Did David Gilmour’s Ban on Waters-Only Pink Floyd Songs Cause Tension With Nick Mason on the 2015 Tour?

In 2015, David Gilmour took his Rattle That Lock solo tour on the road with a strict rule: no Pink Floyd songs written solely by Roger Waters. That meant skipping everything from The Wall that Waters wrote alone (like “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2” and “Comfortably Numb”) and really the entire The Final Cut record. Gilmour’s setlist instead leaned on the Floyd material he co-wrote or songs where he had a major hand — “Shine On You Crazy Diamond,” “Wish You Were Here,” “Money,” “Run Like Hell” (Gilmour co-wrote that one, though Waters gets sole credit on some early versions), and even a couple of Rick Wright numbers like “Astronomy Domine.”

Nick Mason, who joined the tour on drums, had said publicly that he’d love to play more classic Floyd tunes, especially ones that hadn’t been dusted off in decades. But Mason also understood Gilmour’s position: the tour was billed as a solo thing, not a Pink Floyd reunion, and playing songs written entirely by the guy Gilmour spent decades feuding with would’ve felt weird. Mason later told Mojo that there was “no tension” — they talked it through before the tour started. Still, fans and some band insiders noted that Mason occasionally looked a little wistful when the setlist skipped the big Waters-penned anthems that got the crowd roaring. For Gilmour, the decision was artistic principle; for Mason, it was just the price of being