 During their UK tour with Jimi Hendrix in November 1967 , guitarist David O 'List from The Nice was called in to substitute for Barrett on several occasions when he was unable to perform or failed to appear . Sometime around Christmas , David Gilmour ( Barrett 's old school friend ) was asked to join the band as a second guitarist to cover for Barrett , with the idea of retaining a five @-@ member line @-@ up of the band . For a handful of shows Gilmour played and sang while Barrett wandered around on stage , occasionally deciding to join in playing . The other band members soon grew tired of Barrett 's antics and , on 26 January 1968 , when Waters was driving on the way to a show at Southampton University , the band elected not to pick Barrett up : one person in the car said , " Shall we pick Syd up ? " and another said , " Let 's not bother . " As Barrett had , up until then , written the bulk of the band 's material , the initial plan was to keep him in the group as a non @-@ touring member — as The Beach Boys had done with Brian Wilson — but this soon proved to be impractical . Gilmour subsequently became a full @-@ time member of the band . 
