Michelle Kaplan

The Pink Floyd Experience: Another Mood-Altering Performance

Tom Quinn is an imposter.                                                                                            

Something he readily admits…and it ain’t easy.

As one of the front men for the Pink Floyd Experience, Quinn has to go on stage and try to give the audience something they can’t have, but demand anyway - a performance by the quintessential psychedelic acid band, Pink Floyd. As legend would have it, Floyd could put on a show that was completely mood altering in and of itself - LSD, optional.

Mimicking the music alone would be a challenging feat. To give some of us a
trip back to those tender years, or to provide those who weren’t there, the complete sensory experience of Floyd could only be one thing, a huge production.

Of course having 270,000 watts of lights and 20 tons of full quadraphonic sound might just do the trick.

For Quinn, and the five other members of the band, Graham Heath, vocals,
Gus Beaudoin, on bass, Jesse Molloy, John Cox, keyboard and Stephen
Shannon on drums, it’s all in a day’s work.

“The audience know the tunes…in their head… you know you better deliver… it’s like, impress me…we play Shine on You Crazy Diamond…it’s 12 to15 minutes…it brings the house down… it usually disarms the critics.”

“That’s our job, to take care of the skeptic out there, to disarm them…we
go out there to be the next best thing on a nightly basis…we just have a real
earnest desire just to get out the music
and do it right.”

In 1995 the band began by doing just that, musically. In 2003, Annerin Productions was looking to find a Floyd-a-like band to add to their roster
of full stage productions that offers its audience a way to open the door and
feel like they’re seeing ABBA or The Beatles. They found the Pink Floyd
Experience and combined the band’s music with their knowledge of staging
into the fully- loaded show it is today.

Quinn 50, a grandfather, who admits to looking a lot like the David Gilmore he “plays,” has always emulated the man. He picked up his first guitar in 1973, the very same year as the release of Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. He
knows he’s lucky, he said he wakes up every morning, loving what he does.

On this day, he’s just coming back from taking his granddaughter to the
pool, hair still wet, but no matter, he’s still working, and is now describing
what the Pink Floyd Experience is. The show is as musical as it is visual, with
a full light show, streaming video, and,of course, what kind of Floyd show could be authentic without a flying pig - a big one.

“Quadraphonic sound, the million dollar light show, crashing planes, a helicopter soaring through the crowd…it’s a show stopper…a radio controlled
pig…it all makes an impression.”

One thing the show isn’t is fake. As Quinn stresses, it’s never pre-recorded.

“It’s all live, we’re not cheating in any way…we’re not just a band going through the motions…if you close your eyes, it’s like you’re hearing your CD
player…We recreate the experience of seeing Pink Floyd in the absence of
Pink Floyd.”

There is no doubt, the man’s heart is in the music, as he has devoted the last
12 years with the Pink Floyd Experience, giving that music and
those memories life.

“When you play this stuff, you play it from the inside out…you’ve got to
have the heart for the music, if you don’t you fall on your face…it’s very
hard to sound like Floyd… it can really disarm you how hard it is to pull it off…I love this music and I know it.”

He also has a wealth of knowledge about Floyd, the music, the bandmates, the history, and the legend. As Quinn tells of the last time Pink Floyd
got back together, put aside their “bad blood” and performed for a cause that
they believed in.

Live 8 took place in July of 2005 to put pressure on world leaders to forgive
the debt of some of the poorest countries. This brought four surviving members of Floyd together something that hadn’t happened in 24 years.
The bad blood and extended hiatus of Pink Floyd has left their fans only
wanting more. Quinn relates so well to the fans. After all, he’s just about the
biggest one. Quinn describes the group as passionate.

“Crazy, rabid, passionate…you know there’s three generations coming at
you at once… even 15-16-year-old girls buy the t-shirts…It’s amazing to
us, the cross generational appeal of this music.”

“The lyrics from The Wall or Dark Side of the Moon… they touch the late
teens… the pressure of growing up, depression, madness… they relate to
people still.”

Quinn said that teenagers burnt out on the Britney Spears and Christina
Aguilera’s of the world are raiding their parent’s album collections and discovering their music. He sees a lot of young people at the shows. So they
know they can’t disappoint this new generation of fans. During the show,
which is one hour with a 20 minute encore and a 20 minute intermission, the band squeezes in some pretty heavy hits.

“Dark side is our secret weapon…we’ll probably do that when we show up….
It’s a show stopper every night…we try to mix it up…we do long epics… Comfortably Numb, Run Like Hell, Dark Side of the Moon, and the more
obscure.”

The energy of the Pink Floyd Experience is overwhelming and makes everyone feel as if they are totally immersed in the show.

“They’ll leave satisfied and as drained as we are,” Quinn laughed.

Click Here to View PDF