By the way, which one’s Pink?

Tomorrow night, Brit Floyd, a Pink Floyd cover band takes the stage at CN Centre. They’ll be the third Floyd tribute act in three years – and the second one this year – to play Prince George. A month, Roger Waters, one of the founding members of Pink Floyd, was in Vancouver for two shows, his set dominated with classic Floyd tracks.

David Gilmour, the longtime guitarist and lead singer on many of Floyd’s best songs, was on TV this week, with PBS broadcasting his Live At Pompeii show recorded last year.

No show by Waters, Gilmour or any Floyd cover band is complete without Money, Wish You Were Here, Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2) and Comfortably Numb.

So who is the authentic performer? Who does Comfortably Numb belong to?

Waters and Gilmour co-wrote Comfortably Numb and each sung half the vocals, although Gilmour sings the chorus and has two guitar solos, the second arguably one of the greatest guitar solos in rock history.

Only rock music bothers to worry about such distinctions.

In October, Foreigner played CN Centre and the crowd loved the Foreigner jukebox played live that night, a greatest hits package of their best material from 1977 through 1985, with none of those “hey, we’d like to play you a new song” moments that sends fans running to the beer garden.

The only problem was not one of the men on stage was in Foreigner during that time period.

Mick Jones, the original guitarist and chief songwriter of those memorable hits, is still part of Foreigner but often takes nights off on tour. That wasn’t “Foreigner” that played Prince George, that was a tribute act handpicked by its founder. But so what? The songs sounded great and lead singer Kelly Hansen, who has now been in the band almost as long as Lou Gramm, the original vocalist, made a point of hitting Gramm’s signature high notes, just to show he could.

Yet this snobbery about “the original lineup” runs through rock music.

Imagine (pardon the pun) if Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr had kept the Beatles together after John Lennon left?

Imagine if the Rolling Stones toured without Mick Jagger or Keith Richards?

Or imagine the howls of outrage if the four surviving members of the Tragically Hip hit the road with a new lead singer to replace Gord Downie and still called themselves the Hip? This musical zealotry is nonsense. Long after Paul and Ringo and Mick and Keith (well, maybe not Keith – he’s indestructible) are dead, their songs will remain. Current and future generations should be able to enjoy the original recordings but also hear the songs live, reinterpreted by contemporary musicians.

As for a Hip tour without Downie, who died earlier this year of brain cancer at age 53, wouldn’t the greatest tribute to his work be for his four buddies from Kingston to keep playing those songs that Downie loved to sing and the fans loved to hear?

There’s no replacing those great songs and, thankfully, they didn’t die when Downie did.

As for Brit Floyd tomorrow night at CN Centre, that’s not Pink Floyd on stage (a reunion of the classic lineup is impossible anyway since Richard Wright died in 2008) but those legendary songs will be performed by a group of talented musicians that has made a career out of delivering the Floyd experience live.

It’s the music that matters and Prince George’s Pink Floyd fans will sing “Hey! Teacher! Leave them kids alone!” just as loud Sunday for Brit Floyd as they would have if it was Gilmour or Waters on stage.

They legally own the songs they wrote, of course, but the words and music will always belong to their fans, as the soundtrack of their lives. In the end, everyone is Pink.

— Editor-in-chief Neil Godbout