I think I've seen 3 Gilmour tours., Plus the late Era Floyd, all shows in Toronto CA. I have never seen him perform a single track from either of his first two solo albums. I always just assumed Gilmour hated the stuff.
Of course I could have seen him in the 80's right here in Buffalo in a nice intimate music hall on the About Face tour. But my girlfriend at the time vetoed it. Grrrr.
Dave performed a good chunk of stuff from the first two solo albums in on his first solo tour in 1984. Other than a handful of one-offs in '85/'86, I think he pretty much abandoned those two albums by 1987. It's a pity, those two albums (especially the first one) have a lot of great stuff on them. I much prefer them to
Lapse of Reason. Dave would shake up the set lists a little bit from night to night in 1984, but over the course of the tour he definitely performed every tune from
About Face. From the first album "Mihalis" and "Short & Sweet" were performed pretty much every night. "There's No Way Out of Here" was a standard part of the set on the European leg of the tour but was played less frequently in America. The only other song from the first album played on that tour was "I Can't Breathe Anymore". Setlist.fm says it was only played seven times. (I was lucky enough to see him do it in Boston). As for Floyd tunes, "Comfortably Numb" and "Run Like Hell" were always played. "Money" got added for the American shows.
I had just graduated high school when the
About Face tour landed in New England. My graduation present to myself was to follow Dave around for a bit. I caught him in Hartford, Boston (the second night) and New Haven. Having been a die-hard Floyd fan for a few years by that time, this was my first opportunity to see any member of the band so I was very psyched and he didn't disappoint. The shows were great. The band had a ton of energy. (Sadly this wasn't the case when he returned three years later for the
Lapse tour). One great memory was at the New Haven show where I was lucky enough to score 2nd row seats. When the stage rush came for the encore I got right in front of him. (These were the days when they didn't have barricades so you could be right up against the stage). I was only a few feet away from him when he played the iconic "Comfortably Numb" solos. My 18 year old brain melted. And another great memory of the tour was catching them with my great friend
@Fourplay . He and I had only just met the year before. This would be the first time we would see a Floyd together, but hardly the last. Despite now living on opposite sides of the country, he and I have managed see the band and the individual members' solo shows together across these many decades. Here we are outside of Radio City Music Hall in 2016 after seeing the
Rattle That Lock tour.
