Watch Pink Floyd's Nick Mason Perform 'Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun'

About two years ago, drummer decided it was time to emerge from semiretirement and hit the road for the first time since the band last toured in 1994.

He recruited Spandau Ballet guitarist Gary Kemp, longtime Floyd touring bassist Guy Pratt, guitarist Lee Harris and keyboardist Dom Beken with a very bold idea in mind: they’d only perform songs written before Floyd broke through to mainstream success with Dark Side of the Moon in 1973.

“I knew I couldn’t play ‘Comfortably Numb’ better than David or Roger, or indeed even the Australian Pink Floyd tribute band],” Mason told Rolling Stone in 2018. “It became a matter of finding something else that engaged us.”

They called the group Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets. They began performing at tiny clubs around London as a sort of test run, but quickly moved to large theaters across the globe where they played to euphoric audiences of Floyd fanatics. “I felt 25 again,” Mason told Rolling Stone. “I could finally see the other musicians and we all made eye contact. I could see the back of the auditorium and everyone listening. Big stadiums are an extraordinary thing to do and it gives you the opportunity to do all the pyrotechnics and all the rest of it, but it’s not as engaging as an audience that you can see.”

A professional camera crew was rolling when they played two shows at London’s Roundhouse in May 2019 and it’s coming out as live album and concert film on April 17th. Prior to that, it’s playing theaters for a single night on March 10th. Check out an exclusive preview of the 1968 classic “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun.”

The group has been on break for the past few months, but they resume touring March 23rd in Guildford, England, at G Live. They have dates all across Europe before wrapping up July 2nd at the Palacio Municipal in Madrid, Spain. Along the way, they are even playing a couple of shows in Russia. As of now, they have no American shows booked.