Brit Floyd, The Anvil (From Daily Echo)

Brit Floyd, The Anvil

4:33pm Friday 8th July 2011 in Music Reviews By John Hoskins, Court Reporter

HE was not promoting a new line in lingerie.

"Jatte bra," was my brother-in-law's firm verdict. "Jatte bra."

For those who live closer to the north pole than Hampshire, that in Swedish simply means very good. And so they were.

The gig gave an approving audience at Basingstoke's Anvil Theatre the rare opportunity to make a make a musical comparison to champion the old or the new as they jostle for supremacy in the battle as the best Pink Floyd tribute band.

The old still more than edges it, in my opinion. Internationally acclaimed Oz Floyd - who have played the Anvil to capacity audiences - still win on points but Brit Floyd are not far away.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery but it's still little like eating sweets with the paper on. Vocally they cannot hope to match the original but instrumentally they were spot on as they put on a dazzling show with state of the art animation and graphics.

It was billed at the Pink Floyd Greatest Hits World Tour, and the band dipped into Animals, Pigs, Division Bell and Dark Side of the Moon Albums in a two hour, 20 minute set.

They began with the traditional opening of 'Crazy Diamond' and built nicely with High Hopes, a pulsating learning to Fly and a seldom performed version of Mother.

Everyone obviously had their favourite. Pigs, which closed the first half, gave them a merited standing ovation, stood out as did Time.

Almost certainly, I was in a minority of one in being disappointed with Comfortably Numb. Perhaps I was vexed and perplexed by the incongruous sight of a musician taking centre stage and masquerading as a medic with a white coat and stethoscope.

However compensation immediately lay in the Run Like Hell.