A guitar solo featured in a Pink Floyd live performance has been called the “best in rock history” by mesmerised fans.
Fans believe a performance of Comfortably Numb, which featured on the band’s tour of The Wall, is the greatest guitar solo in rock and roll history. An upload of the performance to YouTube saw fans flock to the comments and heap praise onto David Gilmour, the band’s guitarist and vocalist for the song. Gilmour received plenty of praise from fans who suggested it was the very best solo he had given the song, and that it was also a “beautiful” vocal performance. The song is featured on the Is There Anybody Out There live album, as well as The Dark Side of the Moon. Though the song was seven years old at this point, it was featured on The Wall setlist.
Fans were full of praise for this version, with one writing: “Probably the best guitar solo in rock and roll history.” Another added: “I will never get bored of this song, no matter how many times I listen to it.” A third shared: “David Gilmour… what a beautiful voice!”
Others were left wondering if Comfortably Numb was the “most beautiful” rock song ever written. One listener asked: “Is this the most beautiful rock song ever written?” Another listener agreed, adding: “Can’t find any better rock song than this one so far.”
A third added: “Goosebumps, when the light switches to David on top of the wall, and the crowd goes nuts.” The version, which can be found below, would mark one of the last tours from Pink Floyd with Roger Waters as a member. He would leave the band two years after the release of The Final Cut, ending his ties with the group in 1985.
Pink Floyd would continue on with Gilmour as leader, while Waters would gig as a solo artist in smaller venues. The change, he says, is not one he regrets. He said: “Not for one single second. There were times… like when I was in Cincinnati and I was playing to a half-empty arena, 3,000 people in a 6,000-capacity venue, and Pink Floyd were playing to 80,000 people the next night – this was the Radio Kaos tour, it was 1987.
“I felt like Henry the Fifth, ‘We happy few, we band of brothers. For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother’, meaning that because there are only a few of them there, it is sweeter. Because of the camaraderie. And there was definitely that feeling from the 3,000 people that were there.”
He would reunite with Pink Floyd just once, for a performance at Live 8 which lasted just twenty minutes. The band turned down an alleged $250million offer to tour again. You can watch the electrifying Comfortably Numb performance below.
