Roger Waters claims Syd Barrett would ‘show up to Pink Floyd gigs expecting to play’ after being booted from band

Despite being kicked out of the band shortly after the release of A Saucerful of Secrets, Syd Barrett would show up to Pink Floyd gigs “expecting to play”.

Bassist and songwriter Roger Waters confirmed that, even after he was removed from the band, Barrett had tried to play shows with the rest of the line-up. Waters would also recall the “bizarre coincidence” of Barrett showing up in the studio when the band were recording a song inspired by their former frontman. Though Waters would speak generally of the desire for Barrett to continue playing live with the band, he focused on the time their former band leader showed up during the recording of Wish You Were Here.

Speaking to Uncut Magazine in 2007, Waters said: “Oh, no. He knew exactly what he was doing and he knew that we were there. Syd would occasionally turn up for gigs, expecting to play, I think. I’m not sure what he was expecting that day. It was a bizarre coincidence that we were working on Shine On You Crazy Diamond when he turned up. I didn’t recognise him. I thought he was someone’s friend, this fat, bald bloke, eating sweets at the back of the studio. It was maybe Dave who eventually said, ‘You haven’t caught it yet, have you?’ I suddenly said, ‘It’s Syd!’ It was strange.”

Though Waters and Barrett wouldn’t speak often after the latter’s departure from the band, The Wall hitmaker said he was going to call his ex-bandmate just before hearing of his death.

Speaking to TVNZ in 2007, Waters was asked about how he felt about Barrett’s death. Barrett died on July 6, 2006. Waters said: “Sort of not very hard you know because Syd kind of died forty years ago for me. When we spent months and months and months going ‘what’s happened where are you?’ and he’d kind of gone and he’d stayed gone.

“So obviously I was very sad to hear that he was sick. I heard he was sick about three days before he died. I finally got Rosemary’s phone number and was just about to call when I heard he’d died. I’ve thought about it since on a number of occasions and I think about it still and I find myself going back to the Saturday morning painting classes we did together when he was eleven and I was ten back in 1954.

“I find myself going back to those times but the kind of distance I experience with Syd is an extraordinary thing. It is real and I had tonnes of emails from people saying ‘I’m sorry for your loss and this and that and the other’ but I’m not really half as moved as I thought I would be.”