that, without making any promises, that it won’t take 10 years this time that I will get back in and start working again and following that I’ll be out again.”
From the April 24 album announcement: Luck and Strange was recorded over five months in Brighton and London and is the first David Gilmour album of new material in nine years [2015’s Rattle That Lock]. The record was produced by Gilmour and Charlie Andrew, best known for his work with ALT-J and Marika Hackman. Of this new working relationship, Gilmour, who turned 78 on March 6, says, “We invited Charlie to the house, so he came and listened to some demos, and said things like, ‘Well, why does there have to be a guitar solo there?’ and ‘Do they all fade out? Can’t some of them just end?’ He has a wonderful lack of knowledge or respect for this past of mine. He’s very direct and not in any way overawed, and I love that. That is just so good for me because the last thing you want is people just deferring to you.”
The majority of the album’s lyrics have been composed by Polly Samson, Gilmour’s wife, co-writer and collaborator for the past thirty years. Samson says of the lyrical themes covered on Luck and Strange, “It’s written from the point of view of being older; mortality is the constant.” Gilmour elaborates, “We spent a load of time during and after lockdown talking about and thinking about those kind of things.” Polly has also found the experience of working with Charlie Andrew liberating, “He wants to know what the songs are about, he wants everyone who’s playing on them to have the ideas that are in the lyric informing their playing. I have particularly loved it for that reason.”
The album features eight new tracks along with a beautiful reworking of The Montgolfier Brothers’ “Between Two Points.”
Musicians contributing to the record include Guy Pratt and Tom Herbert on bass, Adam Betts, Steve Gadd and Steve DiStanislao on drums, Rob Gentry and Roger Eno on keyboards, with string and choral arrangements by Will Gardner. The title track also features the late Pink Floyd keyboard player Richard Wright, recorded in 2007 at a jam in a barn at Gilmour’s house.
Watch a brief album teaser
Some contributions emerged from the live streams that Gilmour and family performed to a global audience during the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021; Romany Gilmour sings, plays the harp and appears on lead vocals on “Between Two Points.” Gabriel Gilmour also sings backing vocals.
The album’s cover image, photographed and designed by Anton Corbijn, is inspired by a lyric written by Charlie Gilmour for the album’s final song “Scattered.” Of working with his family on Luck and Strange, David Gilmour says, “Polly and I have been writing together for over thirty years and the Von Trapped live streams showed the great blend of Romany’s voice and harp-playing and that led us into a feeling of discarding some of the past that I’d felt bound to and that I could throw those rules out and do whatever I felt like doing, and that has been such a joy.”
David Gilmour 2024 Tour (Tickets may be available here and here)
Sep 27-28-29 – Rome, IT – Circo Massimo
Oct 1-2-3 – Rome, IT – Circo Massimo
Oct 9-10 – London, UK – Royal Albert Hall
Oct 11-12 – London, UK – Royal Albert Hall
Oct 14-15 – London, UK – Royal Albert Hall
Oct 29-30-31 – Los Angeles, CA – Hollywood Bowl
Nov 4-5-6 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden
Nov 9-10 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden
Gilmour is guitarist, vocalist and writer with Pink Floyd, but is also renowned for his solo work. He and Roger ‘Syd’ Barrett met as children in Cambridge, U.K., and later began playing guitar together. In 1965 Barrett co-founded Pink Floyd, while Gilmour continued playing with a succession of his own bands. In 1968, he was asked to augment the Pink Floyd line up as the singer and guitarist, only for Barrett to leave the group five gigs later. Gilmour’s guitar playing, singing and songwriting became major factors of Pink Floyd’s worldwide success, including his distinctive vocals and guitar playing on 1973’s iconic album, The Dark Side Of The Moon.
David Gilmour Luck and Strange Track Listing
Black Cat
Luck and Strange
The Piper’s Call
A Single Spark
Vita Brevis
Between Two Points – with Romany Gilmour
Dark and Velvet Nights
Sings
Scattered
CD Bonus Tracks
Yes, I Have Ghosts
Luck and Strange (original Barn Jam)
