Fir­st things fir­st, Their Mor­tal Remains did­n’t let me down. I had high expec­ta­tions given the great reviews the same exhi­bi­tion held at the Vic­to­ria and Albert Museum in Lon­don past year recei­ved. I had even grea­ter expec­ta­tions becau­se your tru­ly has devou­red basi­cal­ly eve­ry­thing that was ever writ­ten about the band. And even to such a a requi­ring fan and indi­vi­dual, “Their Mor­tal Remains” was able to pro­vi­de an insight­ful and enjoya­ble experience.

The exhibition is truly a comprehensive story of the Pink Floyd, presented in chronological order from the very beginning to the very end.

It is struc­tu­red in mul­ti­ple rooms (six), cove­ring each dif­fe­rent periods. The fir­st one, a very psy­che­de­lic one, intro­du­ces the psy­che­de­lic atmo­sphe­re in Lon­don in the 1960s in which the Floyd were born. The second, goes all the way from Piper At The Gates of Dawn in 1967 to Dark Side of The Moon in 1973. The third one is dedi­ca­ted to Wish You Were Here only. The fourth one covers from Ani­mals in 1977 to The Final Cut in 1983. The fifth covers from A Momen­ta­ry Lap­se of Rea­son in 1987 to Pul­se in 1995. The sixth is a room with a pro­jec­tion of the very fir­st Pink Floy­d’s video, Arnold Lay­ne, and the last, Com­for­ta­bly Numb at the Live 8 in London.

The expe­rien­ce, I belie­ve, varies accor­ding to the visi­tor pre­vious kno­w­led­ge. If the visi­tor is a deep fan of the group, eve­ry­thing around keeps rin­ging bells in one’s head, tur­ning into a tru­ly exci­ting “trea­su­re tro­ve”. Instead, if the visi­tor is mere­ly a fan or, even wor­se, has no kno­w­led­ge about the histo­ry of Pink Floyd, kee­ping up with all the names and the dates thro­wn at him/her in tho­se two hours can be qui­te daunting.

The Pink Floyd vete­ran will appre­cia­te the mul­ti-sen­so­ry jour­ney throu­gh the histo­ry of the band. He will fall in love with loo­king at all the cool posters of various even­ts, with all the various instru­men­ts that came to crea­te the magic, the inter­views to the pro­ta­go­nists (often taken from other docu­men­ta­ries alrea­dy shot about the band and its albums), the let­ters, the pho­tos, the new­spa­pers’ arti­cles, the ani­ma­tions and all the dra­wing pro­ce­du­res behind them, the various ver­sions of the albums, the dra­wing and sket­ches of the album mate­rial, suspen­ded beds, the inflatables.

Hell, you can even play Alan Parson’s role and try out the mixing of Money.

It’s dif­fi­cult to say that Pink Floyd die-hards will learn much (but I did learn about this hila­rious thing the Floyd did during the The Wall tour, when they had announ­cers with the Teacher’s voi­ce put insi­de men’s bath­rooms that all of a sud­den went “You the­re! Put that away and get back insi­de this minu­te!”), but they will sure­ly love seeing exac­tly how eve­ry sin­gle thing they love came about.

I could go on for qui­te a whi­le about exam­ples of things I was very aware of but I had actual­ly never seen but I will limit myself to a few: Gil­mour’s setup in Pom­peii, Time’s clocks’ani­ma­tion pen sket­ches, The Pink Floy­d’s adven­tu­re maga­zi­nes after Wish You Were Here, David Gil­mou­r’s Black Strat repli­ca, the famous mor­tar-sheeps that were used on the In The Flesh tour, the page of “scrib­bled lines” with the lyrics or Ano­ther Brick In The Wall, the masks worn by the band which are on the cover of Is The­re Any­bo­dy Out The­re and used during the The Wall Tour in 1980–1981, the light-bulb man in real-life size, The Divi­sion Bell’s facing heads.

This pie­ce wan­ts to avoid colos­sal spoi­lers so I have tried to keep it to the point whi­le being infor­ma­ti­ve enou­gh about what to expect.

It’s worth it, whoever you are, wherever you may come from. It’s a great occasion to do what the Pink Floyd have always tried to do: going beyond the music.

In this sen­se, it’s tru­ly a Floy­dian exhi­bi­tion. One thing is to read about the pro­cess, ano­ther is to see it and touch it. It’s a way to to “touch” and “feel” (to use the verbs of Brain Dama­ge) the music we love. Pink Floyd have always been a band all about deep rea­li­sm, that mana­ged to find its way into peo­ple’s lives by sho­wing them what was going on. And this is the next logi­cal step in having them beco­me even more real to the fans, both the fir­st timers who has the pri­vi­le­ge of being the­re and the late comers who didn’t have the pri­vi­le­ge but that now can say “I have seen with my own eyes what that must have been like, buil­ding this ju—ggernaut that chan­ged music fore­ver”. And for that, we should all be gra­te­ful. I am.

Mar­co Canal

Aspi­ran­te eco­no­mi­sta, let­to­re, aman­te dei dibat­ti­ti intel­let­tua­li e gin&tonic, alpi­ni­sta, film il pane, viag­gio il vino e i Pink Floyd come reli­gio­ne. Pec­ca di insa­zia­bi­le curio­si­tà, bat­tu­ta faci­le, smo­da­ta ambi­zio­ne e deci­sio­ne. Alea iac­ta est.