The magic of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon live on stage

The British band's eighth studio album, released in 1973, continues to mesmerise and inspire music lovers and musicians worldwide.

Pink Floyd's Evolution is a celebration of Dark Side of the Moon's milestone and is currently touring Australia. The production includes Echoes, a 23-minute Pink Floyd aural experience which recaptures, within a new musical framework, some of the old themes and melody lines from earlier albums.

Music director James Ryan has taken a deep dive into the album and assembled a talented team of musicians to bring it to life on stage.

Melbourne-based Ryan, himself a Pink Floyd fan, divides his time between playing guitar live, teaching, writing, producing and working the frets in various ways on a wide range of projects. He has toured North and South America and Japan with Men at Work, and performed with the likes of Shania Twain, Ronan Keating, Sophie Ellis Bextor, Vanessa Amorosi, Kate Ceberano, The Badloves, Robbie Williams and Jon Stevens.

He will be touring Australia with Ross Wilson (Daddy Cool, Mondo Rock) on a tour that includes a stop-off at Dashville Skyline 2024 on Saturday, October 5.

Ryan's earliest music memories are of his father "playing the hell out of" Dark Side of the Moon.

"I remember so much of the sounds and soundscapes of that album, and it sticks, you know?," he tells Weekender.

Pink Floyd, he says, never played their songs the same way as they were recorded in a studio for an album. It's an approach he adopted when creating Pink Floyd's Evolution.

"There's this chemistry which was very much a Pink Floyd thing and of bands of that era - they didn't have to communicate a whole lot on stage because they'd worked together so long the music just went different places," he tells Weekender.

"They know how that flow works and how to listen to each other. It's a kind of looseness or improvisation but it never sounds like something weird is going on.

"They all just connected musically and it's the essence of what made bands like this great."

Ryan and his hand-picked band listened to Pink Floyd's live recordings and performances, taking into account different versions by the band of their songs.

"That's the type of band that they were. If you were to play the album as it is, you're not getting into the right head space to do the band justice," he says.

"When you first hear Echoes and all that's happening you're like 'Wow, what's going on there?'. You have to study it, analyse it. Put the headphones on and really listen.

"You can listen to it it a dozen times and still hear something else, something new.

"You have to think about the sounds and what you need to do to recreate the feel or the mood of each instrument's sound."

Lighting and visuals will work to enhance the emotion and intensity of the songs on the night.

"We want people to be taken into the music, where the lighting and visuals enhance feelings but don't detract from the music," Ryan explains.

"It's all meant to be one entity, where you're listening and watching at once. It's about the whole thing coming together for you and taking you somewhere pretty special."

Or you can just close your eyes and let the music take you where it will?

"Exactly. If it's all going as it should there should be many points during the show where you do close your eyes because there are some big ambient synth sections, where it really is about closing your eyes and being taken somewhere."

The Dark Side of the Moon often features in professional listings of the greatest albums of all time. A blockbuster release of the album era, it also propelled record sales throughout the music industry during the 1970s.

The album is certified 14 times platinum in the UK and topped the US Billboard Top LPs & Tape chart, where it charted for 981 weeks.

It has sold more than 45 million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling album of the 1970s and the fourth-best-selling album in history.