As a co-founder of Pink Floyd, drummer Nick Mason knows — and has forgotten — more about the pioneering English rock band than even its most devoted fans.
But there is one brief yet memorable 1970 chapter in Pink Floyd lore that Mason did not recall, even after it was brought to his attention during this recent San Diego Union-Tribune interview.
The chapter also involved my mother, Lolla, and the very bright, pink-frosted cake she made, topped by the sugary words: WELCOME, PINK FLOYD!
I reluctantly presented said cake to the band's four members — Mason, guitarist/singer David Gilmour, keyboardist Rick Wright and bassist/singer Roger Waters — at a private reception in a record store in Frankfurt, Germany.
The reception was held a few hours before Pink Floyd's 1970 concert in Frankfurt, where I grew up, at a venue called Statdhalle Offenbach. Little did I know the cake would be incorporated that night into the band's concert, during which they each ate a piece of it — while seated on stage at a small table, with plates, forks and tea in cups — midway through the first of their two sets.
"That is very unusual," Mason said, 52 years later.
"Apart from anything else, we didn't bring tables on stage very often, only three or four times, ever."
(All the details of this fully baked vignette are in my June 2000 Union-Tribune article, which appears at the conclusion of this story.)
Mason is currently on the road with his new band, Saucerful of Secrets, which specializes in music made by Pink Floyd prior to its 1973 album, "The Dark Side of the Moon."
He chuckled as his interviewer, who was 14 when that Frankfurt concert took place, recounted how Pink Floyd passed the rest of the cake into the audience. In the process, they lost my mom's oversized Tupperware container.
He chuckled again when I told him how — after phoning my mother during intermission — I reluctantly went (at her insistence) to the band's dressing room to ask that, when Pink Floyd returned to the stage for the second half of the concert, they make a request to the audience to return the Tupperware.
The fact that Waters was berating the band's other members in the dressing room during intermission, for what he deemed their substandard performance, made my backstage intrusion all the more awkward. But I was a teenager with a mission: Damn, the torpedoes! Get my mother's Tupperware cake container (and its cover) back, pronto!
"I've forgotten about this story completely. It's a great one!" Mason said, before pausing a moment for thought.
"That was completely unique," he added, "us giving the cake to the audience."
Alas, my mother was not pleased with the outcome.
In spite of Pink Floyd's request to the largely German audience, her Tupperware was not returned, And oversized Tupperware containers like that — which my mom had bought in Hawaii, before we moved to Frankfurt — were all but impossible to come by in Germany at the time.
"I'm very sorry," Mason said, sounding genuinely contrite.
"Is your mother still around?" he asked.
"I want to apologize to her for not being able to return her Tupperware."
My mother passed away some years ago. I accepted Mason's apology on her behalf.
The specific details of what happened at that cake-fueled concert are recounted in full below in my June 2020 article.
Flour power brings him a slice of Pink Floyd lore
By George Varga, The San Diego Union-Tribune, June 20, 2000
Roger Waters has never met my mother, Lolla. But she once made a memorable contribution to a concert by his pioneering English rock band Pink Floyd, in the form of a bright, pink cake. Like the dessert, the story is anything but half-baked.
In 1970, Pink Floyd was promoting its live double-album, "Ummagumma." The band's tour included a show in Frankfurt, Germany, where I grew up as the son of a U.S. Air Force attaché to the CIA and was the rhythmically challenged drummer in a trio that played only in our guitarist's basement.
That year, as an eighth-grader, I befriended the manager of a downtown record store who sometimes hosted private receptions for visiting bands.
Upon learning I'd be attending just such a soiree for Pink Floyd, my Hungarian-born mother devised what she thought was a terrific plan. Namely, to bake a pink cake for me to present to the band. "No way!" I told her. (Being 14, I was inordinately concerned with being perceived as "cool," and was certain I'd be ridiculed by my fellow band mates, who would be attending the concert with me.)
Pink cakes, I informed Mom, were for teenyboppers to give to their vapid idols, not for a hip guy like me (with my shoulder-length hair) to give to a cutting-edge rock band.
Undaunted, Mom baked a wonderfully loud pink cake, on top of which was a frosted greeting: WELCOME, PINK FLOYD! I was tempted to lose the cake, en route to the band's reception, but didn't.
Waters and his band mates looked bemused and touched when I presented the cake. They politely responded to my probing questions, which ranged from "How do you like Frankfurt?" to "What does 'Ummagumma' really mean?"
Umma yumma
Fast-forward a few hours to the concert venue, where Pink Floyd performed a two-part show featuring material from "Ummagumma."
Shortly before intermission, the four musicians set down their instruments. As a soap opera blared over the sound system, they seated themselves at the front of the stage and were served tea — and my mother's pink cake. They then passed the rest of the cake into the audience, where people eagerly grabbed pieces. Marie Antoinette would have been pleased.
I was stunned, then thrilled, then crestfallen. None of my friends believed my excited outbursts that Mom had made the cake, or that I gave it to the band. I rushed to a pay phone and called her with the big news. She refrained from reminding me more than once of my reluctance regarding this cake-driven caper.
But she was also pragmatic. "Did you remember to get back my Tupperware container?" she asked. "It's not available in German stores."
I reluctantly told her the cake had disappeared into the audience, and — with it — the container.
No problem, said Mom: Just ask the band to request the container be returned to the stage. Simple.
Hesitant but not wanting to go home empty-handed, I went backstage. (In those days, a 14-year-old could stroll backstage unquestioned.)
I shyly entered the dressing room, where Waters was berating his band mates about their performance and was less than pleased to see me. He told me the band was having a private discussion. I nervously asked if he could implore the audience to return Mom's Tupperware, then beat a hasty retreat.
Waters did indeed ask for the return of the cake container. How many in the predominantly German crowd understood him is unknown, but I was pleased he made the effort.
The container never showed up. But Waters' announcement convinced my friends that Mom (whose cooking they adored) had indeed made the cake.
Mother, now 82. is still a fine cook, but spends less time in the kitchen since a mild stroke three years ago.
With her knack for inspiring high-concept performance-art, I suspect she could quickly devise some new culinary/musical synthesis for Waters' current concert tour.
But when reminded of the Pink Floyd cake she baked 30 years ago, Mom was single-minded. "That's nice, dear," she said. "But where's my Tupperware container?"
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