The 2013 'Endless River' Press Conference at Palais de Tokyo: A Tribute, a Farewell, and a Statement

The press conference at Paris’s Palais de Tokyo on September 22, 2013, wasn’t just a launch event — it was Pink Floyd’s way of closing a chapter without reopening old wounds. David Gilmour and Nick Mason stood on stage, noticeably without Roger Waters, to announce The Endless River, an album built from leftover Division Bell sessions and centered on Richard Wright’s keyboard work. The setting, a contemporary art museum, matched the album’s atmospheric, wordless ambition: instrumental save for one song, “Louder Than Words.”

The purpose was twofold. First, to present the record as a heartfelt tribute to Wright, who died in 2008, and to frame it as the true end of the band’s studio legacy. Gilmour made it plain that the album came from “the spirit of Rick” and that no other Pink Floyd studio albums would follow. Second, the conference served as a silent statement on the band’s fractured relationship with Waters — his absence was a loud reminder that Gilmour and Mason controlled the Floyd name and legacy, and they chose to end it on their own terms, with Wright’s ghost as the anchor. The room was packed with questions about a reunion, but Gilmour simply said, “I don’t think so.” The event was as much a funeral as a press launch.