“Hey You,” The Australian Pink Floyd Show will be at the Hult Center August 4, and they “Wish You Were Here.”

Known lovingly by fans as “Aussie Floyd,” this large-scale production is one of the top, and oldest, tribute bands in the world. Aside from mimicking classic Pink Floyd to perfection down to every musical intricacy, they also pay homage to the grandiose performances of the band’s heyday. 

The songs of Pink Floyd, such as “Wish You Were Here,” “Shine on You Crazy Diamond,” and “Another Brick in the Wall Part II,”  are accompanied by a massive light show, psychedelic visuals, political statements and much more — seeking to transport spectators back to 1973 listening to the key lineup, Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Richard Wright and Nick Mason perform Dark Side of the Moon for the first time. 

In a single sentence, “We’re giving people a chance to experience a Pink Floyd concert,” lead vocalist Chris Barnes tells Eugene Weekly. 

Pink Floyd is widely considered to be one of the greatest bands of all time. An English celestial rock band formed in 1965, they released six number one albums together, including Dark Side of the Moon which is a 14x platinum record in the UK and has spent more than 1,000 weeks on the U.S. Billboard Charts. While their legacy remains, in-fighting caused the key lineup to disband in 1987 after 18 years.

The Australian Pink Floyd show was founded in 1988 in Adelaide, Australia, as a small tribute band called “Think Floyd.” They have since grown into an unstoppable institution that has now been together twice as long as the key lineup. They have spent every moment of that time learning every Pink Floyd song to a “T,” and performing them in front of countless audiences. Every year, they play about 140 shows throughout Europe, North America and back. 

Barnes is from Manchester, England, and has been in the band for almost nine years, helping to recreate Pink Floyd shows every night for nearly a decade. He shares the vocal responsibility with bassist Ricky Howard — almost exactly how Waters and Gilmour used to split their songs. 

While Howard’s softer voice usually takes over the Gilmour songs such as “Money” and “Wish You Were Here,” Barnes says he has “a more sharper, itchier, shouty kind of larger tone, something with a bit of bite to it,” which is perfect for Water’s gruff, sinister songs like “Another Brick in the Wall.” 

“It works really well,” Barnes says. “Although [our voices] are very different, and they represent different areas of the Floyd vocal catalog, we kind of got it all covered.” 

Guitarist David Fowler also contributes to the harmonies as well as imitating Gilmour’s otherworldly guitar tones. “Between the three of us, we were as nerdy over who’s going to sing which bit as we are over which guitar effects that all gets used, or which type of symbols get used,” Barnes says. 

There is so much that goes into creating the perfect show, that Barnes describes the process as “a science laboratory on the stage.” 

Aussie Floyd is a 10-piece ensemble with multiple bassists, back-up vocalists, keyboardists and saxophonists that fill up the stage, all surrounding a large circular screen that displays aforementioned psychedelia in the middle of the wall above them, as well as “other bits and bobs” according to Barnes. 

Every morning, starting around 7am Barnes says a group of 14 lighting designers, laser operators and people who control the screen appear at the venue and put the show together, going as far as analyzing the sound waves throughout the room to “make sure that the sound is superb from every seat in the house,” he says, all to get ready for the musicians to appear at around noon. 

Touring requires two tour buses and two to three trucks. He says that there is no divide between the band and the people backstage, as they are all “one big dysfunctional family” who all work together to put the show on. “I’m a very small cog in a very large machine,” Barnes says. 

Well, Barnes, it’s been almost 10 years, but “Welcome to the Machine.”

There are several differences between this show and the classic. Namely, while the original band would famously fly a giant inflatable pig around the concert venues to symbolize government corruption, in a twist of Australian charm, Aussie Floyd shows an inflatable kangaroo named Skippy, as well as an evil headmaster that appears during Another Brick in the Wall (which scared the bejeezus out of my 5-year-old sister when we saw them years ago).

While the touring schedule is relentless, the performance is meticulous, and their popularity is boundless, Barnes is “Comfortably Numb” to it all. “It is very much a privilege and an honor to do it at this level,” says Barnes, who also played in a small Pink Floyd tribute band long before joining Aussie Floyd. “It’s the best job in the world. Sounds like a cliché, but it really is. It’s an honor and a privilege.”

Barnes says he believes the beauty of Pink Floyd lies in how unique the music is. They did not have a Freddie Mercury or a Mick Jagger, Barnes says, to lead them, but instead were four nameless geniuses who were making music unheard of for any genre. “That’s why it’s important to keep it going,” Barnes says of continuing Pink Floyd’s legacy. “Because it is so special.”

So on August 4, bring your “Mother” and “Run Like Hell” to The Australian Pink Floyd Show at the Hult Center. 

The Australian Pink Floyd Show is at the Hult Center 7:30 August 4. Tickets start at $35.