A potential return to the stage for Pink Floyd was discussed shortly after their Live 8 show, but eventually ruled out.
While Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Nick Mason, and Richard Wright would never play together again after this show, the bassist had hoped for another reunion. Wright would die in 2008, ruling out any possibility of the classic line-up reforming, but Waters had spoken frequently in interviews given in the years after their Live 8 show of putting the band back together. The bassist and founding Pink Floyd member would claim Gilmour was opposed to the reunion plans, and that the band had even turned down a lucrative $250million offer to get back together. Waters would go on the record and share that he would be up for a series of Pink Floyd concerts, but that it would not be a “one-off” show.
Waters told Uncut Magazine in 2007: “This is why Dave is very reluctant to ever do anything again: for 20 years it’s been his baby. He doesn’t want to give up that position and what should he? Listen.
“If somehow, working through all our egos, all the history and whatever, we could come together for a reason – I don’t care what – and maybe do a few gigs in London, a few in New York and a few in LA, Palestine, wherever. I’d be up for it. It wouldn’t be a one-off gig, because to do all that work just for one night wouldn’t be worth it.”
Waters would share his hopes for a reunion tour just a year before Wright’s death, and had seemingly even planned for what the shows could contain. He added: “But a number of events that would draw a line nicely under the work the four of us did together would be very satisfying for me. I’d be prepared to give 6 months or so in terms of preparation for something like that.
“I’m sure Nick would as well, but I don’t think Dave wants to. That his prerogative and I have no down on him. If you’re talking about building a whole new show, that whets my appetite, not withstanding what I said in the late ‘70s about stadiums and how bad they were, all of which I believed at the time.
“But a Pink Floyd thing, that would need a lot of serious thinking about. Of course, when I was in the band, I did all the thinking. I wrote most of the songs, and I made all of the shows, so that might be difficult.”
Waters’ hope of a reunion may have been a bit far-fetched at the time anyway, as he believed Gilmour “doesn’t get” how big a deal the Live 8 reunion was. Waters said: “No, of course not. I was sort of controlling the whole thing without doing anything. It was a bit like walking on rice paper. I think it was a bit of a worry to him.
“I might be wrong, but he came up with some strange comments after Live 8, one of which was ‘I don’t know what the big fuss is about. It would have been just the same whether Roger was there or not’. That illustrated for me that maybe he doesn’t quite get how important the symbiosis between the four of us was during ‘the golden years’ of the band.”
