“The last thing you want is people just deferring to you”: He may have been around for nearly 60 years, but David Gilmour’s return to form was inevitable. Here’s why

ROME, ITALY - JULY 02: English singer David Gilmour performs in concert at Circo Massimo on july 02, 2016 in Rome, Italy. (Photo by Roberto Panucci/Corbis via Getty Images) — (Image credit: Getty Images)

Over the past two years former Pink Floyd leader David Gilmour surprised us all with his first solo album in nearly a decade and a return to touring. Here are 10 reasons why, as he approaches his 80th birthday and nearly six decades in the limelight, he remains top of the progs.

At 79, and celebrating his 80th birthday in March, David Gilmour is one of the most revered and influential musicians ever to grace a gatefold sleeve.

Working in close collaboration with his wife, muse and lyrical foil Polly Samson, his recent years have marked both a return to the limelight and an unmistakable return to form.

Exploring the themes of mortality and age, his 2024 album Luck And Strange was followed by last year’s The Luck And Strange Concerts and Live At The Circus Maximus. The projects found Gilmour doing things his way, at his pace; and even with his music mindful of Floyd’s legacy, import and key thematic concerns, he pushed forward and evolved.

“Life is short,” proclaims the Latin title of Luck And Strange song Vita Brevis. But Gilmour still has miles to walk, stories to tell. Here are 10 reasons why he’s still ahead of the pack.

David Gilmour - Luck and Strange (Official Music Video) - YouTube

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His unique guitar-playing

“There are no David Gilmour clones out there; you can’t mimic what you do,” producer and YouTuber Rick Beato told him. True enough – Gilmour’s rich vibrato, inventive way with a chord-voicing and classy, reassuringly expensive-sounding guitar tone all make for a unique sonic fingerprint. ‘Quite the time to be a boy/Six-string masters of an expanding universe’, he sings on the title track of Luck And Strange, recalling his childhood awe of guitar pioneers such as Hank Marvin. Those who have followed in Gilmour’s wake marvel at his gift too.

His voice

“I love singing. I’ve spent as much of my life trying to improve my singing as I have practising guitar,” Gilmour once said. Yet – as with Fleetwood Mac’s Peter Green – his guitar prowess is such that his vocals don’t always get the acclaim they deserve.

Listen to the warmth and purity of his harmonies on Pink Floyd’s Goodbye Blue Sky, or the calm surety of his lead vocal on Wish You Were Here. There’s a reason Kate Bush and David Bowie were happy to sing alongside him; a reason why Rogers Waters passed him the mic for the chorus of Comfortably Numb.

Wish You Were Here (Live from the Luck and Strange Concerts) - YouTube

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He knows his strengths as well as his weaknesses

Gilmour was smart and non-territorial enough to harness then fiancée Samson’s way with words on The Division Bell. The novelist co-wrote many of the lyrics on the LP that would become Floyd’s second without Waters. Gilmour recalled her involvement initially “ruffled feathers” among the band’s management, but she’s been a sounding block and key foil ever since. A godsend, really, given Gilmour’s “inability to express myself linguistically as clearly as I would like to.”

He’s playing live again

Covid took its toll on him like the rest of us, but as a happily married musician with all kinds of resources at his fingertips, lockdown wasn’t all bad for him. Indeed, it may even have been a blessed relief from fame: on Luck And Strange track Sings, he hankers to ‘stay inside this cocoon.’

How great, then, to see him back on the road for the first time in eight years for 2024’s Luck And Strange Tour, for which he cherrypicked a handful of dramatic and prestigious venues, including Rome’s Circus Maximus. In interviews he’s alluded to more tour dates in 2026.

David Gilmour - Comfortably Numb (Live at the Circus Maximus, Rome) - YouTube

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He’s open to genre-crossing possibilities

When Ice-T’s crossover rap metal band Body Count covered Comfortably Numb in September 2024, Gilmour approved, describing the band’s lyrically divergent yet respectful version as “quite radical.” He even contributed a fresh take on one of his most iconic guitar solos. “It astonishes me that a tune I wrote almost 50 years ago is back with this great new approach,” he said. “They’ve made it relevant again.”

He knows how to balance career and family life

In 2020 he offered a look into his home life with The Von Trapped Family livestreams on YouTube. Chickens wandered around a sitting room as he and daughter Romany covered The Unthanks’ Magpie, while a take on Gram Parsons’ Hickory Wind came with vino and candlelight as his wife, kids and dogs looked on. Gilmour’s music happens within, not outside his family; hence Romany’s duet with him on Between Two Points, and her valued presence as part of his current live band.

He’s not stuck in the past

Artists of a certain status and vintage can be wary of being shunted beyond their comfort zone while working with producers half their age. Not Gilmour, though. When the guitarist employed sometime Alt-J and Madness foil Charlie Andrew to co-produce Luck And Strange, it was partly to avoid smoke being blown up his posterior. “He was very direct and not in any way overawed,” Gilmour told Rolling Stone of Andrew. “The last thing you want is people just deferring to you.”

David Gilmour - Fat Old Sun (Live at the Circus Maximus, Rome) - YouTube

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He’s a great bandleader

Gilmour’s status is such that any invite to tour with him is likely to be snapped up; but his current live band features some particularly inspired collaborators. Sisters Charley and Hattie Webb previously sang with Leonard Cohen and Tom Petty, while keyboard legend Greg Phillinganes’ CV includes stints with Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Toto and Paul McCartney. Gilmour is no limelight hogger either. In his band, everybody gets the chance to shine.

He’s still kicking against the pricks

Not every multi-millionaire has a moral compass; Gilmour does. “I’m horrified by the division and polarisation of this world we’re in today,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 2024. His charitable acts – which include auctioning off over 100 of his guitars for environmental body ClientEarth and supporting homelessness organisation Crisis – have raised many millions for worthy causes.

He’s not done yet

What do you give the man who has everything? A project. In recent interviews, he’s alluded to a treasure trove of new material. In September 2025 he told Rolling Stone he was working on a studio album that he hoped to release “within the next year or two.”

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James McNair grew up in East Kilbride, Scotland, lived and worked in London for 30 years, and now resides in Whitley Bay, where life is less glamorous, but also cheaper and more breathable. He has written for Classic Rock, Prog, Mojo, Q, Planet Rock, The Independent, The Idler, The Times, and The Telegraph, among other outlets. His first foray into print was a review of Yum Yum Thai restaurant in Stoke Newington, and in many ways it’s been downhill ever since. His favourite Prog bands are Focus and Pavlov’s Dog and he only ever sits down to write atop a Persian rug gifted to him by a former ELP roadie.

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