One of the things I’ve realized while writing this blog is how many memories get buried under everyday life.

Sometimes all it takes is writing down one story to unlock ten more that had been sitting quietly in the background for years.

This is one of those stories.

When Katie and I first got together back in 1996, we couldn’t have been much different.

At least according to Katie.

She was a skater girl.

I wouldn’t exactly call myself a jock, but I definitely identified more with sports than anything else.

One thing I found out about her almost right away and never quite understood was her obsession with Pink Floyd.

And when I say obsession, I mean obsession.

She knew all the lyrics.

She knew the guitar riffs.

She had all the cassettes.

For whatever reason, their music connected with her in a way I simply didn’t understand.

At the time, I was a kid in my early twenties.

I had moved from Seattle to Portland to work with my uncle and get my act together.

My uncle was a horseshoer, which was a completely different world than anything I had ever experienced growing up.

I was sharing an apartment with my cousin Tony in southeast Portland. It wasn’t the worst neighborhood, but it definitely wasn’t the best either.

As far as possessions went, I had the essentials.

A sofa couch.

A sweet waterbed that I had somehow managed to keep since before I was a teenager.

And my pride and joy.

A stereo system from Magnolia HiFi.

I had a tower rack.

Towering speakers.

Amplifier.

Equalizer.

Dual cassette deck.

CD player.

The whole setup so big it made the empty apartment feel full.

Pretty kick ass, am I right?

Looking back now, I realize I was basically living paycheck to paycheck while protecting that stereo like it was a piece of fine art.

One night Katie and I were talking about Pink Floyd.

Or more accurately, she was talking about Pink Floyd and I was listening while still not understanding what all the fuss was about.

At some point during that conversation, I blurted out:

“When Pink Floyd comes back to town, I’ll get us tickets. Even if I have to sell my stereo.”

Pretty bold statement for a guy who barely had a pot to piss in.

You must really like a girl to be willing to sacrifice your prized stereo system in the mid-90s.

There was only one problem.

I didn’t know Pink Floyd had already broken up.

In my defense, this was before Google.

I thought they had released an album not that long before and assumed they’d be touring again eventually.

Needless to say, that promise never got fulfilled.

At least not then.

Life happened.

We got married.

We had kids.

Started careers.

Bought homes.

Built a life together.

And somehow twenty-seven years went by.

Then one day, twenty-seven years later, I was driving home from a work trip in eastern Oregon when I heard a radio commercial promoting concerts at Chateau Ste. Michelle.

One of the bands playing was Australian Pink Floyd.

I had never really paid much attention to tribute bands before.

Within a few minutes, though, I realized something.

I might finally have a chance to keep a promise I had made nearly three decades earlier.

So I bought the tickets.

When I got home, I showed Katie a video of Australian Pink Floyd.

She thought they sounded really good.

Then I told her I’d already bought tickets for us to see them.

She started crying.

That’s when I realized this meant every bit as much to her as it did to me.

Maybe more.

A promise I had made twenty-seven years earlier might actually get fulfilled.

After buying the tickets, I figured I should probably start listening to Pink Floyd so I would at least be somewhat up to speed before the concert.

At that point, I knew the obvious songs.

Comfortably Numb.

Another Brick in the Wall.

Wish You Were Here.

But beyond that, I wasn’t exactly an expert.

So I started listening during my drives to eastern Oregon.

Little by little, I started paying attention to the lyrics instead of just hearing the music.

One song in particular stuck with me.

Coming Back to Life.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, David Gilmour wrote Coming Back to Life during a difficult time in his life. Between everything going on around Pink Floyd and his own personal struggles, it’s a song about finding your way back to the things that matter.

Maybe it was because I was getting older.

Maybe it was because I was finally paying attention.

Or maybe it was because some songs just find you at the right time.

Whatever the reason, that song connected with me in a way I didn’t expect.

Then the day finally arrived.

If you’ve never been to a concert at Chateau Ste. Michelle, it’s an amazing venue.

And if one of the people attending happens to enjoy wine, well…

Let’s just say we got there early.

Very early.

We may or may not have consumed four bottles of wine.

Before you start judging us, understand this day had been twenty-seven years in the making.

And did I mention the concert was at a winery?

It seemed rude not to partake.

At least that’s the story we’re sticking with.

When Australian Pink Floyd took the stage, I was blown away.

Every song sounded exactly like the recordings I had been listening to.

The musicians were incredible.

The atmosphere was incredible.

And as I watched Katie sing along to songs she had loved for decades, I finally understood.

Not all of it, but enough.

Especially when they played Coming Back to Life.

Something about hearing it live made me stop and really listen to the words.

For the first time, I understood why Pink Floyd meant so much to her.

I spent most of the night smiling.

Partly because the band was so good.

But mostly because I had finally kept my promise.

What surprised me most was what happened afterward.

I became a fan too.

The next year we went to Oregon to see Australian Pink Floyd again.

The year after that we saw Brit Floyd in Redmond. By the way, they were fantastic too.

And because I was now reading everything Pink Floyd related, I stumbled onto an article announcing that David Gilmour was releasing new music.

Something you should know about Katie is that David Gilmour is hands-down her favorite member of Pink Floyd.

Naturally I started wondering if he might actually tour.

At the time, he was seventy-nine years old, so I wasn’t sure that was realistic.

Then the tour dates were announced.

A handful of shows.

Rome.

London.

New York.

Los Angeles.

As soon as I saw Los Angeles, I knew we needed to have a conversation.

A handful of years earlier, Katie and I had seen Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden while visiting our daughter in college.

That trip checked two bucket-list items off at once.

An iconic performer.

An iconic venue.

Now we had another opportunity.

David Gilmour.

The Hollywood Bowl.

We talked about it for roughly five minutes before deciding we were going.

The show was incredible.

The venue was everything we hoped it would be.

But the moment that stayed with me happened when David Gilmour started playing Coming Back to Life.

The song had hit me when Australian Pink Floyd played it.

Hearing David Gilmour sing it himself, sitting beside Katie at the Hollywood Bowl, was something completely different.

Suddenly I found myself thinking about that apartment in Portland.

The waterbed.

The stereo.

The promise.

The twenty-seven years that had passed between those two moments.

Back then, I couldn’t have imagined where life would take us.

Marriage.

Kids.

Careers.

Ups.

Downs.

A whole lot of life packed into the space between a promise and finally keeping it.

And there I was, sitting next to the same woman I had made that promise to all those years ago.

As I listened to David Gilmour sing those words in person, I couldn’t help but smile.

Because somewhere along the way, I finally understood.

Not just why Katie loved Pink Floyd.

But why keeping that promise mattered so much.

Turns out, it took me twenty-seven years to fulfill it.

But at least I didn’t have to sell the stereo. 🎸❤️

🎸 Katie’s Korner – He Finally Got It

Brian has already told you about the apartment, the stereo, and the promise.

What he didn’t tell you is that there were times that I visited and they had no TP in the apartment, so I had to use a coffee filter or stolen wad of Arby’s napkins – but the Magnolia payment for that stereo was paid!

He also did not tell you what Pink Floyd actually means to me.

People ask me all the time why I love them so much and honestly, I still don’t have a great answer.

There was never any life-changing event attached to their music.

But when I was in high school, I was struggling with a few things, as we all do, and for some reason when I listened to their music things felt right in my world.

I felt comfortable.

Safe.

The song Shine On You Crazy Diamond was one of the songs that really spoke to me.

So much so that I got a tattoo in a dude’s garage of it, with a sewing needle and ink when I was 15.

Not my best moment, but it is still there and definitely a conversation starter when people see it.

David Gilmour’s guitar has always had a way of telling a story without saying a word.

I could not understand how Brian never really got it.

He wasn’t one of those people who hated Pink Floyd.

It just wasn’t his thing.

If anything, he tolerated my obsession because he liked me.

Which, looking back, was probably fair because I spent a lot of time talking about them.

When he came home one day asking if I’d ever heard of Australian Pink Floyd, I honestly didn’t know what he was talking about.

I wasn’t someone who followed tribute bands.

I didn’t seek them out.

I wasn’t expecting much.

Then he showed me a video.

Within a couple of minutes, I was impressed.

They sounded incredible.

What I didn’t know was that he had already bought tickets.

When he finally told me, I cried.

Not because it was a concert.

Not because it was Pink Floyd music.

Because after all those years he remembered.

Twenty-seven years after making that promise he was still thinking about it.

That meant more to me than the tickets themselves ever could.

The concert at Chateau Ste. Michelle was everything I hoped it would be.

The next summer, when we saw them again down in Portland, our kids and a couple of my brothers and my best friend from high school came with us.

It was so fun to share this experience and my favorite music with them.

Like their dad, the kids never understood my obsession either. They thought that it was going to be a bunch of weird tweaker noise that somehow was called music.

They realized they were wrong and I could see that Brian, and my kids were truly hearing the music.

A lot of people can sing the lyrics.

A lot of people can recognize the songs.

But there is a difference between hearing something and understanding why it matters to someone.

A few years later Brian and I found ourselves sitting together at the Hollywood Bowl watching David Gilmour himself.

I don’t know if I can fully explain what that felt like.

This was the music that had been part of my life since I was young.

The guitarist whose sound had always felt familiar.

And the person sitting next to me was the same guy who had made a promise in a tiny Portland apartment nearly three decades earlier.

There was a lot of life between those two moments.

Marriage.

Kids.

Careers.

Good times.

Hard times.

All of it.

And somehow, we ended up there together.

For me, that’s what the story is really about.

Not Pink Floyd.

Not David Gilmour.

Not even the promise.

It’s about sharing the things you love with someone long enough that they eventually become part of their story too.

And thirty years later, we finally got to Shine On together. ❤️