Pink Floyd are hosting pop-up stores across UK, Europe and America in celebration of the 50th anniversary of ‘Wish You Were Here’.
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The pop-up stores are hosted in collaboration with Sony Music and News & Coffee, the independent magazine retailer and coffee roaster. They will open at kiosks in London, Barcelona, Los Angeles and Paris.
Each location will stock an exclusive ‘Wish You Were Here 5’0 edition of the Brain Damage fanzine – a revival of the editorial project originally founded and produced by Glenn
Povey, with five editions available worldwide. Also available is an exclusive limited anniversary pressing of ‘Wish You Were Here 50’, and a selection of strictly limited edition commemorative merchandise.
The news of the pop-up shops follows the announcement of a 50th anniversary edition of the album featuring unheard versions of classic tracks.
‘Wish You Were Here 50’ is due to arrive on December 12 as a deluxe box set. Fans will also be able to hear the new version on digital platforms, and own it on 3LP, 2CD and Blu-ray. Pre-order here.
In addition, Noel Fielding created some paintings inspired by Syd Barrett to celebrate the reissue of Pink Floyd’s ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’.
“I was pretty young when my affinity with Pink Floyd and Syd started. I remember going to the library and hiring the tape of ‘The Piper at the Gates of Dawn’ when I was 12. And I just was like, ‘What’s this?’ It blew my mind. I couldn’t believe it,” Fielding told NME in a recent interview.
“When I started doing stand up it was all very whimsical. I was always trying to write like I was Syd Barrett. I liked his style, I liked his walk, I liked the way he talked. ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’ is such a beautiful tribute to him,” he added. “What’s amazing about Pink Floyd, especially with ‘Wish You Were Here’, is that the artwork was as good as the music.
“When you’re 12 and you’re seeing two guys shaking hands, one of them’s on fire, you’re thinking ‘what?!’ And the music goes exactly with that as well; it’s perfectly in sync with the visuals, with the weird surrealism. And that’s all very Syd Barrett.”
He concluded, “It could be the 70s, but it could be 2040. It’s the future and the past at the same time. It is a masterpiece, that album cover, and that album. It’s a masterpiece. And it’s based on Syd Barrett, who is a walking masterpiece.”
Meanwhile, Ozzy Osbourne’s merch store has shared a new t-shirt design that takes aim at Roger Waters, depicting a cartoon version of Osbourne urinating rainbows on a wall similar to the artwork of Pink Floyd’s classic album ‘The Wall’.
This came after he made comments about the late Black Sabbath frontman following his death that were criticised by Osbourne’s family.
“Ozzy Osbourne, who just died, bless him, in his, whatever that state that he was in his whole life, we’ll never know,” Waters said in an interview with The Independent Ink podcast. Although, he was all over the TV for hundreds of years with his idiocy and nonsense.”
“The music, I have no idea, I couldn’t give a fuck,” he added. “I don’t care about Black Sabbath, I never did, I have no interest in […] biting the heads off chickens or whatever they do. I couldn’t care less.”
In response, his son Jack Osbourne took to social media to call out Waters, calling him “pathetic and out of touch” and claiming his father “always thought you were a c*nt”. His widow Sharon also hit out at Waters, saying “he has no charisma, he looks like Frankenstein. The guy is sick in the head, he is not relevant in today’s world. Nobody likes him. [He’s] boring, [has] no charisma, he’s got no stage presence… [he’s] envious and he’s just a bad seed.”
In other news, The Damned have covered Pink Floyd’s classic song ‘See Emily Play’.
