With the band's first new album in 20 years on the horizon, Pink Floyd fans are living what seemed until recently like an impossible dream. Dare they hope for a tour in support of the record?

Drummer Nick Mason was asked just that during a recent interview with Gigwise, and quickly pointed out all the problems with that idea. "The first thing to make really clear is that a lot of the new album is actually something that was originally started 20 years ago, so a lot of it is where we were 20 years ago," said Mason. "The idea was that we were going to make [1994's 'Division Bell'] into a double album, half of it songs and half of it ambient -- this is based on some of that ambient material with a lot of other things added in. In some ways it's old Pink Floyd, rather than new Pink Floyd. It's not groundbreaking, but it's different, I suppose."

There's also the fact that keyboardist Rick Wright, who died in 2008, is a heavy presence on the new 'Endless River' record, which was partly designed as a tribute to his skill. "It would be fun to play live, but it doesn't actually lend itself to a proper tour," Mason continued. "It's something that you could play in UFO Club in 1967, it certainly isn't a stadium sort of event, and without Rick it's probably impossible. It's impossible to play, because the nature of it is that a lot of it is designed there and then -- if one played it again, you wouldn't want to repeat what was on the record. It's not something where you learn it and play it."

Even with all that being said, Mason was asked again point blank whether Pink Floyd intends to tour following the new album's Nov. 10 release, and he didn't mince words: "I don't think so."

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