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Pink Floyd-Related Audio/Video (1 Viewer)

Pink Floyd with Syd Barrett, London '66-'67 30 minutes, early footage of the legendary UFO Club proto-raves (from Tonite Let's All Make Love In London, by Peter Whitehead, an early document of the psychedelic era and time capsule-like artifact of the times).

Belgian TV '68 23 minutes. Lip synching, early music video style, songs from their first album, Barrett's psychedelic masterpiece, Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, as well as the second, Saucerful Of Secrets (the only album with all five members, Barrett on some, and Gilmour on others). Gilmour had already replaced Barrett by this time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vftRXPufFeA

The Amazing Pudding (aka - Atom Heart Mother) VIDEO 37 minutes, circa '72.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3--FA7vPV0

 
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Dark Side Of The Moon from the Hollywood Bowl, '70s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPmijzAjvd4

Couple songs from the French show, Bouton Rouge, circa '68.

Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71s-zsMiKt8

Astronomy Domine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijYN8typAA0

Documentary with extensive early coverage 80 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvAHaVXCRp0

Live 8, the final reunion concert of the classic lineup in 2005, 24 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikDEHygZzlI

 
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The only show I saw was at the Rose Bowl, must have been for the Pulse (Division Bell) tour. Almost saw the Delicate Sound Of Thunder (Momentary Lapse Of Reason) Tour at the Sports Arena.

No video, but audio of the in/famous concert from the '77 In The Flesh (Animals) tour in which Waters melted down and snapped due to the crowd's antics and noise, which was reportedly a precursor to his conception of The Wall. Gilmour was on fire this whole tour (and pretty much his entire career, come to think of it! :) ).

7-6-77 Montreal (full concert)

 
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David Gilmour's eponymous solo album debut, circa '78 (situated between Animals and The Wall within the Pink Floyd timeline).

 
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Live In Gdansk (Video), from the On An Island Tour, similar to Remember That Night in the first post, but a tribute to the Polish labor movement, Solidarity. In addition to classic Pink Floyd songs, there is a full performance of his solo album backed by a symphony orchestra. Not sure if the blu ray/dvd set Remember That Night comes with a companion CD set (?), Live in Gdansk is a 2 CD set that is available both by itself, and in deluxe version/s with multiple DVDs. The sound on the CDs is spectacular.

Also Richard Wright's last concert before he passed. I've posted it in other threads, but Gilmour's version of "Echoes" (beginning at 1:13) here is sensational - right up there with the studio version and the rendition the full Floyd did at Pompeii. Love the way the crowd goes nuts as soon as they hear the very first piano plink.

Thanks for all the links - I haven't seen a lot of these and looking forward to when I have some time to kill.

 
Good points (and always liked that avatar).

Wright died shortly (few days?) before this was released. I actually was watching and listening to this for the first time last night (I already had Remember, from the same tour). Phenomenal Echoes, reminiscent of Pompeii, as you noted. Pompeii has become my favorite music video, period. My favorite part of the movie was in Echoes Part I, when Gilmour unveils that massive sound of his*. Reportedly a big part of his signature sustain, echo, delay and reverb effects (he also used wah and fuzz) was something called a Binson echorec (?), which he can be seen playing during Pompeii. His predecessor Syd Barrett also used this rig as part of his highly influential sound, along with a zippo lighter as an improvised slide.

Wembley 11-16-74 140+ minutes, I think this is the official "bootleg" you get, in two parts, with the Immersion Boxes or Experience Editions for DSOM and WYWH, respectively. You get the first set, a complete Shine On You Crazy Diamond Parts I-IX suite as well as the embryonic Sheep and Dogs (Raving And Drooling and You've Got To Be Kidding) with the latter, and the second set complete Dark Side Of The Moon (minus the finale, coincidentally, Echoes! :) ) with the former. I take it that this came from a soundboard tape and was already very clean, but the version/s officially released by Pink Floyd is cleaned up and sonically upgraded even further.


* Pompeii (60+ minutes VIDEO), Dave breaks out his "big voice" on guitar around the 9 minute mark, and I ESPECIALLY like his wailing, "volcanic" ( :) ) solo during the funky break around the 11 minute mark, he really makes that swelling tone sing (great in the pocket rhythm and groove bass by Waters, nice fills by Mason and always tasteful farfisa organ work by Wright - which he broke out again for the Live At Gdansk, Remember That Night and other shows during the On An Island tour). IMO, Wright and Mason don't get enough credit for the classic Floyd sound. Obviously Waters and Gilmour were more integral and "instrumental" components in that magical alchemy, but the consumate taste, sensitivity and sense of dynamics and space of Wright and Mason contributed heavily to showcasing Gilmour, by not being too busy and freeing him up to improvise and fill up those acoustic spaces and sonic atmospheres.
http://vimeo.com/9500231
 
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The Amazing Pudding (aka - Atom Heart Mother) VIDEO 37 minutes, circa '72.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3--FA7vPV0
Thank you very much for posting! The video is awesome and the sound quality is very good/excellent.

Some minor detective work shows this link is actually:

May 22, 1972 Amsterdam.

Atom Heart Mother Suite (final performance)

One of These Days (missing)

Careful With That Axe, Eugene

Echoes (missing)

E: Saucerful of Secrets

"The Amazing Pudding" was the working title of AHM

 
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.

Just spent the last hour watching the making of the Wish You Were Here album. I need to watch more of these.

 
Youtube has the full echoes at Pompeii that someone spliced parts 1&2 together. I recorded the audio and its on my playlist. One of history's great meetings of audio and visual, probably #1 imo.

 
My pleasure, thanks to everybody for the input.

9-22-72, a legendary '72 show, the only time Pink Floyd ever played in the Hollywood Bowl, the LA debut of DSOM.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwYX-GHTYbY

FIRST SET ;

Breathe

Travel Section

Time Song

Home Again

Mortality Sequence

Money

Us & Them

Dave's Scat

Lunatic Song

Eclipse

SECOND SET ;

One Of These Days

Careful With That Axe,Eugene

Echoes

A Saucerful of Secrets

ENCORE ;

Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun

 
From the Wish You Were Here Tour (aka - North American Tour), debuted the song Have A Cigar, the concluding leg was the last time Pink Floyd played the entire DSOM and Echoes live with Roger Waters.

Boston 6-18-75

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHJob9qx2M8

You Tube notes - Time for another Pink Floyd Show. This time, the remastering group PRRP did a remaster, using 2 different recordings from the same gig, which were done with the same equipment. Hope you will enjoy it. Here are some original notes.

Pink Floyd
Boston Garden
Boston, MA
18 June 1975

Taper: Steve Hopkins (Source 1)
Location: Section CC, row 10, seat 14 (Left Center)
Lineage: Sony ECM-99A microphone hand-held

Taper: Dan Lampinski (Source 2)
Location: Section BB, row 5, seat 6
Lineage: Sony ECM-99 Stereo Microphone

Set I
01 Raving And Drooling 12:45
02 You've Gotta Be Crazy 13:27
03 Shine On You Crazy Diamond I-V 12:06
04 Have A Cigar 4:27
05 Shine On You Crazy Diamond VI-IX 11:47
Total Time 54:32

Set II
01 Speak To Me 5:35
02 Breathe 2:47
03 On The Run 4:45
04 Time 4:58
05 Breathe (reprise) 1:01
06 The Great Gig In The Sky 5:53
07 Money 7:53
08 Us And Them 7:22
09 Any Colour You Like 8:12
10 Brain Damage 3:46
11 Eclipse 4:18
12 Echoes 21:49
Total Time 78:19


Remaster
1. Attenuate clicks, pops, bumps and isolated claps in each source.
2. Match pitch and tonality/EQ given different locations of tapers.
3. Synchonize recordings.
4. Patch missing sections in each recording with the other.
5. Merge both recordings and create stereo image.
6. Correct phasing and center sound.
7. Balance power and dynamics of each channel.
8. Track.

Note:
The PRRP 053 project attempted to optimize the sound of each recording of this show separately for enjoyment on its own. Given different taper locations, that allowed a different listening experience from each recording. This stereo remaster project compared the sound of each to the other and matched the pitch, tone and dynamics with the intention of merging them into a composite recording. Given the enhanced acoustics and the quality of each recording used for this project, the resulting stereo remaster provides a better representation of the true live audio experience.

 
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Two more shows from the epic North American leg of the 1977 Animals (aka - In The Flesh) tour. The legendary 7-6-77 show from Olympic Stadium in Montreal already linked in post #12 above.

Boston 6-27-77

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAkfE2WgrQs

You Tube notes - This Concert was taped by Dan Lampinksi and remastered by PRRP, which means "Progressive Rock Remastering Project "... You will here a nice version of "Dogs" as well. I wish there would be any full video material of that tour.
___________________________
Here are the Original Notes
___________________________
Pink Floyd
Boston Garden
Boston, MA
June 27, 1977

Taper 1: Steve Hopkins
Location: FOB
Lineage : Sony ECM-99a Sony TC-158SD cass[master] DAT[?] cdr[?] EAC WAV archived in shn

Source comment: T.Mack (Yeeshkul): Almost certain this is a Master DAT clone and even if it's not, it's still damn good. PRRP: Have a Cigar version is closer to proper speed but trails off after 18,000Hz more than this version. Both have step-wise processing artifact after 16,000Hz but Have a Cigar verion goes to zero and this version does not. This version is clipped and runs too fast but both problems were corrected.

Taper 2: Dan Lampinski
Location: Floor section CC, Row 20, Seat 4
Lineage : Two Nakamichi CM-300 Microphones Nakamichi 550 Tape Recorder Master Cassette Nakamichi CR-3A cassette deck with azimuth correction M-Audio Firewire Audiophile 2496 CDWAV 24-bit/96-KHz wav files Goldwave (normalizing and crossfades) CDWAV (track breaks) FLAC

Band:
David Gilmour - guitar, vocals
Roger Waters - bass, vocals
Richard Wright - keyboards, vocals
Nick Mason - drums, percussion
**** Parry - saxophone
Snowy White - guitar

Set I
01 01 Sheep 11:29
01 02 Pigs On The Wing (Part 1) 1:26
01 03 Dogs 18:58
01 04 Pigs On The Wing (Part 2) 2:19
01 05 Pigs (Three Different Ones) 19:28
Total Time 53:40

Set 2
02 01 Shine On You Crazy Diamond (I-V) 13:17
02 02 Welcome To The Machine 8:34
02 03 Have A Cigar 5:06
02 04 Wish You Were Here 6:57
02 05 Shine On You Crazy Diamond (VI-IX) 22:10
02 06 Money 12:16
02 07 Us and Them 8:11
Total Time: 76:31

Remaster
1. Correct clicks, pops and tape imperfections of each source
2. Match EQ and verify pitch in each source
3. Dynamics differed between sources so channels balanced, clipping repaired.
4. Sync sources and correct speed
5. Repair missing sections using material from alternate source to complete each recording. 7 gaps repaired in Hopkins restoring 6 minutes and 41 seconds to the recording. 7 gaps repaired in Lampinski restoring 1 minute and 18 seconds to the recording.
6. Create stereo field
7. Correct phasing and center sound
8. Adjust dynamics
9. Track

Notes:
Limited stereo field noted in each source. This is improved by the 2-source blending process
"As the Fear Grows" stated by one of the tapers at 5:15 of Sheep,
Roger shouts '48' at 12:26 during 'Pigs (Three Different Ones).
In Lampinski source a strong whistle can be heard just before the beginning of Wish You Were Here. It is heard faintly in Hopkins.
Money guitar solo differs from typical performance, using interesting effects.
Roger announces "Us and Them"
Roger says "The perfect end to a perfect day" at the end of the performance

Oakland 5-77 (May 9 or 10?). The first time Careful With That Axe, Eugene was played since '74, and its final live performance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Tbt8Cf_EJU

 
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Footage of the inflatable pig flying over the iconic Battersea power station (I think the largest brick structure in Europe), which became the concept for the Animals cover.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmCKvY684WI

Recreating the scene in 2011, as part of the Why Pink Floyd? remasters launch.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2042049/Pink-Floyd-pig-floats-Battersea-power-station-celebrate-35-years-album.html
This made me very sad when hearing about it this past fall: http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/01/world/battersea-power-station/

 
Review of Endless River. There seems to still be an appetite for Pink Floyd music. I didn't realize it, but the review mentions it was the most pre-ordered album ever on Amazon.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/nov/09/pink-floyd-endless-river-review

By the time Pink Floyd’s

that he did on The Division Bell (Keep Talking). The wisdom of this may be moot, but it’s sincerely meant (Gilmour has spoken of being terribly moved by the words) and not out of place. In fact communication, or the lack of it, seems to be a major theme. One song, the closing Louder Than Words, has lyrics written by Gilmour’s wife, Polly Samson, about #####ing and fighting, making up and carrying on. It’s quite fitting for a band that has had its fair share of conflict and turbulence – and also the kind of thing you might think of more when friends start popping off. The lyrics also refer to the sum and the parts (see side one) before the cascading, arpeggiating synths from the start of the album return and we come pleasingly full circle.As well as The Endless River being Rick Wright’s swansong, Nick Mason and David Gilmour have said that it will be Pink Floyd’s last. It’s also the most pre-ordered album ever on Amazon, which is a pretty good way to call it a day.

Autumn '68 (from Endless River)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Snb6rD-f_4g

 
On some Pink Floyd history docs, the name Nigel Lesmoir-Gordon comes up (and his wife Jenny). They were close friends with the band from the beginning, filmed Syd Barrett, the band's first label contract signing, etc. He became a writer and documentary director, including the below, on the Mandelbrot Set and Fractal Geometry, narrated by Arthur C. Clarke. Noteworthy, because the music was composed by David Gilmour.

Colours Of Infinity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lk6QU94xAb8

 
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Point Me At The Sky, from Early Singles as noted above, one of the rarer Pink Floyd singles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSrE-V0pmMk

Many know of Careful With That Axe, Eugene through the live versions (video - Pompei, audio - Umma Gumma), but this studio version was the B side of the Point Me At The Sky single, also included on Relics. Much different from the live counterparts, it is more subdued, and other than the obligatory Waters screams, it almost sounds ambient at times, like it wouldn't have been out of place on one of the film sountracks, More or Obscured By Clouds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yuL4FaTCuI

More reading material.

Drummer Nick Mason wrote a book titled Inside Out: A Personal History Of Pink Floyd, with many photos from his personal collection.

The British MOJO magazine has had many issues featuring Pink Floyd articles, but had a career-spanning special edition dedicated exclusively to them, sub-titled The Whole Crazy Trip. Not sure if the cover is dated (sometimes special editions aren't), but on the first page forward, written by the Flaming Lips Wayne Coyne, it is dated 9-04.

 
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Below is a bit more background on the bootleg recording from the Animals tour in Boston 6-27-77 (link in post #28 above), using two source recordings to create a "stereo remaster". BTW, on that You Tube page, there was a link to an MP3 version which I downloaded to put on my ipod and be able to stream to the surround sound stereo from the computer via Apple TV. I have more than a half dozen double CD length complete shows (two each from DSOM and WYWH, three from Animals, one from the Wall), including another version of that exact concert. While I haven't listened to the whole show yet, based on what I've heard so far, the sound is phenomenal. Highest possible recommendation (especially if you like that era - and who doesn't! :) ).

As The Fear Grows

Well, it's that time of the year again. Time to rejoice and celebrate another fruitful year in the life of the PRRP remastering group. Once more, our dedicated staff has made every possible effort to offer a good variety of exciting material to the ever growing progressive rock fan base. Over the years, the Special Anniversary Edition release has always been very special to us, its content carefully chosen to stand out from our regular programme of releases. This ninth edition of the anniversary special will be no exception to that rule. It features, for the first time in this instance, one of the most iconic bands in the history of rock music, the mighty Pink Floyd.


Pink Floyd is one of the most bootlegged bands in history, most of its tours widely documented in terms of high quality recordings, be it from radio or audience sources, and fans have been collecting these for over 40 years now. 'Most' is the key word here. Throughout these years, fans have desperately been searching for a high quality recording from the 1977 'Animals' tour. None of the shows from this tour was ever broadcast, and if Pink Floyd themselves have recorded some of them along the way, those must be surely kept under lock and key because no trace of such a recording has ever appeared anywhere, officially or not.

It is a well-known fact that this particular era in the band's life was not their favorite by far. Internal tensions were building up slowly, and although the 'Animals'album was a fine one in the end, it does however suggest that Roger Waters had already begun to take over as the main driving force behind the band. Shades of things to come. This new album was the beginning of a new phase in the band's existence, one that eventually drove Gilmour, Wright and Mason away from the Waters-driven Floyd. Even years later, when David Gilmour had resurrected the Pink Floyd name for two great albums and tours, it came as no surprise to see that none of the tracks from the 'Animals' album were ever included in the band's live sets.

Back in 1977, however, the band did embark on a long an gruelling tour to promote the album. Being the consummate perfectionists they always were, the band gave all that they had to offer fantastic and memorable live performances. Sadly, only a handful of the audience recordings that were made over the course of this turned out well, and those could only be granted a 'B' rating at best.

A short while ago, however, it was discovered that two young men from the Boston area, Dan Lampinski and Steve Hopkins, both known for the high quality of their audience recordings from the seventies, were at The Garden on June 27th, 1977, as Pink Floyd performed the 'Animals' show. Dan and Steve always used the best portable equipment available at the time, so both men achieved amazing results that night. After laying dormant for many years, these recordings were recently made available, and both received rave reviews from the fans.

Now here's the PRRP twist. Both of these recordings are truly good, separately. Each has its own merits, but is limited to a rather narrow acoustic field. Since the two tapers were sitting on opposite sides of the Garden, the PRRP sound engineer decided to combine the two recordings to try and increase the acoustic field. What you hold in your hands is the result of this meticulous and time-consuming process. This true labor of love was no waste of time by any means. The joining of the two recordings has not only widened the acoustic field, but also improved the overall sound and created a surprising stereo effect, which makes for a stunning listening experience. Only you, the fans, will be able to pass an unbiased judgment on this, but I personally believe this combined remaster to be the very best sounding 'Animals' tour recording EVER. Enjoy !

RH

Notes from the Re-Master
What a great opportunity! Two high quality audience recordings of Pink Floyd during their wonderful 1977 tour. The Dan Lampinski team has provided us with his high quality source. The Steve Hopkins source has been available in various forms for a number of years. There has been some debate regarding the best source for the Hopkins recording. A presumed, master DAT clone was available on Yeeshkul as was a version called "Have a Cigar". Both showed some signs of probable high-frequency processing but the Cigar version frequency response drops close to zero while the master clone does not. For this reason, the master clone was used for this project.

Both recordings captured the full show but a number of gaps occurred in each. The largest gap was close to 5 minutes in the Hopkins recording during Shine On You Crazy Diamond part 6-9. Mr. Hopkins may have had to hide his equipment for security personnel at that time. Of course, for each gap, only one source was available but fortunately, all gaps were staggered so they were all filled using the other source. Since this is a two source stereo remaster, during the single source, gap filled segments, there is a noticeable change in the stereo field. This is particularly true during the long Hopkins gap. For the other smaller gaps, the change is brief.

Each recording was separately remastered. During the process, non-destructive repairs were made to clicks, pops and other tape imperfections. Pitch and frequency response/EQ were then compared and matched as close as possible. The dynamics of the two recordings differed greatly so calculations were made to match average and total power for each. The two recordings were then synchronized to the exact same run time. A stereo field was then created by blending the two sources together.

The individual recordings were each high quality but both had limited stereo field characteristics on their own. By combining the recordings, the overall stereo field was greatly expanded and better reproduced the experience that must have existed in the venue that night. Phasing was corrected and routines were used to center the sound in the stereo field. The final recording was then tracked using traditional tracking points.

PRRP Staff

 
A 50 minute BBC doc, Monsieur Rene Magritte, on the master surrealist painter. What does this have to do with Pink Floyd? It was directed by Adrian Maben, who famously directed Pompeii (also has some Pink Floyd soundtrack elements, as well as Bartok). Plus, the faceless man with the bowler hat in the Wish You Were Here art was noted by one of the Hipgnosis principals, Storm Thorgerson or Bo Powell, as a conscious and explicit homage to Magritte (that was one of the first things I thought when I saw it initially).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNHNWTqiE8I

Speaking of Maben, below is a link to part one of a four part in-depth breakdown of the Pompeii video and shoot, including Maben interview, when the director's cut was released, found at the Pink Floyd news aggregator site, Brain Damage. If you are a fan of the movie, there is almost certainly some new information here

http://www.brain-damage.co.uk/live-at-pompeii/in-depth-analysis-part-one.html

I missed this when it premiered 1-11-15, a Roger Waters interview by Bill Weir on the new PBS show Speakeasy (the format refers to the subject choosing his/her interviewer). Only this several minute excerpt on You Tube so far, hopefully they re-air it on PBS, check local listings and times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBMXwCYS-K8

 
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The Art Of Tripping was a documentary broadcast by BBC in two parts in '93. It was directed by Floyd's long time friend Storm Thorgerson of Hipgnosis (did many/most of their covers), with music by Gilmour.

The Art Of Tripping Part I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmjp-itVni0

The Art Of Tripping Part II

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MP5oG6onVXs

A pretty detailed videography from the band and individual members, for tracking down sundry Floyd video arcana, curios and otherwise marginalia.

http://www.bruder-franziskus.de/pinkfloyd/faq/videos.html

A post-mortem of Syd Barrett's psychosis/mental disintegration.

http://www.sydbarrett.net/subpages/articles/new_musical_express_april_13.htm

The iconic pig wasn't the first member of Pink Floyd's inflatable beastiary. At the '71 Crystal Palace Garden Party music festival, they deployed an octopus, during a notorious aquatic misadventure in which many fish allegedly perished. One theory was that it was because of the extreme volume, but this sounds like a likely apocraphyl explanation. Though it sounds like extreme volume is a legit recurring theme in the history of the band. An engineer at the Piper At The Gates Of Dawn sessions talked about (metaphorically :) ) the sound level being so loud he nearly lost bowel control. Reportedly in one of the DSOM (?) sessions, one of Gilmour's guitar overdub parts was so ridiculously high volume (he tended to play REALLY loud to the point of overdriving the amp so he could cultivate those riding on the edge of ringing feedback tones) that engineer Alan Parsons and his assistant actually had to leave the control room, presumably because they feared permanent hearing loss.

http://www.ukrockfestivals.com/Garden-party-71.html

 
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Zabriskie Point Soundtrack versions. Just Pink Floyd contributions, including songs not used in the film 37 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn5bi5p28es

Two disc edition, includes additional material not used in the film 52 minutes.

In the two career spanning box sets, Oh By The Way and Discovery (Shine On was partial), the canonical, complete works are 14 titles and 16 CDs (Umma Gumma and The Wall are doubles). This includes the two scores for Barbet Schroeder films, More and Obscured By Clouds.

Piper At The Gates Of Dawn

Saucerful Of Secrets

More

Umma Gumma

Atom Heart Mother

Meddle

Obscured By Clouds

Dark Side Of The Moon

Wish You Were Here

Animals

The Wall

Final Cut

Momentary Lapse Of Reason

Division Bell

Zabriskie Point is not included, probably because they were only one of about a half dozen contributors, and also, Antonioni only used about half of the music they submitted. But when you include all the unused material, it is a significant amount of music, about an hour (the running time of More and Obscured by Clouds was about 45 and 40 minutes, respectively, for comparison purposes). Several members of Floyd in the Making Of DSOM video above, talked about how Antonioni was notoriously picky. Waters thought their involvement could primarily be attributed to the director merely wanting the rights to Careful With That Axe, Eugene (which did conclude the movie, in a shock ending - a few other songs were included), and also did an amusing impersonation of the director - "The music is beautiful, but it is so sad. It makes me think of church." :) The track used at the film's end, Come In Number 51, Your Time Is Up was a re-recording of Careful With That Axe, Eugene. An unused Richard Wright track, The Violent Sequence, was famously reworked as Us And Them on DSOM.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zabriskie_Point_(album)

* Some of the links above will get buried in the maelstrom of other Floyd links ( :) ), so just for highlight purposes, one of imo the best and rarest, and my favorites, is in post #5. The first link includes footage of the Syd Barrett-era Floyd, at their first recording studio session, the UFO club and the 14 Hour Technicolor Dream At Alexandra Palace. There are only two performances, but comprising nearly a half hour, including an extended version of Interstellar Overdrive (more than 15 minutes, the version on the debut album was closer to 10 minutes), and a song called Nick's Boogie, which was a precursor to the second section of Saucerful Of Secrets (the title track of their second album, and also a song on the live album Umma Gumma and live video Pompeii). These are the earliest commercially available versions of Pink Floyd, a DVD/CD set titled London '66-'67. Both of these are heavily psychedelic, at times involving extended freak out jams.

To more specifically underscore the general highlight, there is a point at around the 3:50 mark (possibly where the UFO club footage starts?) where the music is very understated and beautiful, and they quietly explore a hypnotic, trance-like rhythmic groove, in a way perhaps many wouldn't associate with Barrett-era Floyd, for example, a song like Bike. Right after that, things come to a dead stop and do get fairly weird. Even here, though, I think it shows characteristics of how the band and music was ahead of their time. To use a metaphor, the French noir Rififi was extremely unusual for a post-silent era film, in that the caper/heist part included a nearly 30 minute scene with no dialogue. It was riveting. Virtually no movies are like that any more, now nearly everything has thousands of split second jump cuts, presumably because studios are concerned about the audience's collective ADD being unable to tolerate less borderline epilepsy-inducing editing without being reduced to boredom. Back to Floyd, the operative word in space rock, per their pre-DSOM work, was SPACE. They had a lot of space in their music, and you hear that in these two songs, right at the beginning, following the lead and taking a cue from Barrett, they took time to let their collective improvisational statements unfold.

London '66-'67

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_'66%E2%80%93'67

 
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The Man And The Journey, the "lost" Pink Floyd album. The genesis of these two album length suites was a performance at Royal Festival Hall on 4-14-69, titled The Massed Gadgets Of Auximines - More Furious Madness From Pink Floyd. In addition to unreleased material, it included music later heard on Umma Gumma and More. It incorporated almost performance art pieces, including the sawing and construction of a table, as well as taking afternoon tea on stage.*

You Tube (audio 2 hours+), from the 9-17-69 performance in Amsterdam.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4y211gpjdYU

Wikipedia (includes a breakdown of the many songs that emerged in similar forms on other albums).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_and_The_Journey

Rehearsal footage for The Massed Gadgets Of Auximenies (VIDEO 24 minutes - extremely rare)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8IRBAwOLYA

The pre-Wish You Were Here, aborted Household Objects sessions, in which they made serious early attempts to make an experimental, musique concrete album without any conventional music instruments, at Richard Wright's suggestion. They were obviously feeling the pressure of following up DSOM with something different, and may have just been collectively, subconsciously stalling to delay actually beginning work on the next album. Two items from this period are on the DSOM (an interesting bass-sounding rhythm track that is more fully realized than the next track) and WYWH (the wine glass tones heard at the beginning of the first part of the Shine On You Crazy Diamond suite) Immersion Boxes, respectively. The latter track is also on the WYWH Experience edition.

http://ultimateclassicrock.com/pink-floyd-household-objects/

Another take on this period, including a Roger Waters interview.

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/household_objects_pink_floyd_decides_to_make_an_album_with_no_musical_instr

The Hard Way

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMPRfqQJJ_0

Wine Glasses

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns72xuAEEYw

Richard Wright's haunting solo piano Us And Them Demo (included in both the DSOM Experience Edition and Immersion Box), which again, began as an unused track from Antonioni's Zabriskie Point soundtrack.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFKR0ECaMY4

The below two tracks are also included on both the WYWH Experience Edition and Immersion Box.

Alternate Have A Cigar with Roger Waters vocals. He never wanted to relinquish the lead vocals on this song, but did begrudgingly to influential musician and friend of the band, Roy Harper (also a friend of Led Zeppelin, who named the Hats Off To song on their third album after him). I prefer the Harper version, but it is hard to separate out the role familiarity may be playing in the case of my take?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgQRt6fn-LY

Alternate Wish You Were Here with jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli (of gypsy jazz guitarist genius Django Reinhardt's band fame). Not a throwaway, an interesting, musically worthy variant that easily could have made the album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm4sDyCW0k8

Biding My Time, another somewhat rare track (Richard Wright composition, unreleased on album or single, prior to inclusion on the Relics compilation).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gYKEsLCH5Y

* This show also featured the debut of the (at the time) cutting edge Azimuth Co-ordinator. Pink Floyd employed the first panning control for a Quadrophonic sound system, operated by keyboardist Wright. In the 23 minute doc included in the DSOM Immersion Box, Gilmour talked about how previous generation DSOM copies were probably based on second-third generation tapes, and they went back to the master tapes (I found the included hi rez audio at 96/24 having a noise/sound floor that is dead black silent, the most pristine and immaculate I've ever heard of any previous incarnations of the album). Gilmour and Waters also talked about how the included Alan Parsons quad mix (also a contemporary 5.1 surround sound remix from regular Floyd engineer, James Guthrie, at least since The Wall - there is a counterpart original Parsons quad mix and Guthrie 5.1 remix in the WYWH Immersion box, as well) was hearing the music as it would have been performed and sounded live at the time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azimuth_Co-ordinator

 
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do they ever talk about how dark side of the moon plays perfectly with wizard of oz
This question does come up a lot, personally I've never checked it out. The band has always said any timing parallels are purely a coincidence (who knows, maybe if you look at enough video, it synchs up with some water purification documentaries out there? :) ). So, most likely, to visually quote Till Lindemann of Rammstein...

http://photo4.ask.fm/039/883/346/710003003-1rcpa8h-1seil6bnlsqne5/original/till_lindemann__nein__by_richelieu88d534ert.jpg

But if it were true, the below absolutely should be the art for the mash up cover. Somebody put some thought into this wallpaper. Gilmour/Tin Woodsman's "axe" is an axe shaped guitar (and axe is musician slang for guitar or instrument), and he is intently eyeing Waters, with the instrument raised in a striking position. He isn't yet ready to "bury the hatchet" (there was also the Floyd song Careful With That Axe, Eugene). Waters is Toto, and he wrote the song Dogs (he also appears to be attempting to relieve himself on Gilmour's leg, fire hydrant-style). The way the Cowardly Lion Mason is holding his tail in a rounded, circular position looks like he is grasping a steering wheel, and he is perhaps best known, after being the drummer for Floyd, of course, for having a world class car collection (he owns one Ferrari which only had about 30 production models - worth about $50 million, give or take $10-$20 million?). He is also smoking a cigar (per the WYWH song). Wright is the Scarecrow (he reportedly was less assertive than some other members of the band), which was a Pink Floyd song, albeit written by Barrett. The malevolent talking tree is shaking "limbs" with Wright, who bursts into flames like the iconic "Burning Man" WYWH cover (in the process igniting Mason's stogie).

Instead of a Yellow Brick road, the bricks are white, like in The Wall. The pig from Animals flies, so subs for the witch on the broom (and is also a piggy bank, so money is flying out of it). The Hammers from The Wall make good stand ins for palace guards. Animals Battersea power station is in the background (Witch's castle? - the broom flying pig and guards/hammers are moving from that direction). An incidental cow circa Atom Heart Mother is in a pastoral background (kind of small and hard to see in the distance, but maybe about to be knocked out in a poppy field - there is something funny about that cow, almost like there is a field of Tesla Coil electrical bursts and discharges around it?). Dorothy lived on a farm, which is where the AHM photo shoot took place. A tornado threatens in the distance, and the band had a stormy relationship for much of their career. The left background appears to be black and white, and the right background in color, mirroring the post-tornado transformation in the film from bleak, stark black and white to brilliant, vivid technicolor. Overarching the picture, a rainbow (like the song Somewhere Over The Rainbow) dovetails with and extends out of the image of the DSOM's prism refracting light into the color spectrum.

https://thedelicatesoundofthunder.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/cartoon-floyd.jpg

 
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Interstellar Zappadrive, Belgium 10-25-69 (Pink Floyd featuring Frank Zappa).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikSc4dpAkIY
I had a link to this all set to post a few days ago but something happened to my browser and I lost the whole thing. :doh: Didn't feel like re-creating it at the time.

Zappa was the road manager for Captain Beefheart who was playing at this festival. The Mothers didn't play, but Zappa was supposed to act as one of the MCs for the event. He jammed with a number of the bands (it was a 3 day festival). Here's some background as told to Matt Groening (long time friend of Frank and Gail):

Simpsons creator Matt Groening asked Zappa about the festival in a 1992 interview, but he doesn’t mention Pink Floyd:

Frank Zappa: I was supposed to be MC for the first big rock festival in France, at a time when the French government was very right-wing, and they didn’t want to have large-scale rock and roll in the country. and so at the last minute, this festival was moved from France to Belgium, right across the border, into a turnip field. they constructed a tent, which was held up by these enormous girders. they had 15,000 people in a big circus tent. this was in November, I think. the weather was really not very nice. it’s cold, and it’s damp, and it was in the middle of a turnip field. I mean mondo turnips. and all the acts, and all the people who wished to see these acts, were urged to find this location in the turnip field, and show up for this festival. and they’d hired me to be the MC and also to bring over Captain Beefheart. it was his first appearance over there. and it was a nightmare, because nobody could speak English, and I couldn’t speak fFench, or anything else for that matter. so my function was really rather limited. I felt a little bit like Linda McCartney. I’d stand there and go wave, wave, wave. I sat in with a few of the groups during the three days of the festival. but it was so miserable because all these European hippies had brought their sleeping bags, and they had the bags laid out on the ground in this tent, and they basically froze and slept through the entire festival, which went on 24 hours a day, around the clock. One of the highlights of the event was the Art Ensemble of Chicago, which went on at 5:00 a.m. to an audience of slumbering euro-hippies.

Asked about jamming with Zappa, Nick Mason has this to say in 1973:

Frank Zappa is really one of those rare musicians that can play with us. The little he did in Amougies was terribly correct. But he’s the exception. Our music and the way we behave on stage, makes it very hard to improvise with us.”

And from the same link:

The really frustrating thing about all of this is that the visual documentation (as well as superior sound recordings) of this collaboration MUST exist (or at least did at one time). Pink Floyd forbade Jerome Laperrous to use his footage of their performance from the Actuel Festival for his Music Power documentary of the event, but that still hasn’t stopped it from escaping to YouTube (see below), so where is the Zappa footage???

As the audio recording didn’t really show up and circulate until 2006, there is still hope. Another of the groups who Zappa sat in with at the festival were British psych rockers Blossom Toes, who released a CD in 2009, Love Bomb: Live 1967-69, that included Zappa’s participation in their Amougies set.

 
I read something that maybe Zappa had just disbanded the Mothers Of Invention weeks before the festival?

BTW, Gilmour and Waters have reunited several times since the historic final full band reunion at Live 8. Below is a four song set from a 2010 charity benefit (27 minutes).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCq5wtSO-qI

Gilmour also joined Waters on stage during a 2011 performance of The Wall to play Comfortably Numb (Mason may have joined them for a song, too?). While the band isn't getting back together (especially since Richard Wright passed away), the chill seems to have thawed considerably. I've seen Waters in print express regret and characterize the law suit as ill conceived. They have been spotted hanging out with their spouses and appeared to have let byegones be byegones (though that shouldn't be interpreted as Gilmour wanting to play together on a regular basis, I think he finds Waters working methods plagued by being too controlling and strong willed to facilitate entering into any conceivable kind of collaboration he would be interested in for any committment more than or duration longer than the occasional one off charitable benefit). Gilmour seems reluctant to say never, but has repeatedly stated not having a place for Pink Floyd anymore, and clearly alluded to being done.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUYzQaCCt2o

As noted above, there is a dearth of officially released live Floyd, pre-Wall. Aside from Pompeii, the live album half of Umma Gumma is one of the only documents we have. I think the double album/CD is great (especially the live part - that alone is imo worth the price of admission), though supposedly it is one of the band's least popular albums.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrtNaL58PfA

My favorite of the studio sides were Grantchester Meadows by Waters, and especially the three part Narrow Way by Gilmour.

Grantchester Meadows

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGcIy40n3dY

The Narrow Way (Parts 1-3)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVdPHLdPnS8

Atom Heart is another album that the band reportedly loathed and reviled, particularly Gilmour, but I like it, it certainly has its moments (sounds like they were their own toughest critics, perhaps that was part of their greatness and mystique - they hated works that would have been masterpieces by other bands). Below is some background. Pink Floyd was introduced to collaborator Ron Geesin through the Rolling Stones manager. They had to hit the road on a tour, so asked him to come up with orchestral scores and arrangements for the brass and choir on the side-length suite. It was somewhat unusual, in that instead of a few vocal or horn fluorishes layered onto the band carrying the song, there are passages in which the band is more providing rhythmic accompaniment, and the brass and choir are the lead sections. So while it sounds like the band wasn't equipped to do the orchestra scoring/arrangement task by themselves, they didn't just completely accept Geesin's charts as written. He claimed they were changed substantially, and his intended vision has never been heard, and in his opinion rocked or swung more, and the Floyd-edited variant, was in his estimation clunky at times, and didn't flow as well?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom_Heart_Mother

Also, of the bands early unofficial live recordings, some of the best SOUNDING were a series of recordings by the BBC (under the aegis of John Peel, in some/most cases?), for obvious reasons - they were professionally recorded broadcasts.

'74 show with complete DSOM plus Echoes 80 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLbogLWU6ZQ

'70 Atom Heart Mother suite 25+ minutes (haven't listened to this version, but I think with orchestra and choir - they didn't always use them, too expensive to travel with them on the road, sometimes they hired local musicians when they blew into town, ala Chuck Berry, but the orchestral charts/arrangements were unusual and hard to get classically trained musicians up to speed on quickly enough for the purposes and requirements of the show, so sometimes they just performed it as a four piece, sans brass and choir).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O109PbOH5pA

Also from '70 BBC broadcast (and from the Atom Heart Mother album), one of Gilmour's most epic early guitar vehicles, Fat Old Sun 15 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttPNilF3v5A

'68 BBC broadcast of the Syd Barrett song, Interstellar Overdrive, by this time with Gilmour on guitar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAl4VTLR3BQ

The prescient Scream Thy Last Scream, an ultra-rare, never officially released Barrett song - like Vegetable Man (which was on the same '67 BBC broadcast, but currently audio blocked on You Tube).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3IfN3BbJLI

An eight song, 20 minute BBC performance by a post-Floyd Barrett, from '71 (the Radio One Sessions). Gilmour, Waters and Wright all helped produce and/or played on Barrett's solo work. Gilmour and Humble Pie drummer Jerry Shirley are the other musicians in the studio. Gilmour talked about how the solo albums were a nightmare to work on (though there is some wheat in the chaff, imo), because, partly due to the fact that he was unwilling or unable to play any song the same way twice, and he was prone to arbitrary, frequent tempo changes within songs, it was pretty much impossible to record as an ensemble in the usual way. So either they would have Barrett play over pre-recorded tracks, or they would overlay as best they could material on top of HIS pre-recorded tracks (sounds like the latter may have been the preferred method).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-BiOyHQWqM

 
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Thanks Bob for all these great links. Curious if you have any links for Obscured by Clouds...my favorite lesser known album. I am assuming there is no concert footage of any tracks off this album because it was a soundtrack.

 
Thanks Bob for all these great links. Curious if you have any links for Obscured by Clouds...my favorite lesser known album. I am assuming there is no concert footage of any tracks off this album because it was a soundtrack.
Don't know about video, but there's audio of them playing an extended version of "Childhood's End" during the fall of '72 then in the winter/spring of '73 they were doing "Obscured By Clouds -> When You're In" during the 1st set of the DSotM tour.

 
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Essener Blues And Pop Festival 1969 (20 minutes VIDEO)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrAEHzuH-40

Saucerful Of Secrets - Kralingen Pop Festival, Holland 1970 (5 minutes, excerpt? VIDEO)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Fsr7ZkcYQM

Corrosion - looks like a studio, Paris 1970 (6 minutes VIDEO)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqyJH94KV1o

Green Is The Colour - Live in San Tropez 1970 (VIDEO)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HQvTIGr_mg

Cymbaline and Grantchester Meadows - Live KQED TV San Francisco 1970 (VIDEO)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hewv1JpQuSU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GH0FUJ7PKzM

Cymbaline and Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun - Abbaye de Royaumont 1971 (VIDEO)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zo6-FlBc4r0

Atom Heart Mother - Japan 1971 (15 minutes VIDEO)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rRHZS-MLn4

Obscured By Clouds, behind the scenes, making of doc in two parts, requested by gdub (VIDEO). In two parts, not a lot of music (but some), includes Floyd interviews as well as director Barbet Schroeder and the star (his wife, not sure if she was already). BTW, this album is imo seriously underrated and one of their best. Good point that it was a score, so there was no Obscured By Clouds tour. Both More and this (and Zabriskie Point) perhaps did sound more slapped together than some of their albums proper, but maybe that was a good thing in these cases, so they didn't have time to overthink it. Chronologically, More is their third album, and first without a trace or last vestige of Barrett, and was more raw and developmental (though it made up for that in energy, creativity and atmosphere), and perhaps less cohesive, musically, than Obscured By Clouds - it did have a lot of moods, which could be a good thing for a movie. Obscured By Clouds was right before DSOM, and more polished and unified than More (though I do like them both, A LOT). The latter Barbet Schroeder soundtrack fell between Meddle and DSOM, two of their greatest albums, so it was auspiciously made at a time when they were really entering the wheelhouse of their classic phase and a collective creative peak, as a functional, collaborative ensemble.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9fkiTXe11s&list=RD8NLLPll3tAA&index=6

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4QMZXh1y68

La Vallee Obscured By Clouds intro/excerpt (VIDEO) gives a sense and some flavor of Floyd's powerfully atmospheric contribution to the soundtrack. Along with the simple but evocative narration, a sense of mystery about this undiscovered land is conveyed almost immediately (somewhat like the opening scene of the perilous, winding trek by the Conquistadors through the Andes accompanied by the atmospheric Popul Vuh soundtrack that quickly sets the tone for Werner Herzog's Aguirre: Wrath Of God).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thDrcNmbyDw

Childhood's End (two versions, about 10 minutes each AUDIO).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsGqpmt_FJI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wja_jhP_DGo

Obscured By Clouds and When You're In (11 minutes AUDIO) from the DSOM tour, thanks to the heads up by Amused to Death on these live versions of Obscured By Clouds tracks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EmSzmZynrM

BTW, the image on the cover of Obscured By Clouds is of a man haning on to a tree, so out of focus as to be unrecognizeable (somewhat like the cover of Meddle, a photo of an ear overlaid by images of water ripples to the point of making it a similarly mysterious image). Hipgnosis claimed they were both too simple and unclear, and neither were among their favorites. Once again, I liked them, so like Floyd themselves, they may have been their toughest critics, potentially a contributing source of and factor in their greatness?

Dogs - Live 1977 (VIDEO), not sure if this video matches up with the audio, reputedly from the legendary 5-9-77 show in Oakland (sometimes called Animal Instincts)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9iIr6B8n5I

The Wall - Live complete 110 minutes (VIDEO), Earl's Court 1980.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MTLw_fa5kg

Political cartoonist Gerald Scarfe is perhaps best known to Pink Floyd fans for his artistic involvement and collaboration with Roger Waters in the Wall at every level, on the album, concert theatrical performance and film. He first came to the attention of Mason and Waters with an animated short titled Long Drawn-Out Trip (circa DSOM), a scathing critique and withering indictment of Nixon-era American society and culture.

Long Drawn-Out Trip excerpts (VIDEO - NSFW).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdFjPRbVVNE

Gerald Scarfe concert screens shown during the Wish You Were Here tour. These are included in the WYWH Immersion Box, as are the flying clocks on the DSOM counterpart, but that animation was imo more rudimentary and not as interesting. I don't think they used concert screen films for Animals, so the video material for the WYWH tour may have been their most sophisticated and mature, thematically (until the Wall).

Shine On You Crazy Diamond and Welcome To The Machine (VIDEO)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NLLPll3tAA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7os67c_zg0

An in-depth Gerald Scarfe interview regarding the history of his collaboration with Pink Floyd in general and Waters specifically.

http://www.rogerwaters.org/22/scarfeint.html

 
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There is much I disagree with about this article, but it was invaluable in highlighting some outstanding early/mid-period unofficial live recordings. I used to like the Wish You Were Here and Animals tours best, and while I still like them a lot, the Atom Heart Mother and Meddle tours have become my favorites. The interim from Piper At The Gates Of Dawn (dominated by doomed psychedelic genius Syd Barrett) to DSOM (after which Waters bone deep cynicism and bleak vistas increasingly took hold), especially LIVE, was marked by an emphasis on the consistently brilliant Gilmour/Wright improvisation and interplay. This was roughly '70-'71, a time during which they also imo worked on their best soundtrack (Obscured By Clouds) and concert film (Live At Pompeii) and finished up DSOM, an era or phase during which Gilmour and Wright were at the peak of their respective forms and both creatively on fire, often doing dramatically different variations of the same setlists from night to night.

Careful With That Axe: Pink Floyd Reappraised, By Taylor Parkes (2-4-09) excerpt below.

(excerpt excerpt - "Listening to New Mown Grass, from San Diego in 1971, or Smoking Blues, from the 1970 Montreux Festival, Electric Factory from Philadelphia in the same year, or the roaring performance at the Paris Theatre for John Peel's radio show in 1971, a different picture forms: Pink Floyd were for a time an astonishing, wildly exploratory rock band, ringing with forgotten promise.")

http://thequietus.com/articles/01084-careful-with-that-axe-pink-floyd-reappraised

Excerpt

"But as it turns out, on stage between '68 and '72 - right up to Dark Side, when the spontaneity was sucked from their act - they were something else. Pink Floyd in concert were almost unrecognisable from Pink Floyd on record: massive, crude and hypnotic, all power and effect. The live disc of Ummagumma hints at this, as does Pink Floyd Live At Pompeii, the atmospheric (and in the case of the in-studio interviews which punctuate the tracks, unwittingly hilarious) film from 1971, in which the Floyd freak out inside a ruined amphitheatre, and roam the foothills of Vesuvius with beards and satchels, like hippie hitchhikers wandered off course. But to experience the full weight of mid-period Floyd – and to dismantle preconceptions of the band as stuck-up, showboating dinosaurs (or at least, replace these with other objections) – you have to seek out those superior live shows, now available free of charge via the internet. Once a moneymaking scheme for unscrupulous non-music-fans, the ancient recordings are now passed around like joints, with strict orders not to make a profit, dusted and remastered by the Floyd "fan community" (which does contain – surprise! - its share of audiophile geeks). Listening to New Mown Grass, from San Diego in 1971, or Smoking Blues, from the 1970 Montreux Festival, Electric Factory from Philadelphia in the same year, or the roaring performance at the Paris Theatre for John Peel's radio show in 1971, a different picture forms: Pink Floyd were for a time an astonishing, wildly exploratory rock band, ringing with forgotten promise.

Seven or eight songs, each lasting ten minutes or more. The set list barely changed for years. Appallingly complacent, of course - except that these "songs" were just vehicles for the Floyd's chaotic, non-virtuoso improvisation, an edgy tumult far removed from a blues band's formal jams, or the technical sterility of The Grateful Dead. The most durable numbers were the simplest to play, offering the widest scope for experimentation: 'Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun', a dense, repetitive mantra, which could be vague and ethereal or rumble up to peaks of punishing intensity, or the title track from A Saucerful Of Secrets, a sub-Stockhausen riot of battered cymbals and musique concrete (plus a juvenile finale of embarrassing choral pomp). Best of all, the show-stopping screamathon that was 'Careful With That Axe, Eugene', an extraordinary blend of minimalism and excess which scrapes chunks off the Floyd's British contemporaries. Sometimes it sounds weightless and translucent, the tension understated; sometimes it's unbearably oppressive, the shattering central section looming from the first note. Almost entirely improvisatory, 'Axe' is loosely but subtly structured, able to bear its own colossal weight – they almost never played it badly."

Fat Old Sun (BBC Sessions AUDIO)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttPNilF3v5A

Pink Blues (BBC Sessions '71 AUDIO)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lxsad0R1IyM

Pre-Some stupid with a flare gun, Smoke On The Water Montreux Casino 1970 (140 minutes AUDIO), this overlaps with the title Smoking Blues noted in the article above.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc3Y-gGuNmc

Electric Factory, Philadelphia 1970 (AUDIO, kicked off the American leg of the AHM tour*), also noted in the article above.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYYcAA8DxT8&list=PLF2N08EWE9-KlRBOw2qcWyK368qTF9C3a

Taft Auditorium, Cincinnati 1971 (115 minutes AUDIO, concludes the Meddle tour**), noteworthy as I think they retired Embryo and Cymbaline after this concert, and it was the longest Embryo ever, close to a half hour.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4h3Xpm2LTQ

* Atom Heart Mother Tour

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom_Heart_Mother_World_Tour

** Meddle Tour

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meddle_Tour

 
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