Area favorite tribute band extraordinaire Pinky and the Floyd are set to close out summer right with an incredible performance at Bridger Brewing’s 2nd Annual Outdoor Summer Block Party, to kick off Friday, August 26th at 7pm.
The event will feature over three hours of your favorite Pink Floyd music, great food, and an exclusive event brew called the “Lunatic” IPA. Tickets to this ALL AGES event are $15 in advance at Cactus Records or Bridger Brewing and $18 at the door. Gates open at 6pm. Pinky puts on an amazing live show both note-for-note and improvisational, but it’s their superb musicianship setting them apart from other tribute acts. Their unprecedented energy and stage presence are but a few reasons Pinky and the Floyd is one of Montana’s premier live bands. In anticipation of their upcoming Bridger Brewing performance, The Rolling Zone sat down with lead guitarist and vocalist Luke Flansburg to talk breathing (more) life into an expansive catalogue of music they can only hope to pay tribute.
RZ: Pinky is returning to the “Back to School Block Party” for its second year in a row. LF: We are. Second year in a row and quite excited about it.
RZ: What is it about this particular outdoor show that keeps you and the concertgoers coming back?LF: Oh my goodness. Well, for one, it kind of kicks off the school year. A lot of those folks, the people who just move into the dorms. It’s a nice college event. They can cut loose a little bit before they have to get into the full swing. Living in Montana and in this area, sometimes we aren’t afforded many outdoor shows during the summer. We’ll take all we can get because Montana summers are something to behold and to be a part of. It’s fantastic. We’ll knock on wood, keep our fingers crossed—sometimes late August can bring us some of that fall weather we don’t look forward to.
RZ: Should the weather remain kind, how will the show take shape? LF: The first set tends to be a little bit of a sunset set. Everybody’s not all amped up, and then the sun sets and it gets dark and everybody gets a little more rowdy, a little crazier. My sound company, Jereco Studios, is providing the sound. We’re bringing some cool, really brand new lights. So hopefully it’ll be a show, something to behold.
RZ: This is an outdoor show, but you’ve played in different settings across Montana and beyond. How does venue contribute to the show Pinky gives to its audiences? LF: We are fortunate enough to have had this music written, recorded, and played numerous times by the great band Pink Floyd. It is our absolute pleasure that we get to replicate this music. All the material is known, there are no surprises—except for maybe a few rarities. Generally, everybody knows the material inside and out. It’s all about audience and how they respond. They sing along with songs like “Wish You Were Here” at the top of their lungs. Just that energy we as musicians get to feed off. Especially like outside, where you get elements of nature and the wind blowing and sunshine and the stars at night. It’s a little different than a theater, where everybody’s held up in one spot, [but] those are just as magical because the energy is a little more concentrated. Outside, we get to have the energy of the environment and the natural setting to kind of give and reciprocate. I believe as the audience gives it back to us, it makes us play a little harder and makes us want to contribute a little more to the music.
RZ: You presented three Pink Floyd albums in their entirety at your April Emerson performance. How does a show like that differ from one with a set list born from mixed eras? LF: With something like that where it’s three albums, as you promote it, everybody knows what they’re going to get into and you can kind of play with that setting. During the set breaks of the theater show, we played sound effects that kind of pertained to the album, to keep them in the idea of the album. That was a whole different trip and people loved it. Compared to [a show with] the hits, I’m the one who generally writes the set lists. I will spend two to three hours putting a lot of energy [into] focusing on how songs end and how songs flow together. Songs that might be lower energy to build up towards the end of the set, and have a wild part of the second set, then bring them back down and push them to the end. It’s fun because you get to have a little more freedom.
RZ: Are you partial to any particular Pink Floyd collection? LF: I’m the biggest fan of the 70s—Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, and Animals. Those are some of my favorites. As much as I love playing Dark Side of the Moon, the one that really gets me off is Animals. I love that whole album. It’s my favorite album to perform. We’re doing the “Three Different Ones” [show] in Missoula. We’re replaying that at the Wilma in October. We keep on trying to do at least one album or two albums each show, and try to keep it fresh and in different environments. But for me, it’s all about the 70s—even Meddle and Obscured by Clouds. Just fantastic as they were breaking away and getting into the Pink Floyd we know as of now. Not take anything away from The Wall, or anything they did post-Roger Waters, but definitely Wish You Were Here, Animals especially, and Dark Side of the Moon…those are the ones. RZ: You’ve been with Pinky since the beginning. LF: Since the very beginning. Thanks to Facebook reminding us about things, we had our eight-year anniversary on August 2nd. This’ll be our eight-year anniversary show, essentially, for all the local folks. [It’s] cool we get to play and do some stuff centered around an anniversary or time when it all got going. I always fall back into the line from “Time,” [that goes] “And then one day you find ten years have got behind you, no one told you when to run […].” As more years get behind you, [standing back thinking] “we’ve been doing this for eight years, man.” It’s cool. We’ve seen a lot of things happen—people get married, divorces, babies being born, we’ve lost some really really close members of our families in our community. This is one of those bands that will always always resound with me in my entire life because so much as happened, and we stuck with it so hardcore as a family. [We’re] not just musicians, not just a bunch of friends who get together to play music, but as a family. I can’t say enough good things about all the musicians I get to experience this with.
RZ: How do you think this tribute band has amassed the following and popularity it has in the time since 2007? LF: A lot of it is the material. Obviously the material is gold. Not very far behind it is people we have surround ourselves with [and] who have joined us on our journey. We are family and we love to play music together, and it shows. We’re not afraid to go off the script a little bit. Sometimes we’ll pick a couple songs and mash them up together. Sometimes we’ll have songs where it’s say, Roger Waters singing, but we’ve chosen Jeni Fleming to sing. Or “Coming Back to Life,” a David Gilmour song off of The Division Bell, and Jeni sings it. It adds a whole new dynamic and kind of revitalizes it. We put some youthful energy into it and try to attack it with full force. We don’t nail everything perfectly, note-for-note, but that’s never been what we’ve been going for. We always just wanted to play the music and give absolute tribute to it. That’s what separates us between a tribute band and cover band. [We] have one band to focus on. You get to just focus on that music, that idea. We absolutely have fun with it and it really shows. I’ve heard this comment from more than a few people who say, “I necessarily don’t like Pink Floyd, but I love Pinky and the Floyd.” Not to take anything away from Pink Floyd, but they like our energy and our take on it. They like the band itself, not just us doing this particular music. RZ: You, along with the other members, have music projects independent from Pinky. How does that work out? LF: We’ve counted up, it’s about 10 or 12 different bands we’re all involved in outside. It just harks back to this wonderful music community in Bozeman. How it’s not a competition, not cutthroat. We all work together as a community, as a family, as it should be. It’s really cool to see.
RZ: I’m sure there are quite a few, but can you recall some outstanding memories of your time with Pinky? LF: The biggest one for me was when we played the Bite of Bozeman, I believe it was August 4th, 2010. We just started jamming, and I remember looking out [at] a small gaggle of people—and I play with my eyes closed almost all the time. The next time I look up, it’s a sea of thousands of people all just sitting there staring. They have this wide-eyed look on their face. It was one of those moments where I was like, “Wow. We can do this, guys. This is going to be a lot of fun.” [Then] I’ll never forget walking out on stage for the first time at the Emerson to a sold-out theater show that we had self-produced. [We] put together the whole thing, paid for everything mostly out of our pocket, and crossed our fingers. We sold it out. I just remember walking out there on the stage a lot of my heroes have played on, standing where they stood and just kind of taking in the marvel of people [who] just paid to come and see our band. The last one, because it just happened, was the Pine Creek show. Another sold-out crowd, the weather was absolutely perfect, it seemed like the stars had aligned, the crowd couldn’t have been more receptive, [and] the band was on fire. That was a pinnacle, that was a point I will always remember.
RZ: Are there limitations to this grand tribute you’ve created? LF: There is an absolute limit because they’ve only written so many songs. Good thing they’ve written hundreds of songs. We keep on chipping away further at some of the back catalogue. Where we tend to get a little hung up on some of [that], is that it’s a little less known and a little out of the comfort realm—it gets really experimental and truly psychedelic, where they’re creating ambient sounds and stuff like that. Thirdly, we try to cater to the girls in making sure they’re a part of a lot of the songs. We reinvent the wheel by taking old classics and for example having one of the girls sing it or strip it down to a couple members and give a show aspect out of it. It is limiting in that. But even though we’ve learned a lot of the catalogue, going back and relearning it, you tend to dig up a little bit more and find a little bit more musical direction of where you can go.
RZ: Where does Pinky go from here? LF: The sky’s the limit. We’ve joked around about possibly creating yet another tribute band within this tribute band so you can go on the road with two bands. But I think at this point, we are completely content and just over the moon just to play this music because we love it so much. It’s just so much fun to do and we just have a great time doing it. We can always find a “new” Pink Floyd song to learn, or a new album to attack. We’ve talked about the album Atom Heart Mother, in doing the full orchestral suite, maybe bringing in some of our orchestral type friends. There’s also been talk of getting more community members involved [in the shows]. We brought the high school choir in to sing backing for “Another Brick in the Wall” and a couple other ones. There’s so much we can do in the next few years just within the material ourselves, I don’t think we’re looking to jump onto another tribute band’s idea or another tribute band’s thing. We’re just completely content with what we’re doing now. What we’re trying to do is spread out the ripples. Sometimes being a part of a tribute band, you’ll go to a bigger market like Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, or Salt Lake and they’ll have a Pink Floyd tribute. Sometimes tribute bands can get a little territorial, understandably so. But we would like to take it to a national market, or at least a larger regional market and start rippling out, and taking it taking it as far as we possibly can with what we have.
RZ: We wish you the very best of luck and the upcoming show should be awesome! LF: Thank you. The show’s going to be fantastic. I can’t wait. I highly recommend people get their tickets early because I believe it will sell out. There is a new beer they’re doing just for the show—the “Lunatic” IPA. Last year’s [had a] high alcohol content. It was quite the hit.
RZ: We’re looking forward to it. Any parting comments? LF: This is the most fun most fun I’ve had in my life with a band, outside of a couple other instances. As far as the band goes, it’s the most fun I have ever had in my entire life. I can’t be more thankful and more honored to be a part of it—especially since the beginning and watching it grow and change and manifest. Members leaving, coming and going. It’s a slice of magic. •
