By PIETER HOFMANN

Special to the Driftwood

(With interviews by Amy Geddes)

What could be better than attending a Pink Floyd concert as I did in 1974, at the age of 15 and experiencing The Dark Side of the Moon tour? Not much.

Wish you were there. That 1973 album finally broke the British space rock band into the mainstream. And as they say, the rest is history.

This past Saturday saw Pigs, Victoria’s Pink Floyd tribute band, play to a packed house at ArtSpring. The septet performed a diverse selection from Floyd’s catalogue, from the well- known to the obscure.

Other than a minor miscue from keyboardist Adam Basterfield, the group seamlessly relived the spirit of their predecessors.

While Pink Floyd was as renowned for their light show as for their music, it would be unfair to judge Pigs on their special effects. Their usual full-blown lighting scheme was petered down to local light production for this show. It included the occasional use of a mirror ball along with a smoke machine billowing sporadically behind drummer Mike Quirke.

Bassist KC Hingley and lead guitarist Josh Szczepanowski both captured the core of Roger Waters and David Gilmour respectively.

On Shine On, You Crazy Diamond, a tribute to the acid-drenched founding member of Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett, Szczepanowski replicated the vocals and guitar improvisation effortlessly.

What was impressive was the Pigs’ long, drawn-out psychedelic jams that flowed as naturally as the original band was capable of in its heyday.

Two of the standout versions, and they were truly well done, came from Pink Floyd’s seminal recording, Dark Side of the Moon: Money and The Great Gig in the Sky.

Saxophonist Sharon Driver re-created Dick Perry’s famous solo on Money to perfection and it was one of many highlights of the evening.

Audience members (some even dressed for the event in pink wigs and plastic sunglasses) swayed in their seats, the band’s promise of an “authentic re-creation of Pink Floyd from 1968-1983” apparently fulfilled.

“They are tight. Very awesome,” a woman in pink sunglasses said.

One could swear back-up vocalist Amy Konowalyk was the reincarnate of Clare Tory on the wordless vocal rendition of The Great Gig in the Sky. Konowalyk received the greatest ovation and deservedly so.

During an interview backstage at intermission, Pigs’ bassist and lead guitarist admitted none of the band members are old enough to have seen Pink Floyd perform live in concert.

But their young age, they say, is one of their selling points.

“We’re the same age as they were when they were playing. It’s not about what they did when they were old men.”

Throughout the roughly three-hour show, Pigs captivated the audience and never felt like a musty piece of nostalgia. The Victoria group certainly delights in replicating the sound of one of Britain’s legendary bands. And they do it well. Very well.

“The music is so complicated, but they make it look easy,” said Bruce Creswick, who remembers seeing Pink Floyd in concert when he was 11 years old in 1971.

“They got it,” he said about Pigs’ ability to recreate the Pink Floyd energy on stage.

Pigs came back for an encore and performed two rousing selections from 1979’s The Wall. Comfortably Numb and Run Like Hell again brought the crowd to their feet. Standing ovation for a tribute band?

I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon.

Pink Floyd history

Dark Side of the Moon spent an amazing 741 weeks on the Billboard album chart, a feat unlikely to be repeated.

In the 1980s, the band began to unravel with internal disagreements, mainly between Roger Waters and David Gilmour.

At one point, ownership of the group’s name was even disputed between the members. Shortly after the unimpressive album called The Final Cut in 1983, Waters parted ways with the band, as lawsuits continued.

For the next decade, a Waters-less Pink Floyd released albums of critically inferior quality. The Division Bell, released in 1994, was the group’s swansong.