Short Story: All That You Touch And All That You See

A short story about the big life lessons seeing a Pink Floyd Tribute

I got chatting to a guy at a Pink Floyd Tribute Band show. You always find older guys on their own at these sorts of shows, and if you make eye contact at the wrong time it can be like a tractor-beam. Anyway, he started telling me about all of the Pink Floyd tributes he’d been to, all around the world. He was from England originally, and he’d seen the real Floyd five times. He was there at Earl’s Court watching the band play The Dark Side of the Moon live just a couple of months after that album was released. He saw the Delicate Sound of Thunder reunion shows in the 80s. The ones without Roger, he reminded me. And he saw them in the late 70s, and again some other time in the early 90s.

He moved to New Zealand and started watching Pink Floyd Tributes, though he also loved Tangerine Dream. And a few other things like that. He’d worked driving trucks, and doing odd jobs. But his wife was the real heart and soul of the operation, he said. It was the first time his eyes twinkled. She was a school teacher. Kindest person he’d ever met. She never had a sick day, she never came home angry. She worked hard in a tiny town and everyone in the community had kind things to say. She was always showered with gifts at the end of the school year. She didn’t like Pink Floyd at all, he chuckled. But she knew that marriages were kept running by allowing each person within it to have their own special interests. He added that he never looked at other women at gigs, just found guys to bug with his stories of the times he’d seen the band!

On the last day of school, in the year his wife retired, she got up a bit early to get ahead, in the hope she could knock off halfway through the day. She drove the same route she’d taken for nearly 30 years. A truck tried to pass another truck, lost control, and its load went all over the place. One of the logs jumped straight up off the road and went straight through the window of his wife’s car, removing her head. There was basically nothing left, he said. My life changed in a second. And hers was gone in even less. No tears. But a modulation to the voice. For the first and only time. He said that it was funny, well, not the right word, but you know. She was the one that was a picture of health. He was a mess. Shit diet. Bad habits. Wouldn’t learn. Couldn’t be bothered.

Anyway, he said, at least there was music. His refuge beforehand. His salvation now. He said he dropped acid the first time he saw Pink Floyd and the gig went for hours, and was also over in ten minutes. His life changed before him, in a flash. He had seen so many shows by so many bands but Pink Floyd was the all-timer for him. And he felt he was forever chasing that particular high. That’s why he’d been to see them again. And again. And why he chased tribute bands all over the place. Driving from the Bay of Plenty down to Wellington for the night to see this particular gig, the night we chatted. I did have to ask him, even if it felt like odd timing, why he bothered to see the tribute acts when he had seen the real thing. And seen the real thing on actually more than one occasion. He stared deeply at me for a moment, drew a breath, and just as the lights went down and the synth started creeping up, the main act just starting, Shine On You Crazy Diamond about to be beamed into place, he said that you had to do whatever you could to keep the things alive that you loved for as long as you were able. Do whatever you can to hold on, he said.