Stage Buzz: Brit Floyd at The Venue at Horseshoe Casino

 

By Kelley Simms

After leaving one successful Pink Floyd tribute act to start another one, musical director/guitarist/vocalist Damian Darlington saw his vision come to fruition 15 years ago.

Brit Floyd was formed in 2011 in Liverpool, England, by Darlington, who left a 17-year tenure with The Australian Pink Floyd Show, believing he could build a better band from scratch. “For starters, there are fewer kangaroos involved in Brit Floyd,” Darlington jokes during a recent Zoom interview. “The Australian Pink Floyd show obviously was pretty good. I did it for 17 years and learned my craft by playing Pink Floyd music. I just felt an even better job could be done of it, and I wanted to work with some other musicians and have the freedom to approach Pink Floyd in a bit of a different way. To have the freedom to bring some tracks into the repertoire that we wouldn’t have done with the Australian Pink Floyd Show.”

The band has toured extensively since its formation, including a 2023 world tour celebrating the 50th anniversary of Pink Floyd’s 1973 album, The Dark Side of The Moon, and in 2024, the band embarked on an International tour, *P·U·L·S·E*, celebrating 30 years of *The Division Bell.* Brit Floyd is currently on its first leg of its 2026 world tour, *The Moon, The Wall and Beyond*, which includes a Feb. 20 stop at the Horseshoe Casino in Hammond, IN, just a short trek across the Illinois/Indiana border.
Over the past few decades, Darlington has performed in Chicagoland numerous times and it has remained one of his favorite places to play in the US. “There’s a lot of very passionate fans of Pink Floyd’s music in that area,” Darlington admits. “We’ve always had very memorable shows there with great reactions from the audience. And that basically applies to pretty much the whole of the US. It’s our biggest market to play in, North America, because there are so many fans of Pink Floyd’s music still. So many people are passionate about this music and want to experience it live, and they also know how to have a good time at a concert and how to show their appreciation. So, there’s always very positive experiences of playing here in the US.”

The 2026 tour will feature selected tracks from the seminal album The Dark Side of the Moon, including timeless classics such as “Time,” and “Money,” as well as highlights from The Wall, including “Hey You,” “Comfortably Numb,” and “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2.” “There’s room for a few other bits and pieces outside of those two albums, but the principal theme of this tour is very much focusing on Pink Floyd’s two biggest-selling albums, Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall,” Darlington confesses. “The earliest track we’re doing in this set list is “One of These Days” off Meddle. We’ve done tracks from the Syd Barrett era from Piper at the Gates of Dawn; tracks like “Astronomy, Domine,” “See Emily Play,” and “Arnold Lane.”

In addition, audiences can expect a robust selection of fan favorites from across Pink Floyd’s vast discography, accompanied by a state-of-the-art light show, lasers, video projections, inflatables (including the pig from Animals), and theatrical staging.

The current tour kicked off in Canada on Feb. 9 and runs through June in the US. As one of the most successful Pink Floyd tribute bands (and there are plenty), Brit Floyd doesn’t plan on stopping just yet. “When it comes to the general ambitions and aspirations for the band, we just want to carry on doing what we’re doing and go from strength to strength; build the audience,” Darlington admits. “There’s certainly other places in the world we’d like to take the show. I’d love to do some more shows in Asia; go to Japan again, and make places in South America. But we’ll always principally be touring in the US, it’s where our biggest audiences are. I have no plans of stopping anytime soon. I can imagine we’ll still be doing this in another 10 years’ time.”

See Brit Floyd at the Horseshoe Casino in Hammond, IN on Friday, February 20

-Kelley Simms

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