Chennai| Sing your heart out at this Pink Floyd tribute concert by Medium Rare

Experience the magic of Pink Floyd with Medium Rare's tribute concert at Bay 146, Savera Hotel on June 14.

I am at a practice pad in Nungambakkam listening to the retro-rock band Medium Rare rehearse for its upcoming Pink Floyd Tribute concert. Vikram Vivekanand gently strums the guitar, providing a mellow, haunting backdrop as Conrad Simmons steps up to the mike and sings, ‘The lunatic is on the grass...”

Medium Rare is rehearsing ‘Brain Damage’ which addresses mental health issues, a recurring motif throughout the album, The Dark Side of the Moon. As the song progresses, there is a gradual build-up of sound with Orlando Ambrose, Eugene and Conrad’s soaring vocal harmony crescendoes into the iconic line, ‘I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon’.

Listening to the band rehearse I am transported to the 1980s, to smoke-filled college hostel rooms, with scruffy young teens with long hair listening to Pink Floyd. The album The Dark Side Of The Moon was released in 1973, and has sold over 45 million copies since; it has also been listed in the Guinness World Records for being on the charts longer than any other album in history.

Medium Rare was founded by Orlando Ambrose in 2005, and over the last 19 years, has performed over 350 gigs across Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.The band has an experienced line-up of musicians with Orlando on lead vocals and Conrad on bass and vocals. Dave Gilmour’s scorching guitar solos will now be shared by Vikram and Darren Hickman.The versatile Eugene Guest who also plays bass, guitars and keyboards, is on the drums and the talented Anthony Karuna, on keyboards.

The band’s original composition ‘Mad about you’, a rock ballad, was chosen by AR Rahman and Nexa Music as one of the top 24 orginal English songs in India in 2020.

At the tribute concert, they will be performing Pink Floyd classics like ‘Comfortably Numb’, ‘Coming back to life’, ‘Another brick in the wall’, ‘Wish you were here’, ‘Brain damage’, ‘Money, Time’, and ‘Shine on you crazy diamond’, amongst other songs.

“The music has anenduring quality that continues to attract new fans across generations,” says Orlando, adding, “This tribute concert offers longtime fans and new audiences in Chennai an opportunity to experience the magic of Pink Floyd’s music in a live concert setting.”