Today Roger announced a new tour and there is a new album on it's way.
From the day I met Mark in August of 1999, he spoke almost daily about a new album from Roger. Amused to Death had been released in 1992 and Mark very impatiently waited for new material. In the last couple of years before Mark died, I know that Roger had teased snippets of lyrics, released as poems but you knew that they were going to end up in songs. Occasionally new stuff came Mark's way. In 2004, Roger released the To Kill a Child / Leaving Beirut single. 2005 saw the release of Roger's opera, Ca Ira. Hello I Love You from "The Last Mimzy" was a lovely surprise in 2007. It was all okay but Mark wanted an album. He wanted another "Pros and Cons" or "Amused" - a total Roger package.
After the Wall tour ended in 2012 (and Mark was the first show of that tour in Toronto in 2010 and at the last show of the tour in Quebec City in 2012) talk began about a new album and a new tour. When would it happen? Was Roger in the studio again? Mark and the other guys on his Floyd fan sites were making themselves go mad from the speculation. Mark so loved that Wall tour and he couldn't wait to see Roger again. I'm so grateful that we were able to get to Toronto in September 2014, PICC line in his arm and everything, and see that Wall concert film at TIFF. I never thought that it would be the last time Mark would be in the same room with Roger. I thought for sure that when the next tour came, Mark would be there, like he had for decades. Whenever Roger was touring, Mark was there.
As I watched the promotional video Roger released today, I sobbed, silently (I was at work). I was sad and really angry that Mark wouldn't get to see this tour or hear the new songs that were promised. It broke my heart a little that I wouldn't get to see Mark's eyes light up as he watched the video, over and over again (and he would have, trust me).
That this was announced on the same day that Bob Dylan won a Nobel Prize in Literature is interesting. Mark loved Bob too, I would say that both men were heroes to Mark. Days like this, I really miss him and wish that he was here, to read all of the stories and hear all of the songs and feel all of the feelings that really loving music can give you.
Try as I might, I can't get my head around the idea of a Roger tour without Mark.
