Why David Gilmour Chose Family Over the Road in the 90s

David Gilmour’s father died when he was very young, and that absence became a quiet engine behind his later touring decisions. By the mid-1990s, with young children at home and a second marriage to Polly Samson, he started actively turning down road work — not out of disinterest in music, but because he refused to let his kids grow up without a dad around. He’s said in interviews that he had no desire to be “one of those people who’s always away,” and that he’d rather write and record at home than spend months on a tour bus.

After the 1994 Pink Floyd tour (which ended partly because of band tensions), Gilmour didn’t launch a major world tour again until 2006 for On an Island. In between, he played only a handful of small charity and solo shows. The 2002 Meltdown Festival set and a few dates in Europe and America were manageable, but the full-blown stadium treks were off the table. He later told Mojo that he simply didn’t want to be a “16-hour-a-day road animal” while his children were still school-age.

This family-first approach also explains why his later tours — On an Island, Rattle That Lock — were shorter, used smaller venues, and often kept him within weekend-flyback distance of home. Polly Samson has written that Gilmour’s home studio and the family’s Sussex estate became the center of his musical life. The result? Less