Dark Side of the Moon tribute concert March 3 at Big Beach
Dark Side of the Moon tribute concert March 3 at Big Beach
Cordial Brothers/Future Astronaut celebrate album’s milestone
The Cordial Brothers Band, Future Astronaut Productions and Big Beach Brewing Company will team up to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon on Friday, March 3 from 6-10 p.m. at Big Beach Brewery in Gulf Shores. There is a $5 cover for the extravaganza.
Future Astronaut will set up lasers, and a 10×14 foot LED screen behind the band to provide the audience at Pleasure Island first and only brewery (300 E. 24th Ave, Gulf Shores) with accompanying visuals.
Cordial Brothers Chase Brown and Patrick Wall will handle vocals and guitar licks, with Wall adding significant riffs on pedal steel, one of the highlights of the show.
Clayton Blackwell (Rufus McBlack, The Destinations) will be behind the drum kit, and Ryan Hensley (Whyte Caps) will round out the rhythm section on bass.
Drew Travis (Backseat Drivers, Perks) is handling Rick Wright’s keyboard parts, and Austin Thompson, Eliezer Hernandez and Hunter Meyers from the Funky Lampshades will sit in for various parts of the show.
As an extra bonus, the Nom Nom food truck krewe will be giving out free bowls of pudding (“If you don’t eat your meat, you can’t have any pudding.’’) with all meat orders, and Big Beach’s award-winning brewmaster, Rod Murray has created Dark Side of the IPA for the occasion.
“This has turned into something that meshes all my passions,’’ said Brown, an assistant brewer at Big Beach and a longtime Pink Floyd fan. “Practices have been coming along. I’m trying to sing the songs without taking on an English accent.’’
The Cordials and company will have practiced around a dozen times in Big Beach’s brewhouse by showtime.
“We’ve been practicing in the brewhouse, spreading around weird Floyd vibrations, and rocking that yeast to sleep,’’ Brown said.
Brown, an Evergreen native, and Wall met when they were freshman at Auburn. They bonded watching Jason Isbell play acoustic sets at the Strutting Duck and rocked The Plains for the next four years. They reunited when Wall, a Birmingham native, moved here from Nashville. They also play together as part of the Destinations.
The concert will open with a short set of Floyd songs, followed by the entire Dark Side album and a third set of tunes from Floyd’s extensive catalog. And, yes, the band will play “Echoes,” the 23 minute song from Floyd’s 1971 album Meddle.
The musicians that will be on stage at Big Beach were not even alive when Pink Floyd released its psychedelic masterpiece, and that is proof enough that The Dark Side Of The Moon remains an almost sacred work of art for many.
What are all those background voices really saying? What does its iconic prism cover art mean? Was the album really written as a cryptic soundtrack to The Wizard Of Oz?
The album raises more questions and conundrums than anyone could ever adequately answer. But most musicologists conclude that Roger Waters is saying something to the effect that “surviving life’s myriad woes requires a leap of faith in humanity, a belief in goodness even if no evidence supports it and that regardless of the moral and ethical dilemma, we’re all in this together.”
Amen to that, and cheers to the hope that it continues to resonate when the world celebrates future landmark anniversaries for The Dark Side Of The Moon.