It was a night of 70’s rock and roll at the Sanderson Centre, attracting people from all eras to come out and enjoy good music. Jean jackets and leather vests swarmed the theater as families, friends, and father-son duos spent their Friday night rocking out to Pink Floyd’s ‘Wish you were Here’ presented by a returning favourite ‘Classic Albums Live.’

Dave Dawkins and his future son-in-law Adam bonded over Pink Floyd. They traveled from just outside of Toronto to see their favourite album brought back to life on stage on Friday, Nov 9.

“It’s my favourite album. One of my two favourite albums, the other one would be Led Zeppelin’s ‘Physical Graffiti,’ but this is one of the best albums ever produced,” states Dawkins. “I’ve been waiting for this album to come along and here we are. It’s the same guys that I have seen before and they are fantastic, absolutely fantastic,” continued Dawkins.

Fellow music lover Gary Staley and his brother made the trip to Brantford to enjoy some classic rock and roll music.

“ My brother told me about the show, he has been to some past concerts here and said they were pretty good. We use to listen to Pink Floyd a lot. I’m most looking forward to hearing ‘Welcome to the Machine,’” says Staley.

The Sanderson Centre was packed full of an old school, easy going, laid-back music-loving crowd. Excitement was felt throughout the air as the audience patiently waited to hear music from the band you didn’t quite get until you smoked pot, as one concertgoer could be overheard saying. As eight band members stepped on stage dressed all in black, audience members yelled with excitement “ Let’s Rock and Roll!” and “ Get ‘er done!”

Starting off slow and quiet, in a foggy mist that filled the stage, the talented classic albums band members made the songs of Pink Floyd come alive through crisp vocals and the sounds of the keyboard, drums, guitar, bass guitar and saxophone. Each band member played an important role in ensuring that Pink Floyd fans did not leave disappointed.

The band covered favourites such as: Shine on you crazy Diamond,’ ‘Welcome to the Machine,’ ‘Have a Cigar,’ ‘Wish you were Here,’ ‘Comfortably Numb,’ ‘Run like hell’ and ‘Is there anybody out there?’ Audience members were rocking on by head banging and cheering throughout the band’s performance.

The crowd went wild, with a standing ovation when the two-hour concert came to an end. With such an overwhelming appreciation for classic music the band came back out on stage to play one last song as an encore.

Lead singer Bobby joked that he was “now going to play one of his originals” for the encore, which lead to Pink Floyd fans yelling out what songs they wanted to hear for the last song of the night.

It was a night of sharing memories between music lovers who couldn’t help but reminisce about how and why Pink Floyd was such an influential band. The music sent you back to the 70s — a time of peace, love and rock and roll.