If you’re a fan of the legendary British rock icons Pink Floyd, making a trip to the Better Living Centre at Exhibition Place in Toronto should be at the top of your list for your summer plans.
Since its hugely successful global debut in 2017 at London, England’s prestigious Victoria and Albert Museum, ‘The Pink Floyd Exhibition: Their Mortal Remains’ has launched in Toronto.
The 20,000 sq. ft. multi-sensory experience features more than 350 artifacts and objects collected over the band’s career, from handwritten lyrics, musical instruments, stage props, and items from the personal collections of the band members, while combining art, design, music, sound, and visual technology.
A media preview and press conference were held on June 15, 2023, before the doors opened to the public, and SWOMP was there to cover the celebration.
Founding member and drummer for Pink Floyd, Nick Mason, joined remotely, and the following video message was shown to those in attendance:
The brainchild of the exhibition, Aubrey ‘Po’ Powell, was one of the speakers at the preview event.
Powell, who is one of the most well-known designers of album covers, including Pink Floyd’s ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ and ‘Wish You Were Here,’ as well as others by Led Zeppelin and Paul McCartney, served as curator and creative director for the exhibition.
Powell described how the current exhibition originally came together after his business partner with Hipgnosis, Storm Thorgerson, created a smaller-scale version of the exhibit.
“The inspiration of what he did allowed us to go forward and allowed the band to go, okay, why don’t we do something a little more majestic… something that has a real tale of our musical history,” he said.
From there, and after meeting with the band members and securing some funding from an investor, Powell said the search began to find artifacts, memorabilia, and items from Pink Floyd’s history that could be included in the exhibition.
“For example, (Paula Webb Stainton, the Hipgnosis curator/archivist) went down to Roger Waters’ house and found, in an old garage, under a pile of rat poo and various damp cloths, the original hand-written lyrics of ‘The Wall.’ They had been sitting there for years, unattended and in bad shape.”
Powell added, “They had dozens of warehouses where they stored all of their old equipment and all the stuff they had used throughout the ’70s, in what Roger called their electric musical shows. There were things like the original teacher from ‘The Wall,’ things like inflatable pigs… there was a pile of them, completely and utterly fallen apart. It was bizarre, it was like walking through some sort of Madame Tussaud’s or a horror film. It was really weird.”
However, Powell said that when they started going through boxes, many of the items were in good shape, “like the fat man,” which was flown above the stadiums during Pink Floyd’s 1977 In The Flesh Tour and is now on display at the entrance of the exhibition in Toronto.
After realizing there was enough material to consider the idea for an exhibition, Powell said he produced a thick booklet of architectural drawings and presented it to the band.
“I took it to see Roger, who was on a tour of America with a very large show, and he went, ‘This is incredible, I haven’t got time to look at all this because I’m on tour. Do you think you can do it?’ I said, ‘Yeah,’ and he said, ‘Well, go away,'” Powell added.
“I took it to David (Gilmour), who was recording an album… ‘Well, I haven’t got time to look at all this. If you can get it together, just go away and do it.’ I took it to Nick, who said, ‘Well, if the other two are okay about it, then I’m okay about it.’ I had carte blanche. It was incredible. Not one single piece of interference.”
During a successful showing at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Powell said the band members had the chance to view the exhibit.
“When the guys saw it, they embraced it,” he said, noting they were a bit skeptical at first.
“They were deeply moved by it. When you go in there, you will see their legacy and their history, and everything you see, they’ve touched, and the memories came flooding back. Walking around with Roger, he was almost tearful looking at the elements of Syd Barrett.”
Powell said, in particular, a couple of artifacts came as a big surprise.
“In the Syd Barrett location, there is a drawing that Syd did on a train journey with Roger when they were about 19,” he said.
“It’s a preposition of what their band would look like. It’s just a sketch… and who would have thought that 60 years later that would have come to fruition and here we are celebrating that little drawing.”
Another artifact in the exhibition has particular significance to ‘The Wall,’ Powell said.
“First of all, we had no name for the exhibition,” he said.
“So, I called Roger, who is a brilliant wordsmith as we know. He came up with ‘their mortal remains,’ which is a line out of ‘The Wall.’ It was so poignant and so Roger. It’s dark.”
Powell added, “One of the elements that we found was in Cambridge. Storm, my partner in Hipgnosis, Syd Barrett, and Roger Waters all went to the same school. Paula (Webb Stainton) went to see what other artifacts we might find, and there was a teacher who used to teach there many years before, and she said, ‘I’ve got the caning book.’ Well, in British schools in those days, caning was a regular occurrence, particularly with these three renegades. In this book that you’ll see, Roger Waters – fighting, Syd Barrett – truancy… but even better than this caning book, the school teacher actually had the cane, which beat the boys.”
Powell said Roger Waters almost burst into tears when he saw it.
“It was so impactful upon him because that story reflected on ‘The Wall,’ and when you see the inflatable teacher in there, with a cane, that’s where it came from, his school days,” Powell said.
“There are very motive parts of this exhibition that actually play an important role to the band themselves and the crazy forces behind it.”
The panel discussion and Q&A also featured:
– Michael Cohl, a legendary concert promoter and chairman of the live entertainment giant S2BN Entertainment, who served as co-executive producer for the exhibition.
– Bob Ezrin, an award-winning music producer (Alice Cooper, Phish, Aerosmith, Lou Reed), who also produced Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall,’ ‘A Momentary Lapse of Reason,’ and ‘The Division Bell.’
– Dave Marsden, a veteran Toronto radio host, who served as the master of ceremonies for the event.
– Darrell Brown, CEO of the Canadian National Exhibition Association, the presenting partner of the exhibition.
Before arriving in Toronto, the exhibition has captivated audiences across the world in Rome, Madrid, Dortmund, Germany, Los Angeles, and Montreal since their inaugural appearance in London in 2017.
The city of Toronto and its surrounding areas have had a long-standing love affair with Pink Floyd.
The band’s relationship with the city is filled with memorable moments, from their concert in Hamilton in 1975 to their final tour in 1994.
Purchase tickets and find out more about ‘The Pink Floyd Exhibition: Their Mortal Remains’ here: https://pinkfloydexhibition.com/
Here are some photos from SWOMP’s backstage pass to the exhibition:
