Floyd Nation at Florida Theatre, Jacksonville (Nov 21, 2025)

 

Florida tribute band Floyd Nation returned to the historic Florida Theatre, in Jacksonville, last night (November 21, 2025). The band previously brought their Pink Floyd experience to the Florida Theatre in November 23 , 2024 and November 18 , 2023… so it’s become a tradition for Floyd Nation at the Florida Theatre – third time in a roll!

This is the third Pink Floyd Tribute bands, that we’ve seen, with the recent Brit Floyd (from Liverpool) and The Australian Pink Floyd Show (from Adelaide). Like these other Floyd bands, Floyd Nation also assembled a large band (including two backup singers) to reproduce the Pink Floyd sound: Will Kaiser (guitars/vocals), Brendon McDonnell (lead guitars/vocals), Ray Nesbit (guitars/vocals), Robert Harris (keys), Jason Collins (bass), Justin Pupillo (drums), John Conrath (sax/percussion), Shannon Robinson (vocals), and Toneisha Harris (vocals).

So why are there so many Floyd bands? Officially, the band broke up in the mid-90s, and with the passing of Syd Barrett in 2006, followed by Richard Wright in 2008, we saw the writing on the wall (if you can excuse the expression). We were never going to see Pink Floyd in person. The next best thing was to actually see one of the surviving band members, such as Roger Waters (which we saw in September 2022 and yes he does play Pink Floyd songs).

The second next best thing is to see if you can see one of these Pink Floyd tribute band. Besides from hearing all your favorite Floyd songs performed live and in person, note for note… it’s also kind of a fun to see all the Floyd fans together in one place. Obviously, there are very old/retired fans at the show (Florida is the perfect audience for these older bands), but I was surprised to see so many 16-year-olds or younger, accompanied by their parents. This was a generational fanbase, with the parents passing their love of Floyd to their children.

For this particular tour, Floyd Nation plays two sets, with the first mostly from The Wall-era, including “Goodbye Blue Sky” and the satisfying “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2” that closed out the first set. Believe me, the whole room had everyone yelling back, “Hey teacher, leave those kids alone!”

For the second set, Floyd Nation dedicates it to playing Pink Floyd’s sophomore album Wish You Were Here – the album which many considers the greatest rock albums of all time. Basically, the original Pink Floyd band members (Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Rick Wright, and Nick Mason) wanted to recreate the success of their debut The Dark Side of the Moon, at Abbey Road Studios, and came out with a masterpiece. Floyd Nation, who also follows in Pink Floyd’s footsteps, they mentioned that they, too, have also recorded at Abbey Road, and they hope to release their record sometime in early 2026. In the meantime, you can get a sneak preview at distrokid.com.

So, if you aren’t familiar with the album, Wish You Were Here, it has a famous cover of two men hand-shaking on the cover, except one of the men is on fire. The album is also known for just have only a few tracks on the record, the title track and basically “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” parts 1 to 9!! Sure, there’s also “Welcome to the Machine” and “Have a Cigar” (which was played in Set 1)… but everyone knows that “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”, if played back-to-back, is nearly a 30-minute song.

Remaining Floyd Nation Tour Dates:

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