THOSE expert Antipodean purveyors of excellent Pink Floyd music – The Australian Pink Floyd Show – are on their annual tour of Britain including a date in Preston on Tuesday.

The Welcome to the Machine tour will see them perform the Pink Floyd album Wish You Were Here in its entirety, celebrating the 40th anniversary of its release.

The album is famous for containing the track Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Floyd’s tribute to their founder Syd Barrett.

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On release in 1975 it shot straight to the top of the UK album chart although some fans remained sceptical about it.

Jason Sawford, the founder member and keyboard maestro of the Aussie band (TAPFS for short) said: “I personally think it’s a great album.

“Obviously Dark Side of the Moon is Pink Floyd’s absolute masterpiece but Wish You Were Here comes a close second.

The Melbourne-born musician added: “There’s a certain coherence to the whole album and has a very original opening and of course the lyrical content features madness (a common theme with Pink Floyd) and the music industry.”

As well as performing the album Jason said the new show will draw heavily on Dark Side of the Moon and The Division Bell plus The Wall.

And there are a few surprises.

“That’s right,” said Jason. “We may be doing a number in tribute to Syd Barrett, probably Astromony Domine as it works very well in the set; and we may have a go at one of the songs from Endless River (Pink Floyd’s most recent album).”

As well as faithfully recreating the sound of Pink Floyd (so much so that Floyd’s drummer Nick Mason has gone on record saying that the Aussie outfit are probably better than Floyd ever were), the show boasts some of the best visuals in the business; including films, lasers and inflatables.

“Yes, we have some new animations, produced especially for the show and we’ve updated all the visual aspects,” said Jason.

Performing note-perfect recreations of known songs can be difficult.

He said: “Well, I’ve got to programme all the correct sounds into the keyboards and while I’ve done a lot of it in the past, it can still take weeks to do.”

But is the band ever tempted to do a song a different way?

“Well, the music is always faithful to the albums, but Floyd used to improvise early on and we listen to all the various versions and we do make it sound like Floyd improvising, and not like another band.”

“Finally, you have to have a certain mindset. For this music you have to be focused and disciplined – it’s very much like being a classical musician.”

The band’s line-up has been pretty stable for some time now.

“You’re right, we’re a band that gets a lot of work and every working musician likes that. Plus you get a chemistry and we try to retain the unity.”

The band has been performing the music of Pink Floyd for nearly 30 years now, does Jason still enjoy the job?

“Well, it IS a job and I’m no longer a young man, but I still enjoy playing and of course it’s great music to play – and there’s the audience reaction which is always great.”

And there could be more to come.

“There’s loads more I’d like to do from the Floyd catalogue,” admits Jason.

n The Australian Pink Floyd Show Preston Guild Hall, Tuesday, March 17. Call 01772 80 4444 for details.