Comfortably Numb: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd

Comfortably Numb: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd
by Mark Blake

Comfortably Numb: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd
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Book Summary Information

Author: Mark Blake
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-11-25
ISBN: 0306817527
Number of pages: 448
Publisher: Da Capo Press

Book Reviews of Comfortably Numb: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd

Book Review: Easily among the best Pink Floyd bios
Summary: 5 Stars

Quite a few books have been devoted to Pink Floyd and they make for quite a mixed bag. The two best have been Nicholas Shaffner's "A Saucerful of Secrets" and Nick Mason's own "Inside Out." Now we can safely add a third book to that list, perhaps even at the top.

What makes this book so great is that Mark Blake has built quite a respository of behind-the-scenes Floyd info, culled from interviews he conducted over many years as a music writer. It seems that he was willing to pull out all the stops in delivering that info within the pages of this book. As a result, even the most die-hard Floyd fan is bound to learn something new here.

While I loved Shaffner's book, and really considered it the best on Pink Floyd, it presented a somewhat uneven treatment of the band's history, with everything after the release of "Dark Side of the Moon" being somewhat rushed. Not in this book. Blake really digs in deep in his treatment of the "breakup years" of 1974-81, and even delivers new commentary from many players (including Bob Ezrin) on the post-Waters "litigation years" of 1987-94. I particularly enjoyed the backstage info he presents regarding the reunion at Live 8. And given Rick Wright's untimely passing (while I was in the middle of this book ironically), it would seem that event really marks the end of Pink Floyd. This book covers everything that happened after Live 8 -- essentially the Gilmour and Waters solo tours of 2006-07 -- and the only significant event left out is Rick's death.

Really, I can't say enough good things about this book. If you're a Floyd fan, you owe it to yourself to read this book. I guarantee you'll get many new nuggets if information.

Summary of Comfortably Numb: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd

Mark Blake draws on his own interviews with band members as well as the group?s friends, road crew, musical contemporaries, former housemates, and university colleagues to produce a riveting history of one of the biggest rock bands of all time. We follow Pink Floyd from the early psychedelic nights at UFO, to the stadium-rock and concept-album zenith of the seventies, to the acrimonious schisms of the late ?80s and ?90s. Along the way there are fascinating new revelations about Syd Barrett?s chaotic life at the time of Piper at the Gates of Dawn, the band?s painstaking and Byzantine recording sessions at Abbey Road, and the fractious negotiations to bring about their fragile, tantalizing reunion in Hyde Park.

Meticulous, exacting, and ambitious as any Pink Floyd album, Comfortably Numb is the definitive account of this most adventurous—and most English—rock band.

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