My brother and I first heard Wish You Were Here relatively late, in early ’80s, already after The Wall. Like most of Western music at the time, it came on magnetic tape reel. It was a good quality recording (19 cm/s, directly from vinyl) that turned out to be an exceptionally good quality recording. By the beginning of the title track my brother temporarily left our (tape recorder-hosting) room and went to the kitchen. Then I heard him shouting, “Will you quit plinking!” — obviously at me, as we were alone in the house at that moment. As flattered I was, it wasn’t me. It just so happened that Gilmour’s acoustic guitar in the intro sounded very similar to mine. I myself wouldn’t dare to play along the song I heard for the first time in my life. That’s how good the tape was.
There was nothing to grow on me: it was a love at first hear. WYWH dethroned all other Pink Floyd’s albums, even The Dark Side of the Moon. By contrast, the cover art, when I finally saw it, was a disappointment, if not to say sacrilege. I wouldn’t mind to have that postcard though.
Because the album is so perfect, most cover versions of it are not particularly impressive. There’s little point of slavishly following it note by note, yet that’s the trap even Pink Floyd themselves fell into on many occasions. I like Andreas Polyzogopoulos Quartet and Evgeny Khmara’s versions of Shine On You Crazy Diamond; and Have a Cigar by Gov’t Mule, Sweet Leda and The Main Squeeze.
In 2006, I went to see Rodrigo y Gabriela at The Junction in Cambridge. As they often did back then, they played Wish You Were Here with Rodrigo using a (half-full) beer bottle as a slide and the audience singing along. I am still looking for a decent quality video of that or a similar performance, but believe me, it was magic. How I wish you were there.
