Pink Floyd member shot down second reunion show just 20 minutes after being asked

Pink Floyd reunited for what would be the final performance of their classic The Dark Side of the Moon line-up in 2005, but were offered another show afterwards.

It took just twenty minutes for the offer to be declined by one member of the band, who has stated repeatedly that the last thing he wants to do is get together with his former bandmates. Bassist and songwriter Roger Waters shared that the offer had come through for a performance of The Wall in Yankee Stadium, an offer which no doubt interested the Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking writer. But it was not to be, as guitarist David Gilmour flat refused to entertain the idea of getting back together again. The performance at Live 8, which lasted just twenty minutes, would mark the final time Pink Floyd performed together.

Waters, speaking in 2011, explained: “Funnily enough, a guy called Hank Steinbrenner, whose father owned the New York Yankees, had an idea to put The Wall on in Yankee Stadium. He got in touch and said, ‘You ask Gilmour.’ I said I didn’t mind asking, but that he’d say no. So I got my people to ask his people to ask him, and within about twenty minutes, he got his people to speak to my people and say no, which was totally predictable.”

Waters did not call Gilmour directly, and says he was unlikely to have done so given the chance. Instead, he went through intermediaries to get in touch with Gilmour’s management team.

He explained: “I don’t actually have his number any more. I could have just emailed him. It was slightly for a laugh – I just thought it was quite funny for my manager to call David’s manager and have David’s manager ask him, knowing what the answer would be anyway. I would have felt slightly embarrassed to ring him up and say, ‘Hey, Dave, do you want to come and play The Wall in Yankee Stadium?'”

He shared in an interview with Radio Bogota: “Well, because he [Geldof] asked Dave and Dave said no. On several occasions… Well, because I was the only person who could have got Dave to do it.”

Though Waters may have convinced the Pink Floyd guitarist to join the line-up, it wouldn’t end that well for the band. Waters would later suggest Gilmour “regretted” taking part in the show as it meant it was Waters’ band once again. The bassist would leave the group in 1985, giving Gilmour nine years as frontman. Though there may be some regret from Gilmour, Waters has said he would happily get back on stage with Pink Floyd if it were possible.

Speaking of the Live 8 show, Waters said: “No of course not. I’d do it in a heartbeat. I don’t think Dave wants to do it all. I think he sort of regretted Live 8 a bit, so who knows. Well because it was his band and suddenly it wasn’t any more.

“Suddenly this is what it was, this is the sort of thing it actually is – it’s Dave and Roger and Nick and Rick. And he said afterwards it would have been just the same if Roger hadn’t been there, but it’s not the same.”