PINK FLOYD REUNITED: THE STORY AS TOLD BY BOB GELDOF

Sir Bob Geldof is royalty when it comes to the benefit concert concept, and the whole world of rock has the utmost respect for him. He was perhaps the only man in the world that could reunite the most popular line-up of Pink Floyd, and get the group’s masterminds David Gilmour and Roger Waters to share the same stage. Fans are now able to have Floyd in their living room as part of the Live 8 DVD which arrived in stores earlier this week, and features key Floyd performances.

Geldof had an “in” as he was the star of the band’s movie, “The Wall,” and he still had many of their numbers on hand. He talks about the process of mending the Floyd fences to play for the Live 8 cause, which was to influence the world leaders of the G8 to forgive Africa’s debt.

“So I rang Gilmour went down to his farm tried to take him through it. I could feel…I could see he felt awful for saying, ‘no.’ But he was gonna say ‘no.’ And he said, ‘I don’t know, man, I…’ I said, ‘Don’t say ‘no.’ Drive me to the station, think about it.’ He said, ‘But you know I’m going to say ‘no.’ And I said, ‘Don’t say ‘no’ before you think about it, and promise me you’ll think about it.’ He said, ‘OK.’ Then Waters called me and he wanted to know what happened with the Gilmour conversation. I told him and he said, ‘Can I have Dave’s number?’ I said ‘OK. Why don’t you have it, but here it is.'”

Bob Geldof talks about the moment when the Floyd reunion took a turn for the better.

“Two weeks later the phone rings and I pick it up. There’s no preamble I just… ‘Hello?’ ‘OK…’ ‘Sorry?’ ‘OK, I’ll do it.’ and I said, ‘Do what?’ He goes, ‘I’ll do your f–kin’ concert then.’ I said, ‘Is that you Gilmour? ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘You’re going to do the concert?’ He goies, ‘Yes.’ All of you? ‘Yes!’ And I said, you’ve made an old man very happy. Thank you very much. I said, ‘Are you serious?’ He goes, ‘Yes, unfortunately, I am serious.’ And I couldn’t believe it, really.”

Pink Floyd went above and beyond the call of duty. Not only did they play their biggest hits at the U.K. portion of the show, they came out to join in for the grand finale, which showed Geldof that they were really passionate about the cause.