Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets are an English psychedelic and progressive rock band formed in 2018 by drummer Nick Mason and guitarist Lee Harris to perform the early music of Mason's band Pink Floyd and take their name from an instrumental piece of the same name – a staple of early Pink Floyd shows. The band includes Gary Kemp of Spandau Ballet on guitars and vocals and longtime Pink Floyd collaborator Guy Pratt on bass and vocals. Mason said the group were not a tribute band, but wanted to "capture the spirit" of the era; he stressed that Kemp was not a replacement for original Pink Floyd frontman Syd Barrett, who left the band in 1968. The band made their live debut in May 2018 in front of an invited audience at Dingwalls in London, playing a selection of Pink Floyd material released before their 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon. This was followed by three small shows at the Half Moon, Putney and a European tour in September 2018.
History
In 2016, Mason curated the box set The Early Years 1965-1972, which documents Pink Floyd's psychedelic work before Dark Side of the Moon. The set contains much live material from the period that Mason wished to revisit on his 2018 tour. Songs such as "Astronomy Domine", "Green Is the Colour", "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun", "A Saucerful of Secrets" and "One of These Days" were staples of Floyd shows from 1969 to 1972. "I didn't want to go out and be doing another Australian Pink Floyd, or what Roger's doing what David does," Mason noted. "I thought it needed to be something a bit different after – which I've really enjoyed doing, but you end up feeling like you belong to English Heritage. Everything you talk about and do is something that happened forty years ago. It was actually beginning to make me feel a bit old. So it was the right time." Some songs performed on the 2018 tour – such as "Lucifer Sam", "Arnold Layne", "Bike" and "Fearless" – were never performed live by Pink Floyd's early incarnations, save for mimed TV appearances. "Vegetable Man", recorded in 1967, was first released as part of the Early Years boxset in 2016. On 18 April 2019, Mason's former Floyd bandmate Roger Waters surprised the audience at the Beacon Theatre by joining the band to sing "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun". In autumn 2019 Mason announced a 2020 April/May UK & Ireland tour called More Games for May. The tour was postponed until October owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. On 30 January 2020, Mason announced a live album and film, titled Live at the Roundhouse – a trailer for which was released via the Pink Floyd YouTube channel. Recorded during 3 May and 4 May 2019 at the Roundhouse in London, the album, DVD, and Blu-ray was to be released on 17 April 2020 but has been pushed back to 18 September 2020 due to the worldwide Coronavirus pandemic.
