A reunion for music legends Roger Waters and David Gilmour left the bassist clinging to fear ahead of the performance.
The duo, who had worked together for decades as members of Pink Floyd, agreed to come together for a one-off show. While they would be joined by bandmates Nick Mason and Richard Wright for a one-off Pink Floyd reunion at Live 8, Waters and Gilmour would reunite again for a charity gig. In 2010, while at a charity performance hosted by Bella Freud in Oxfordshire, Gilmour and Waters joined the cause, which benefitted the Hoping Foundation, which seeks to help Palestinian Refugees. The pair performed four songs, though one track in particular was a cause of contention for Waters, who was terrified of performing the song as he didn’t believe he could do it justice.
The pair performed Wish You Were Here, Another Brick in the Wall (Part II), and Comfortably Numb. A fourth song, Teddy Bears, a rendition of To Know Him is To Love Him, required some convincing from Gilmour to get Waters on board.
The veteran bassist would share his thoughts on the experience in a lengthy post describing how he was convinced to do the performance. He wrote: “So here’s what happened. Last year, The Hoping Foundation a charity that supports Palestinian refugee kids, (Hoping Foundation) put on a fundraiser at Ronnie Scott’s Club in London, the idea of which was to raise money by auctioning karaoke performances by various celebrities.
“David was there as a supporter and was moved to perform an impromptu rendition of George Gershwin’s ‘Summertime?’ which he performed aided and abetted by supermodel Kate Moss.
“In the wake of that evening, someone, I think it was David himself, came up with this ‘Wouldn’t it be funny’, idea. What if he (David that is) were to sing the old Teddy Bears song ‘To Know Him Is To Love Him’ with me (Roger that is), what with us having been so famously at each other’s throats for years and years.
“Get it! Anyway he emailed me with this suggestion and I loved it, so then it was just a question of juggling dates and deciding to do ‘Wish You Were Here’ and ‘Comfortably Numb’ to round out our little set.”
He added: “Or so I thought, until he sent me a number of very musical and eloquent demos of how we could do the song in two-part harmony. I listened with a sinking heart, knowing that David, with his superior vocal skills, could sing either part standing on his head, whilst I would have to search for a different key and then struggle through hours and hours of routining a performance that lay way outside my vocal comfort zone. To my eternal shame I bottled out and told Dave I would happily do ‘Wish You Were Here’ and ‘C. Numb’, but that ‘To Know him is to Love him’ was beyond me.”
Waters then continued: “Some weeks passed with David cajoling me from time to time, telling me how easy it would be, but I clung resolutely to my fear of failure until one day he made one final entreaty. I quote “If you do ‘To Know Him Is To Love Him’ for The Hoping Foundation Gig, I’ll come and do ‘C. Numb’ on one of your Wall shows.
“Well! You could have knocked me down with a feather. How fucking cool! I was blown away. How could I refuse such an offer. I couldn’t, there was no way. Generosity trumped fear. And so explaining that I would probably be shite, but if he didn’t mind I didn’t, I agreed and the rest is history. We did it, and it was fucking great. End of story. Or possibly beginning.”
You can watch the performance from Waters and Gilmour below.
