s01e02 Chandler: For us, kissing is like an opening act.. like the comedian you have to sit through.. before Pink Floyd comes out

Why Chandler have to sit through a comedian before Pink Floyd comes out?

The gang is discussing the meaning and importance of kisses before sex. Chandler voices guys' perspective on the matter.

Chandler: For us, kissing's an opening act.. like the comedian you have to sit through.. before Pink Floyd comes out

What is an opening act? Why the comedian is in it? And who are Pink Floyd?

Let's start from the end. Pink Floyd is one of the most commercially successful and influential rock bands of all time. This English rock band was formed in London in 1964. An author Jere O'Neill Surber once wrote: "their [Pink Floyd's] interests are truth and illusion, life and death, time and space, causality and chance, compassion and indifference."

Remember it is only the second episode of Friends in the show, and the characters of six friends are still being presented to us. Knowing that Chandler is a fan of such soul-searching kind music/lyrics paints him with some nice complex color.

The opening act is a performance that serves to "warm up" the audience for the main show. Such warm up helps making the audience excited for a headliner, in Chandler's example it is Pink Floyd. The opening act can be singing, or comedy, or a sketch.

Warm up sessions date way back to the time, when tv shows weren't a thing, and radio shows were big and popular instead. So it is pretty common in US, to have someone less not so popular to help a cold audience up their mood temperature before the real star would come out. That is the kind of job Chandler and the other two male friends as well assign to kissing.

But as we know girls have a different perspective and kissing is the part of the show the boys better pay attention to.

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Katia