No. 190 – Comfortably Numb

Performer: Pink Floyd

Songwriters: David Gilmour, Roger Waters

Original Release: The Wall

Year: 1979

Definitive Version: Tongue, Tied & Twisted, 1988.

Comfortably Numb is a song that needs no introduction, right? I mean, anyone who attends a Pink Floyd show probably has heard this song once or twice … or 8,000 times. So why the Hell did David Gilmour feel the need to introduce it during the 1994 Division Bell Tour?

He did that at both shows I saw, and it bugged the crap out of me. It’s the final song of the set: Just go into it straight away. Telling me what’s coming lessens the impact.

As you might recall (but probably don’t), I saw Pink Floyd twice in the span of four days in 1994 during the epic Memorial Day weekend that Scott and I put together. The first time was at the Mistake By the Lake in Cleveland. The second time was at the Horseshoe in Columbus.

The day of the Indy 500 barbecue at Scott’s place in Muncie, Ind., was the respite between the events in Cleveland (one Pink Floyd show, one Indians game) and the events that Sunday (one race in Indianapolis, one Pink Floyd show in Columbus). The difference was the latter two events took place the same day.

We caravanned to Indianapolis in two cars—mine and Scott’s. By this time, Scott and I discovered a great spot to park for the 500. It was close enough to the track that a walk wasn’t a big deal yet out of the way enough so getting to it didn’t mean you had to sit in traffic for five hours in or out. Best of all, it was free, with plenty of spots available.

It was in a neighborhood near the speedway, and if you parked on the curve in the road, it was next to a set of train tracks that went right past the Speedway. We’d ignore the “Parking: $10” signs in every driveway and park on the street, then hike the train tracks to the racetrack.

In 1994, we had seats close to Turn 1 on the infield side of the track. I made my famous teriyaki steak sandwiches the night before, which we carried in in our cooler along with a few Labatt Ices to wash them down, and we were good to go.

The race was nondescript. In fact, I had to look up who won (Al Unser Jr.). The big deal though was that Jim Nabors was there in person to sing Back Home Again after a liver transplant. His appearance, which was as much a part of the race as the cars themselves, had been doubtful in the days leading up to the race, and the crowd roared as loud for his introduction as it did for anything else that day.

After the race, we didn’t have time to dawdle. We had to race back to our cars and make the three-hour drive to Columbus in time for the night portion of our day-night doubleheader—Pink Floyd.

Pink Floyd was the second show I’d seen in Ohio Stadium, but I had better seats for this one. Being at Ohio Stadium so close to our Cleveland experience gave me a deeper appreciation for how terrible the layout of Municipal Stadium was. Ohio Stadium seats even more people than Muni did, but you’d never know it based on how easy it is to move about underneath. Even when you went up the ramps to the seats at Ohio Stadium, you never felt like you were cattle being led to slaughter.

Scott secured three ducats in B Deck, which is the upper portion of the lower bowl under C Deck. If the stage was in the end zone—and it was—we were about on the 20-yard line in terms of distance from the stage.

However, as with Genesis in 1987 (story to come), Scott fell into better seats at the last second. This time, however, his connection wanted to go, too, so I sat in B Deck with John and Chris, who took advantage of the extra ticket. Those two were seeing their THIRD Pink Floyd show in four days.

The show itself was a carbon copy of the one in Cleveland except it was about 30 degrees warmer, and we weren’t sitting behind a drunk who was passed out for the entire show (good ol’ No. 693). Unfortunately, David Gilmour AGAIN introduced Comfortably Numb. What the Hell?

The final notes of Run Like Hell might have ended that day’s big events but not its festivities. Afterward, everyone ran like hell over to BW-3 on campus to partake of the usual wings, bevs and tunes. It made for a rude awakening for the party who had to get up and drive back home again to Indiana the next day.

It didn’t bother me. In fact, I didn’t even get up to see everyone off. The weekend was over, and my agenda now differed from Scott’s. I had to unload all the packed-up stuff in my car trunk and start going through the paper before making phone calls. The apartment hunt had begun.

Memorial Day weekend 1994 was crazy. If I could, I’d do it all over again just the same. It started in Flint and ended in Columbus. In between, it involved Cleveland, Muncie and Indianapolis. It was the perfect celebration of the end of my time in Flint and the beginning of whatever was about to happen to me in Columbus.

Little did I know how crazy THAT would get.