Pink Floyd Tribute, Wish You Were Here, rocks Jackson

Wish You Were Here, the Cleveland, Ohio-based Pink Floyd Tribute Band brought a night of hits, fan favorites, and deep cuts to Jackson’s Michigan Theater earlier this month and delighted the uninitiated and hard-core Floyd followers alike. WYWH have been at it for nearly 25 years and had not performed in Michigan in quite some time, so it was exciting to see them visit their neighbors to the north, whom they thrilled with an engaging light and laser show, props, costumes, and stage settings, and spot-on performances of many Pink Floyd classics, including a healthy dose of The Wall, celebrating it’s 40^th anniversary this year. While some area fans have been enjoying Michigan’s own Floyd tribute band, Echoes of Pink Floyd, and their recent annual visits to the Michigan Theater, it was nice to see and hear another veteran group of dedicated fans bring Floyd’s songs to the historic Jackson venue.

 Like many other Floyd tribute acts, Wish You Were Here structure their show with the same style and pacing of an actual Pink Floyd concert, with two full sets that have an intermission between them, followed by an encore to end the night.  Pink Floyd came up with this arrangement around the time they began performing songs from what would become Dark Side of the Moon and continued with it until retiring from live performances in 1994. The band consisted of up to 9 people on stage at a time, including two female backing vocalists and additional musicians who alternated between guitar, saxophone, percussion, and additional vocals as needed. Each did very well to represent their position and parts in each song, though the house mix could have brought the guitars and vocals up and reduced the volume on the drums, just a bit. One element unique to WYWH compared to other Floyd tributes is their inclusion of certain deep cuts that most others do not include, such as “Remember a Day”, from the 1968 album, A Saucerful of Secrets, which was included early in the show as a tribute to both Syd Barrett and Richard Wright (the two late members of Pink Floyd), and later-era favorites like “On the Turning Away” and “Coming Back to Life”, from Floyd’s late ‘80s/early ‘90s incarnation, helmed by guitarist/vocalist, David Gilmour.

Other notable and unexpected tracks included “Pigs on the Wing (pt. 1)” and “Dogs” from Animals to open the second set, and a beautiful transition from the very well-known, “Wish You Were Here”, to the Meddle fan-favorite, “Fearless” near the end of the show. A fair amount of attention was given to songs from Floyd’s biggest albums, Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall, as usual, but WYWH had fun with the arrangements, extending or amending sections of certain songs here and there, and they entertained themselves as well as the audience by performing sections of songs with complete or nearly complete sides of those albums, most notably sides one and three of The Wall.

 Overall, Wish You Were Here brought a professional, well-rehearsed concert to Jackson that featured engaging songs, performance, and visuals to a respectful audience that blended young and old, fans and beginners, and hopefully, they will visit Michigan to perform again before another decade or more passes!

Wish You Were Here set list:

Shine on You Crazy Diamond (pts. 1-5)

Remember a Day

(“Bike” end section only/transition)

In the Flesh?

The Thin Ice

Another Brick in the Wall (pt. 1)

The Happiest Days of Our Lives

Another Brick in the Wall (pt. 2)

Mother

(“Speak to Me” + samples/transition)

Breathe

Time

Breathe (reprise)

The Great Gig in the Sky

Goodbye Blue Sky

Empty Spaces (pt. 1)

Young Lust

On the Turning Away

---------------------------------(intermission)-------

Pigs on the Wing (pt. 1)

Dogs

Money

One of These Days

(sample montage/transition)

Hey You

Is There Anybody Out There?

Nobody Home

Coming Back to Life

Wish You Were Here

Fearless

Run Like Hell

Comfortably Numb

------------------------------(encore break)--------

Brain Damage

Eclipse

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