By Luke Voogt
As Pink Floyd’s iconic album The Wall celebrates 40 years, an Australian tribute act recreating the record’s glory days celebrates a milestone of its own.
Echoes of Pink Floyd had played the hits of their world-famous namesakes for 10 years, keyboard player Paul Bindig told the Indy.
“And it’s the five-year anniversary of our current line up, so it’s anniversaries all over the place,” he said, ahead of their next Geelong show.
Pink Floyd released The Wall in 1979 and the album topped US charts for 15 weeks.
So to celebrate Echoes hit the road this year, touring from Perth to Sydney and from Tasmania to Tamworth.
“We’ve been all over the place,” Bindig said.
“We play the entire album from start to finish. But if the audience are kind enough to invite us back out for an encore, we do some greatest hits as well.”
The 46-year-old first came across Pink Floyd as a teenager when his younger brother learned to play guitar.
“I’d never heard anything quite like it and I just liked it straight away,” he said.
Bindig learned classic piano as a child before “giving it the flick” for more contemporary music as a teen.
From age 17 he was playing in blues and rock pub bands before spotting an ad for auditions for a Pink Floyd tribute in 2009.
“Auditioning can be terrifying, it’s a bit like a job interview for a musician,” he said.
“The standard they were playing so high, so that was pretty intimidating.
“But they were just the nicest guys and what blew me away was how accurate the music was.”
He initially thought he missed out on the gig, he said.
“I was too busy listening to how good it sounded and thinking this is fantastic,” he said.
The band features lead guitarist Daniel Hunter, drummer Jason Miller, bassist Mark Dole, rhythm guitarist Mark MacNab and singer Matt Goodluck.
“We love the music and you kind of have to in a tribute band,” he said.
“If you didn’t like it you’d go crazy.”
The cover band sold out their last show in Geelong “real quick”, Bindig said.
“That’s why we’re coming back – it was really well received.”
Bindig was keen to return to Geelong Performing Arts Centre on 27 July, describing local fans as “one of the louder crowds”.
“They get right into it,” he said.
“I can only assume when they do things they throw themselves into it – like their football team.”
