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Live in Gdańsk

Live in Gdańsk is a live album by David Gilmour. It is a part of his On an Island project which includes an album, tour, DVD, and live album. It was released on 22 September 2008. A David Gilmour Signature Series Fender Stratocaster was released at the same time.

Recording

It is a recording of the final show of his On an Island Tour in 2006, where he played to an audience of 50,000 at the Gdańsk Shipyard to celebrate the founding of the Solidarity trade union. The show featured the song "A Great Day for Freedom", from the Pink Floyd album The Division Bell (1994) and was the only show of the tour to feature it. It was last performed by Gilmour during his semi-acoustic shows in 2002.

Gilmour played the entire On an Island album during this concert.

It's the final Pink Floyd-related recording to feature Richard Wright, who died on 15 September 2008, one week before the album's official release. Also notably, this concert took place approximately one month following the death of Syd Barrett. Gilmour and his band were backed by the Polish Baltic Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Zbigniew Preisner. Leszek Możdżer was featured on piano as a special guest.

Editions

The six different available editions of Live in Gdańsk are:

Two-disc edition containing the concert on CD
Three-disc edition containing the above plus a DVD featuring 114 minutes of concert footage, plus a 36-minute documentary
Four-disc edition containing the above plus a 5.1-surround sound mix of On an Island and 11 extra audio-visual tracks taken from various TV appearances
Five-disc deluxe edition containing the above plus an extra CD containing 12 bonus live tracks from the 2006 tour as well as a wallet of memorabilia.
Five-LP vinyl edition containing the whole Gdansk show, including "Wot's... Uh the Deal?" and a bonus LP containing 2 Barn Jams, "On the Turning Away" and two songs from Live at Abbey Road.
iTunes edition containing the entire album, plus various region-dependent audio and video extras.

The DVD that comes with the three-, four-, and five-disc sets allowed the purchaser to download 12 additional tracks free of charge via a web-pass. (As of May 2010, this content is no longer accessible.) These tracks included all 12 tracks on the bonus CD included with the five-disc version, and the song "Wot's...Uh the Deal?" that was performed at the concert but not included on the album itself. The bonus tracks were released one per month as follows:

September 2008: "Wot's...Uh the Deal?" (Gdańsk)
October 2008: "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" (Venice and Vienne)
November 2008: "Dominoes" (Paris)
December 2008: "The Blue" (Vienne)
January 2009: "Take a Breath" (Munich)
February 2009: "Wish You Were Here" (Glasgow)
March 2009: "Coming Back to Life" (Florence)
April 2009: "Find the Cost of Freedom" (Manchester)
May 2009: "This Heaven" (Vienne)
June 2009: "Wearing the Inside Out" (Milan)
July 2009: "A Pocketful of Stones" (Vienne)
August 2009: "Where We Start" (Vienne)
September 2009: "On the Turning Away" (Venice)

Track listing

Below are the official track listings for the different editions of the album.

Standard edition

The standard two-CD edition is the most basic form of the album and is simply the recording of the Gdańsk show, omitting "Wot's... Uh the Deal?":

Three-disc edition

This version contains the two CDs above and the following DVD:

Four-disc edition

This version contains the three discs above and the following DVD:

Deluxe edition

This version contains the four discs above and the following CD containing the 12 live tracks that are available via the web-pass on Disc 3.

The deluxe edition is no longer in production.

Vinyl edition

The vinyl edition of the album is no longer in production.

Plus a 20-page booklet and a web-pass that allows a single download (mp3) version of one of the tracks from Disc 5 of the Deluxe Edition.

iTunes edition

and the following:

"Wearing the Inside Out" video (from the Mermaid Theatre)
"Take a Breath" video (from Live from Abbey Road)
"Speak to Me/Breathe/Time/Breathe (reprise)" [10:41] video (from Gdańsk) (US and Canada only)
"Shine on You Crazy Diamond" [5:12] partial video (first verse onwards) (from Gdańsk) (US and Canada only)
Digital booklet

Promotion

UK Television
Gilmour guested on Jools Holland's live TV show Later! Live.... with Jools Holland on BBC2 on 23 September 2008, originally to promote the new live album, performing the songs "Astronomy Domine", "The Blue" and "Fat Old Sun" but with the death of Richard Wright on 15 September he changed his set to "Remember a Day" (one of Rick Wright's contributions to the A Saucerful of Secrets album) and "The Blue" (a track from On an Island to which Wright contributed organ and vocals).

On Friday 26 September 2008, BBC Four held a David Gilmour Night, showing part of the Gdańsk concert and "Gdańsk Diary" documentary.

US Television
VH1 Classic ran parts of the Gdańsk concert on several nights in late October. The programme includes songs omitted from the DVD: "Speak to Me" / "Breathe", "Time", "Shine on You Crazy Diamond", and "Wish You Were Here".

US Cinemas
Selected US cinemas gave showings of the "Gdańsk" concert during release week. This showing also included songs omitted from the DVD: "Speak to Me" / "Breathe", "Time", "Shine on You Crazy Diamond", and "Wish You Were Here", though the theaters' did not show "Echoes".

US Radio
Westwood One aired a world première of the "Gdańsk" concert the weekend before release and included new interviews with David Gilmour.

DavidGilmour.com
Since the announcement of the sets release, Gilmour has had certain songs up on his site that vary, including "Fat Old Sun" and "Wot's... Uh the Deal?" in low quality.