It’s not lost on David Gilmour that musicians of a certain age are leaving us too soon lately — David Bowie, Glenn Frey and Motorhead’s Lemmy Kilmister among them.

“It’s very, very sad. But that’s the business we’re in — life,” said Gilmour recently in an exclusive chat with Postmedia Network.

“I feel very relieved to have gotten to 70. I’m now fully, extremely old. I’m trying to get used to the idea. It’s just advancing decrepitude, all that stuff. You know, you can pretend to yourself in your 60s that you’re kind of late middle-age but when you get to 70 there’s no pretense. You’re a very old person and that’s just the end of the matter. It’s slightly different, mentally.”

Gilmour, the one-time co-lead singer and guitarist of Pink Floyd, just celebrated his seventh decade on the planet in style on March 6.

“I had a jolly good party — you might as well when you’re 70,” said Gilmour down the line from London.

Among Gilmour’s well-wishers was none other than Oasis brain trust Noel Gallagher.

“It’s hard to get a word in edgewise with Noel,” he joked.

Gilmour, whose four-city North American tour — his first on this side of the Atlantic in a decade — arrives at the Air Canada Centre on Thursday and Friday, said it’s “a stretch” to say he was close with Bowie but had huge respect for him.

“I didn’t know him that well but, like in all sorts of lines of work, you bump into people and get on well with them and you chat with them,” he explained.

And yet the Starman flew across the pond to play a rare show in his later years.

“David Bowie played one of his very last shows with me here in London in 2006 at Royal Albert Hall,” said Gilmour.

“He came, flew over and sang a couple of songs with me at one of my shows. I was very, very grateful. A lovely, lovely chap. It’s a great memory.”

Gilmour, who toured Europe and South America last year in support of his fourth solo album, 2015’s Rattle That Lock (his first in nine years), says he has no interest in extensive touring anymore after 54 years in the business.

“I was never someone who wanted to spend his whole life on the road,” said Gilmour, who is the father of four children from his first marriage and another four from his current marriage to Polly Samson.

“I still have some young kids. Well, my youngest daughter is 13, and I think it’s kind of only fair for me to put her first in this stage of my life when I’ve had a very full career. I’m basically doing most of my stuff on school holidays, so that’s what it’s geared around this time. But, you know, schlepping from town to town, I think I’ve pretty much done my fair share of and I’m slightly selfishly from my perspective making the people come to me a little bit more. So I’m trying to do more multiple-date shows, but fewer cities.”

He and his band, including Rattle That Lock co-producer and guitarist Phil Manzanera (Roxy Music) ,will be sticking “close-ish” to the set lists from the earlier European and South American legs.

The first North American shows in L.A. saw him perform 14 Pink Floyd classics including Wish You Were Here, Money, Us and Them and Comfortably Numb, and eight solo tracks over two sets.

“The show’s going very well,” he said. “We have some nice bits of film and a great light show. It has a good build to it so I’m pretty happy with the way that it’s flowing at the moment. I have Marc Brickman, who’s the lighting guy, did (Pink Floyd) The Wall shows with us originally. We put on a good show and he’s a big part of it.”

And after more European shows wrap up at the end of September, Gilmour plans to go back into the studio.

“I have some music that is half prepared,” he said. “But I promise I will get down to it quite soon.”

He’s also working on a track with Rattle That Lock background singer David Crosby of CSNY fame.

“I think there’s going to be an album of maybe Crosby cover songs that I’m going to do one of — that’s a bit of fun,” said Gilmour.

Twitter: @JaneCStevenson

jstevenson@postmedia.com