Pink Floyd - a moment in time 30 years ago

Above: a compilation of news reports on Pink Floyd's 1988 concert near Perth, Australia.

When Pink Floyd took to the stage at East Fremantle Oval exactly 30 years ago, I was not expecting a concert that would live so vividly in my memory. But the magical sense of place and feeling of that evening has not been diminished by the passing of three decades.

As the sun went down on a sultry mid-summer day in Australia, beneath the twinkly stars of the southern sky, some 25,000 people gathered at the outdoor sports ground to witness the music and laser show spectacle. It wasn't cheap; tickets were $37, which was a sizable bite into my budget at the time. I was 21, and living cheaply as a backpacker on a one-year working-visa. However, my budget took secondary consideration next to the draw of such a big night. Pink Floyd were part of the pantheon of modern music greats, alongside The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Who.

Big night: concert ticket and photo of the Pink Floyd
gig at East Fremantle Oval, February 24, 1988

Up until that evening the music of Pink Floyd had drifted in and out of my life, mostly through the 1979 hit Another Brick in the Wall. When I arrived in Western Australia at the start of 1988, I found the band's new single On the Turning Away was receiving heavy radio airplay. I was deeply struck by this song - then and now - and regard it as one of their greatest moments.

The Pink Floyd of 1988 was a patched together, not quite complete version of the band that created a string of masterpieces in the 1960s and 1970s. The group had fractured in the early 1980s with Richard Wright, the keyboard/singer, the first to depart followed by singer-songwriter Roger Waters. At that stage, with only two core members remaining, it seemed the band was done. But in the heat and ashes of bitter legal wrangles, singer-guitarist David Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason re-engaged with Wright, recorded a new album, A Momentary Lapse of Reason (1987), and set about self-financing a world tour.

I'd been immensely impressed by On The Turning Away, not at all by its follow-up The Dogs of War, but mesmorised again by another track Learning to Fly. I was staying at Travelmates, a backpackers' hostel in Perth. A group of fellow travellers who were seriously into Pink Floyd convinced me it would be worth shelling out $37 for a ticket. And so I went to East Fremantle Oval that evening.

There was a uniqueness to the night. As we stood in the sweet, warm evening air we were bathed in more than simply music; it was an experience and total immersion in sound and laser lights. Giant inflatables soared above the crowd, one a pig, another the frightful schoolteacher immortalised in the video for Another Brick In The Wall.

It was jaw-dropping and intangibly uplifting.  The Cold War was thawing, the world seemed to be shifting and Pink Floyd, the musical kings, were providing a timeless soundtrack. The evening captured something of that moment, a feeling of freedom, of new beginnings and new possibilities.

Not everyone was happy. The staging of an outdoor rock concert by one of the biggest bands in the world, in the middle of suburbia, caused plenty of local criticism - as evident in the contemporary newscasts in the video above. I also remember one amusing quip in the press the following day from a retired music teacher who lived nearby, he derided the night claiming Pink Floyd "wouldn't know a tuning fork from a pitch fork".

Others have reminisced about vast plumes of marijuana smoke that hung heavy above the crowd that evening. There certainly was a thick fragrance, which may have had some baring on the laid back attitude of the police who peacefully monitored the event from a distance.

As it turned out it was the last concert Pink Floyd ever played in Australia. They had one more world tour, in 1994, which had no Australian dates. After that they were gone, bar for a last-minute, unexpected reunion by all four members to perform three songs in London's Hyde Park during the Live 8 charity event in 2005.

Having seen and heard the reinvigorated Pink Floyd, I kept their music by my side for the rest of my year-long adventure in Australia, and for years later. The live album of that tour, Delicate Sound of Thunder, to this day sparks vivid memories of that time - but no track more so than On The Turning Away.

Even as the decades have ticked by, I hoped that I would get a chance to see Pink Floyd one more time. But following the death of Wright in 2006 that possibility all but vanished, and the gap between the last tour and today is now wider than Pink Floyd's entire recording career (1967-94)*. However, I shall always treasure that night of warmth, joy and togetherness at East Fremantle Oval.

* Excluding The Endless River (2014). My review can be read here.
Video: Pink Floyd perform On the Turning Away during the 1987-90 world tour


Video: Nick Mason interview the day before the East Fremantle concert

Dolphin Girl and the wartime secret keeper

Book comments: Jim Humphreys' faxed letter about Dolphin Girl.

A man who knew one of the big secrets of the Second World War has died at 100.

James Humphreys Jr also wrote kind words about Dolphin Girl shortly after it first appeared in the Eating Clouds collection in 2008. He felt it should be turned into a movie and suggested who might be the perfect producer.

More on that in a moment, but first some words on Jim. He was a US Navy Lieutenant during the Second World War and was stationed in Bermuda in 1944, where he met his future wife Shirley. She was a volunteer nurse's aide and tended to patients at the US military hospital in Southampton. She was tasked with looking after a German U-boat commander, Admiral Harald Lange, who along with his submarine and crew members had been captured by the Americans.

The big secret was that the capture in 1944 had resulted in an Enigma machine and assorted codebooks falling into the hands of the Allies. While codebreakers in the UK had already cracked many of the Enigma codes, the additional resources from the captured U-boat gave further insights, including a coordinate code for locating the rendezvous locations of the submarines.

Of significant value was the capture of the submarine U-505. It was towed to Bermuda, where its acoustic homing torpedoes were analysed and tested. This gave the Allies crucial information on ways to counter the technology.

It was vital that the capture of the U-boat and its crew remained a secret - lest the Germans find out how much the Allies had learned from the codes and torpedoes. Shirley was sworn to secrecy, although she shared the secret with her beloved Jim. Together they kept the information under wraps for 50 years. The couple married and after the war lived in the US before returning to Bermuda in 1980. It was only in 1992 that the wartime secret was revealed during interviews.

Shirley died in 1999. By all accounts, Jim felt Bermuda was his home as it had played such a significant part in his life and he remained on the island for the rest of his days.
I met Jim in November 2005. He was a wartime veteran taking part in the annual Remembrance Day parade on Front Street, Hamilton. I was compiling a report for The Royal Gazette newspaper and I spoke to him and a number of the other veterans. Jim was 88, and in our brief exchange he did not mention the drama of the U-boat secret.

Three years later, the original edition of Eating Clouds was published. It contained a mixture of journalism and life stories that I had collected over the years. The second part of the book featured the short novel Dolphin Girl, which became an expanded and improved standalone novel in 2015.

An article about Eating Clouds appeared in the newspaper in December 2005, and two weeks later a fax arrived at the newspaper office from Jim. It was addressed to me, and in it Jim wrote he had enjoyed the book "especially Dolphin Girl" and added: "I recommend that you consult Michael Douglas and ask him to consider being the producer of the film, Dolphin Girl. Special effects rendition of Dolphin Girl changing from a dolphin to a gorgeous blonde as the Scottish team, led by Josh and Katrina, save her is an Academy candidate winner."

Jim also mentioned that I had interviewed him a few years earlier. I wrote back thanking him for his words, which were among the first positive feedback received regarding Eating Clouds and Dolphin Girl. I've yet to take up Jim's recommendation to approach Mr Douglas (who occasionally resides in Bermuda) regarding a Dolphin Girl film.

It was sad to hear of Jim's passing this week. However, I'm glad he lived a full and remarkable life, that our paths crossed and that he stayed happy and engaged with the world to such a grand age - as evident by an interview a colleague conducted with him last year on his 100th birthday.
This is a salute to retired US Navy Lt Jim Humphreys. Fair winds and following seas.

A Royal Gazette obituary article on Mr Humphreys: https://tinyurl.com/y7cmvd7r

Please Stand By for a great movie

On a mission: Wendy has to reach Los Angeles
before the screenwriting competition deadline

It's always a pleasure to come across a movie out of the blue that entertains, tugs on emotions and is enjoyable to the last.

Please Stand By tells the story of a young woman with autism, played by Dakota Fanning, who runs away from her caregiver in order to submit a screenplay she has written to a Star Trek contest.

This new film has been released simultaneously at theatres and through iTunes and Amazon.

Fanning plays the role of Wendy, who has some remarkable yet under-appreciated talents. Even as her erratic mission to deliver her Star Trek screenplay falls apart, she overcomes her fears. At one point she does this by following the wisdom of Spock - in the words that she wrote - where the only logical direction to go is "forward".

Toni Collette, in the role of caregiver Scottie, was the reason I took a chance on this new release. Collete has given a string of great performances over the years, including her breakthrough hit Muriel's Wedding, and she is masterful in this outing, as is Alice Eve, another newcomer to me, who plays Wendy's sister Audrey.

Perfect casting: Dakota Fanning's performance as Wendy is memorable

While the strong and clear plot revolves around Wendy's attempt to deliver her screenplay before the competition deadline, the theme of Please Stand By is very much one of relationships, empathy and family. The upsets are believable, and even in the seemingly most hopeless moments there is an underlying positivity, a flickering flame that refuses to go out. We never want to give up on Wendy.

All together, Please Stand By handles an interesting topic in a sensitive and uplifting way. Fanning is a star on the rise, and Collette and Eve are on point in their supporting roles. My emotions were tugged repeatedly by this film, which in moments reminded me of David Lynch's wonderful Straight Story.

The scripting is tight and believable; the cinematography and accompanying music are a delight. The soundtrack features the melodic Au Revoir Simone and also the relatively obscure group Lavender Diamond, whose play out tune Open Your Heart perfectly captures the mood.

At a time when Hollywood seems to be losing the plot with soulless blockbuster franchises, it is good to know that little films such as Please Stand By are also being made and seeing the light of day.

Official trailer for Please Stand By:

Love the song #5: When Heroes Go Down

Rock on: the minimalist, industrial-style setting for the video of
When Heroes Go Down perfectly reflected the tone of the song

It was difficult to restrict myself to a single song from Suzanne Vega's great catalogue to honour as the first to feature in this occasional 'Love the Song' series.

However, I've gone for one of her more unusual outings, When Heroes Go Down. It is probably the most out-and-out rocking number she has released. And at just under two minutes long, it is also one of the briefest slices of pop/rock.

It was the fourth and final single from the 99.9F album of 1992, which itself was a huge departure for Vega, breaking away from the folk-pop of her first three albums. The album featured industrial-sounding beats and percussion and some stark lyricism and vocals, and sent the American singer-songwriter into new territory. It was a bold step, and came two years after her famed song Tom's Diner had been sampled and repackaged by the British dance music duo DNA, sending it to the top of the charts.

The musical experimentation of 99.9F produced a host of memorable tracks, including the title song 99.9F, Blood Makes Noise, and In Liverpool.

What I love about When Heroes Go Down is its driving rock beat, the straightforward, powerful lyrics, Vega's assured vocals, and the way it manages to squeeze in a momentary change of pace, even in the rarified space of its 120 seconds entirety. In fact, my only complaint is that it is too short. I'd happily listen to another few minutes of this rocker.

Here is the official video for the song:

The Last Jedi misses old Star Wars beat

Splitting opinion: The Last Jedi

Along with many supportive comments, there have been some pretty harsh things posted online by moviegoers distressed about the latest Star Wars movie, The Last Jedi. Perhaps like no other episode in the 40-year old franchise, Episode VIII has split fans' opinions. Why is it so divisive - and is it justified?

It is almost a full week since I watched the film, and still I'm conflicted about its merits. On one level it was a good, standard movie - a little over-long, but entertaining. But at a deeper level it did not feel like a Star Wars film. There was an emptiness in the storytelling. It lacked the soul and heart that defined the original trilogy and, to a lesser extent, the prequels.

Having allowed my thoughts to settle during the past week, I rate The Last Jedi as a 2.5 out of 5. It is an adequate film, but somewhat lacking. My views on the positives and negatives of the film are below.

SPOILER ALERT: The remainder of this post discusses aspects of The Last Jedi, including plot and characters. If you intend to watch the film and don't want to know what is in it, read no further.

The positives:

1. The cinematography on the whole is well done and gives the movie a quality aesthetic; many of the sets and location shots are a joy to view and well framed. 
2. Likewise, the space battles are more interesting than in some of the previous installments. The battle engagements are shorter, more focused, and the special effects are beyond fault.
3. The interaction between Luke and Rey is fascinating and insightful, up to a point - because there was plenty of scope for more to have been achieved here - in particular in relation to Luke's torment and why he had taken the path he did. Mark Hamill's acting is magnificent and one of the film's highlights.
4. And then there is Kylo Ren's uneven relationship with the dark side of the Force, so dynamically portrayed by Adam Driver that he overshadows Rey as the most interesting protagonist on the screen. 
5. The developing story between Kylo and Rey is now clearly the signature theme for the trilogy, and it made for the most compelling on-screen interactions.
6. The throne room showdown was memorable (albeit, with the proviso below regarding Snoke).
7. Leia's no-nonsense final flourish that puts Poe in his place, twice.
8. A blisteringly brilliant standoff as Luke faces Kylo and The First Order's ground attack AT-ATs.

The negatives:

1. There's no real hero. Rey is surely meant to be the heroine of the piece, but she is unengaging and that is worrying two films into a trilogy. Her background and deeper motivations remain opaque. It is hard to really care for a character that you know so little about. The classic hero's journey is absent from Rey's character. All the interesting development stages have been left out. Also, she lacks emotional empathy, other than the edgy interplay with Kylo. It might be that this is all by design. We have one film left to find out.
2. As mentioned in the positive list Carrie Fisher's performance of Leia was fine, but there was potential for more. For example, when the communications operator reported that the call of help had been received at the outer rim but no one was responding, had it been shown, the sadness on Leia's face could have been a showstopper, particularly when immediately followed by Luke stepping out from the shadows. As for Leia's flying through space scene, the less said, the better. I'm fine with the concept - but what we got looked ridiculous.
3. The new charactors have not developed in any compelling ways. Finn looked the most promising, but his side adventure with Rose was underwhelming and a drag to the main narrative. Poe has yet to fulfill the potential he showed in The Force Awakens.
4. Chewbacca was a bit player. The meeting with Luke could have given something; that moment when Luke realised Han was no longer around. But the moment was squashed.
5. Luke's finale was uneven. There was the brilliance of his emergence from the smoke during the AT-AT standoff, but his ultimate departure missed a beat. Considering the film's nondescript ending, it was a shame it did not climax at, or around, that moment. If only the movie had flipped to the Millennium Falcon departing with the rebels and then back to Luke on the rock, the sunset, the empty cloak. End.
6. The bad guys. Are there any? General Hux is a shallow, ineffectual baddie who from the get-go is the fall-guy/punchbag for Snoke and Kylo. As for Snoke, so much potential thrown away with his highly anti-climatic demise. Who was he, where did he come from? Perhaps there's a bubblegum card that can help.
7. The film creaked under the sheer weight of its palette of characters. I had a hard job feeling connected or invested in the fate of most of them. The scripting left out the humanising elements.
8. Plot holes. So many, including a slow-motion space chase waiting for ships to run out of gas when it would appear simple enough to have a few star-cruisers head them off. And the casino subplot was weak and added little value to the main narrative.

Reflecting back two years to The Force Awakens, that was a fun and action-packed romp. Yes, it did retread past movies in the series, but it could be forgiven this as it was the scene setter for the new trilogy. The Last Jedi should have been the consolidating episode, but it failed to establish an emotional tether with the main protagonists.
The handling of Luke's character is questionable, and Mark Hamill has said so in blunt terms in interviews during the past two years. While I acknowledge the realigning of his character arc is a valid development (though not the only one), it cries out for some exposition. The Last Jedi missed that opportunity. I hope the next and final installment rounds things out.

Finally, I question the decision to not have the trilogy planned in some semi-structured way. I have read that director Rian Johnson scrapped an outdated draft of what Episode VIII might look like, and wrote his own version picking up from where JJ Abrams left the storyline and characters at the end of The Force Awakens. This "pass the parcel" approach to story sculpting must have some bearing on the disjointed feel of The Last Jedi.
And the film was longer than it needed to be. A sharper focus and editing would have made a big difference.

As I watched the quiet departure of the audience from the cinema at one of the early sold-out showings, to me it was a sign that this movie lacked the knockout stuff that many have come to expect from the Star Wars universe. As I mentioned earlier, I left the cinema not feeling that I'd witnessed a Star Wars film. It wasn't the same. There were too many diversions, too little depth, and too many unsatisfying gaps. It may be that Episode IX will deliver the answers that will cast The Last Jedi in a more favourable light. All now hangs on that 2019 release. Back to you Mr Abrams.

To end with here is a video of Mark Hamill expressing his views on The Last Jedi version of Luke:



And here is a trailer, and a very good one, for The Last Jedi....

A life lesson from my fastest half-marathon

Thirty years ago: crossing the finish line of my fastest half-marathon.

Five miles into the race and with another eight remaining, I was having doubts about my ability to stick with the group of runners directly in front of me.

Up ahead the lead runners were out of sight. I was tagging along in the chasing group - and I do mean tagging along.

The group of five were doing consistent six-minute miles. So was I. The difference was I was hanging off the back of the pack, relying on sheer willpower to prevent myself from being dropped. Yes, I had a degree of confidence to stick with the pace, but it was wafer-thin.

Three months earlier I had barnstormed a half-marathon in 1 hour 19 minutes - taking 13 minutes off my previous best. However, that confidence boost had been dented when, two weeks before the current race, I'd run another half-marathon while recovering from a bad cold. I finished in 1:28 - not bad by previous standards, but way off my new record.

Now I was struggling to stay with the six-minute mile pace. I mentally set myself a target of reaching five miles in 30 minutes, after which I'd allow myself to fall back to a more comfortable pace. But there was a problem.

The group of runners were taking it in turns to act as front man - taking on the pace-setting duties for the others then switching over after a mile to let the next man do his bit.  I'd been so preoccupied trying to keep up at the back of the pack I didn't notice that I was next in line to pull my weight up front.

The conditions were perfect for long distance running. There was virtually no breeze, it was cool and the open countryside was shrouded by a thin mist. We had reached five miles bang on target. That's when the others called on me to get in place up front and do my shift. I had a choice to either buckle and fade away like a douche bag, or step up and lead the group through mile six.

Who's next? I'm hanging at the back of the chasing group,
shortly before taking over the paceman duties at five miles.

So there I was, very much feeling like the odd man out at the back. Doing your fair share of the pacesetting duties when required was an unspoken rule of the sport. I moved to the lead and decided that as bad as I'd been struggling, I would put in my one-mile shift to keep that six-minute mile canter going, even if emptied my reserves and punished me for the remainder of the race.

I concentrated on my running gait and cadence, making sure it did not slip from the pace I'd been following. There was a sense of honour in fulfilling the lead runner duty; carrying the group one mile closer to the finish. I didn't want to let them down, or require them to take over before I had fulfilled my mile. It would hurt but I'd stick it out, come what may. Then something happened.

As I pushed on, eager to be as competent a pacesetter as the others, I began to feel better. My running gained a bit more bounce. Before I knew it, the six miles marker appeared and I prepared to relinquish my spot at the front to allow the next man to do his pace shift.

Two things had happened during that mile. My watch showed I'd gone faster than a six-minute mile, it was about 10 seconds quicker. I glanced over my shoulder to see who was preparing to take the lead duties and saw the group of runners were no longer in a pack. They had started to string out, they were breathing heavier and none were near enough to take over the pace. I was feeling better, so I stayed at the front and added a second mile of pacesetting.

What had happened was the opposite to what I had feared. Rather than slowing down, I'd found the experience of being in front had lifted me. From somewhere inside I'd been able to tap into extra energy. It was a similar sensation to taking part in team relays, where a sense of duty to do all possible not to let down the others resulted in a level of effort that many times surpassed what might have been achieved as an individual.

I'd only slightly overcooked the pace in that first mile of pacesetting. The next mile also came in at around 5 mins 50 secs. I looked around to see if the others were ready to take back the pace role, but the group was now strung out in a line. My reinvigorated legs had taken the pace marginally beyond the fixed effort of the opening five miles. I pushed on, looking to see how much longer I could sustain that level, and with each mile completed my confidence grew that a personal best could be on the cards. It was. I ran beneath the finish line clock in 1:17:25.

During the next 12 years I ran more sub-1:20 half marathons, but none as swiftly as that one exactly 30 years ago this weekend.

As for the other runners in the group; well, the race changed complexion when my pacing altered the six-minute miles to 5:50 miles. They had been settled on running the half-marathon in the high 1:18s or low 1:19s, but most of them were pulled through faster as they followed my lead - indeed, one is seen about 100 metres behind at the finish line photograph. I feel they got an unexpected benefit too.

So what did I learn from it? It taught me that even when feeling tired and wanting to back off and sit back, doing the opposite can sometimes have a cathartic effect; pushing though the barrier of discomfort led to a place of more strength than I thought existed. And secondly, I learnt that taking on a dutiful role gave an added inner drive to succeed.

Tom Petty's many moments of brilliance

Modern classic: Tom Petty at Ventura Boulevard, San Fernando Valley, in
the 1989 video for Free Fallin'. The song mentioned many "Valley" locations

Tom Petty was one of the great modern singer songwriters of America. His output around the late 1980s and early 1990s was stunning, and it is this period that I most associate with his music.

Petty, 66, died in Santa Monica on Monday after a heart attack. Here are two personal vignettes relating to Petty and his music.

The catchy melodies and lyrics of his biggest hits, particularly the two I rate most highly, Learning to Fly and Free Fallin', were firmly etched in my mind by 1995 - the year I enrolled for a semester of study at a Los Angeles college in the San Fernando Valley.

The relevancy of that is Petty's own connection to "The Valley." For many years he lived in the neighbourhood of Encino, and some of his songs and videos show or reference places in the San Fernando Valley - the vast metropolitan sprawl that is separated from downtown Los Angeles by the Hollywood Hills.

On my twice daily route to college through the neighbourhood of Reseda, or anytime I travelled along Ventura Boulevard (which passed one block away from the college), I could not help but hear Free Fallin' playing my head. Reseda, Ventura Boulevard and nearby Mulholland are all mentioned in the song, which was only a few years old at that time. The song's lyrics created a degree of comforting familiarity with my immediate surroundings, even though I was 7,000 miles from home.

Watch for the UFO: Tom Petty in the classic video for Learning to Fly

Rewinding eight years to 1987, and an October evening just outside the city of Birmingham, England. I was at the National Exhibition Centre to see a sell-out concert at the immense indoor venue.

Of the three artists on the bill I was familiar with two; the headliner Bob Dylan and the opening act Roger McGuinn, the former lead singer and guitarist of The Byrds. Sandwiched between the two was a group I'd never heard of called Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. I was there to see Dylan. The fact that McGuinn was also on the bill was a bonus. And I figured if Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were touring with Dylan and had been given a higher billing than McGuinn, then they must be pretty good.

McGuinn was on form, although his short set barely allowed him time to play more than a few of the jangle pop hits that made The Byrds famous in the 1960s, one being a cover version of Dylan's Mr Tamborine Man. This contrasted with Dylan, who barely lit up the stage with his disconnected performance.

Which brings me to Petty. That evening I had no expectations and so the surprise turned out to be all the greater. He and his band gave a performance between McGuinn's set and Dylan's that turned out to be the most enjoyable of the night. The rock-pop songs soared with an energy that seemed to bounce off the walls. Petty was having the time of his life performing on the same stage as two of his musical idols, and he was doing all he could to share some of that zest and fun with everyone in the audience of 15,000 - and succeeding.

At the time, the songs I consider to be Petty's finest had yet to be recorded, but during the next few years he would release I Won't Back Down, featuring George Harrison and Ringo Starr (Starr was only in the the video), the aforementioned Learning to Fly and Free Fallin', and was a founding member of the supergroup The Traveling Wilburys, along with Dylan, Harrison, Roy Orbison and ELO's Jeff Lynne.

The Traveling Wilbury's two albums spawned hits such as Handle With Care and End of the Line. It is fitting that Petty became a founding member of that short-lived group filled with musical legends, because he came to the world of music first and foremost as a fan. Just before his eleventh birthday he shook hands with Elvis Presley, then two years later he watched the US television debut appearance of The Beatles, at which point he decided he wanted to pursue a career as a musician in a band. It wasn't until the late 1970s that Petty and the Heartbreakers secured a contract with a major record label, but they quickly rose to success and reached a creative pinnacle in the late 80s and early 90s.

Petty was on the cusp of his greatest success when I saw him in concert in 1987. In the years that immediately followed I watched out for his records, and that proved to be perfect timing to catch the richest treasures of his career. Many of his American rock-pop classics have endured for a quarter-century and will last much longer.

Farewell Mr Petty, and thank you for the music.

Below: The official videos for Free Fallin' and Learning to Fly.





Further reading: An interview with the girl from the Free Fallin' video (and what she is doing now), can be found on this blog