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Pink Floyd live performances
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Pink Floyd are pioneers in the live music experience, renowned for their lavish stage shows that combine over-the-top visual experiences with music to create a show in which the performers themselves are almost secondary. Pink Floyd's combination of music and visuals set the standard for musicians on both sides of the Atlantic. As well as visuals, Pink Floyd set standards in sound quality with innovative use of sound effects and panning quadrophonic speaker systems.
The light show
Pink Floyd were among the first bands to use a dedicated travelling light show in conjunction with their performances, as during their early days, dynamic psychedelic patterns were projected behind the band while they played.
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Encyclopedia
Pink Floyd are pioneers in the live music experience, renowned for their lavish stage shows that combine over-the-top visual experiences with music to create a show in which the performers themselves are almost secondary. Pink Floyd's combination of music and visuals set the standard for musicians on both sides of the Atlantic. As well as visuals, Pink Floyd set standards in sound quality with innovative use of sound effects and panning quadrophonic speaker systems.
Special effects
Besides the music, arguably the most important and certainly the most elaborate part to any Pink Floyd live show is the special effects.
The light show
Pink Floyd were among the first bands to use a dedicated travelling light show in conjunction with their performances, as during their early days, dynamic psychedelic patterns were projected behind the band while they played. They developed many of these techniques due to their fortuitous early association with light artist Mike Leonard.
When psychedelia fell out of fashion from about 1970 onwards, elevated platforms of the type conventionally used for roof maintenance in high buildings were brought on tour and filled with lighting equipment to be raised and lowered during performances. Following Roger Waters' departure in 1984, the Pink Floyd light show reached a dazzling pinnacle. Marc Brickman, the group's lighting designer, utilized hundreds of automated intelligent lighting fixtures and lasers, which was state-of-the-art at the time. By the 1994 Division Bell tour, the band was using extremely powerful, isotope-splitting copper-vapor lasers. These gold-coloured lasers were worth over $120,000 a piece and previously had only been used in nuclear research and high speed photography.
A large circular projection panel dubbed "Mr Screen" first made an appearance during performances of Dark Side of the Moon in 1973 and became a staple thereafter. Specially recorded films and animations were projected onto it, and on subsequent tours, coloured spotlights were fixed around the rim, an effect which reached its zenith with the dancing patterns of multi-coloured lights in the A Momentary Lapse of Reason and Division Bell tours. In the latter, the screen could be retracted behind the stage when not required, and was tilted with its peripheral lights focused onto the stage into a single spotlight during the final guitar solo in "Comfortably Numb".
Several generations of giant glitter balls began with the Dark Side of the Moon tour. By the Division Bell tour, the ball had evolved into a globe 4.9 metres in diameter, which rose from the mixing station to a height of 21.3 metres before opening into an array of petals 7.3 metres wide during the final guitar solo of "Comfortably Numb", revealing a 12 kilowatt Phobeus HMI lamp inside.
Props and pyrotechnics
Thanks to stage architect/designer Mark Fisher, Pink Floyd's tours became a staple in the industry due to their outstanding special and scenic effects. Pyrotechnics (such as exploding flashpots, an exploding gong and fireworks) and dry ice were used extensively throughout Pink Floyd's career. In 1973's tour to promote Dark Side of the Moon, a large scale model plane flew over the audience and crashed onto the stage with a spectacular explosion, an effect repeated at the start of The Wall and the Division Bell shows. During shows to promote A Momentary Lapse of Reason, a similar effect was achieved with a flying bed.
Over-sized helium balloons were first introduced during the Dark Side of the Moon tours, but in 1975, this element began to play a central part of the live show. For the US leg of the 1975 tour, a pyramid shaped dirigible was floated above the stage. It proved unstable in windy conditions and blew into the crowd, which tore it into pieces for souvenirs. The trademark giant pig was brought in for Animals in 1977, floating over the audience, as well as a grotesque 'Nuclear Family', a refrigerator filled with snakes, a television and a Cadillac. In some shows, an envelope of propane gas was put inside the pig, causing it to explode. The inflatables reached their peak in 1980–1981 during The Wall shows, in which several of the characters from the album were brought to life in the form of fully mobile, giant string puppets with menacing spotlights for eyes, taking the traditional balloons to a new level. The characters were designed by the notable satirical artist, Gerald Scarfe.
Special effects reached a new and outrageous level during these Wall shows. For example, a long, high wall made from 340 white bricks was built between the audience and the band during the first half of the show. The final brick was placed as Roger Waters sang "goodbye" at the end of the song "Goodbye Cruel World". For the second half of the show, the band was largely invisible, except for a hole in the wall that simulated a hotel room where Roger Waters "acted out" the story of Pink, and an appearance by David Gilmour on top of the wall to perform the climactic guitar solo in "Comfortably Numb". Other parts of the story were told by Gerald Scarfe animations projected onto the wall itself (these animations were later integrated into the film Pink Floyd: The Wall). At the finale of the concert, the wall was demolished amidst sound effects and a spectacular light show.
Performance history highlights
Syd's era
The earliest shows for what is considered to be "Pink Floyd" occurred in 1965 and included Bob Klose as a member of the band, which at the time played mainly R&B covers. Klose left the band after 1965. The remaining four members played very small (generally no more than 50 people), mostly unadvertised shows at the Marquee Club, London through June 1966. The set list continued to include R&B, but some psychedelia was also being introduced.
On 30 September 1966, Pink Floyd were invited to play All Saint's Church Hall to raise money for the nascent International Times newspaper, and quickly became the "house band". At these shows, the band began its use of visual effects and gradually stopped covering R&B. Word of these shows quickly spread in the London underground culture and soon the band became very well-attended and developed a cult following. On 23 December 1966, the first of the "International Times" associated gigs to be held at the legendary UFO Club was performed. Mainstream interest about the counter-culture was increasing and a very small portion of their 20 January 1967 show at the UFO Club was broadcast as part of Granada TV's documentary entitled It's So Far Out, It's Straight Down, which constitutes the first audial or visual record of the band live.
Pink Floyd were among the 30 bands that played "The 14 Hour Technicolour Dream" benefit gig organised for the "International Times" legal defence fund and held at the Alexandra Palace, London between 29 April 1967 and 30 April 1967. Some of the other bands who played were The Who, The Move, The Pretty Things, Soft Machine, Tomorrow & The Creation. Notables in attendance included musician John Lennon, artist John Dunbar, actor Michael Caine, artist and musician Yoko Ono, actress Julie Christie, musician Mick Jagger and artist David Hockney. Although both the BBC and filmmaker Peter Whitehead filmed portions of the event, there is no known footage of Pink Floyd.
On 12 May 1967, Pink Floyd performed at Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, a concert entitled Games For May. At this show, they debuted a multi-speaker pan pot system controlled by joystick from the stage that allowed them to move sound to anywhere a speaker had been set up. This precursor to their later "Azimuth Coordinator" unfortunately was stolen after the show.
After their debut single, "Arnold Layne", charted well in the UK, the band was invited to perform on the BBC2 music show The Look of the Week on 14 May 1967. The setlist for the broadcast consisted of "Pow R. Toc H." and "Astronomy Domine". This was their first British television appearance.
Pink Floyd were invited to appear on the BBC2 music show Top of the Pops in July 1967 for three weeks after their second single "See Emily Play" reached #6 on the UK charts. By this time Syd Barrett's appearance had deteriorated considerably. He is reported to have remarked that if John Lennon didn't have to appear on Top of the Pops neither did he. Consequently, their management company, Blackhill Enterprises, convinced the band to cancel all of their August shows and go to Spain to recuperate.
Increasingly, throughout the summer and into the fall of 1967, Barrett became erratic in his on-stage behaviour. Often he'd not play at all. By the time of the band's first tour of the US in early November 1967, his mental state was plainly showing. He seemed to stare off into a void on their 4 November American Bandstand performance and managed to mime the vocals to "Apples and Oranges". On 5 November, things got worse, they appeared on The Pat Boone Show and Syd sat in silence, refusing to answer any question put to him and refused to mime to "See Emily Play" causing Waters to mime the track (Waters confirmed this on the VH1's Legends: Pink Floyd episode). After the 22 December show, the rest of band put out word that they were in need of a guitarist.
Although both Jeff Beck and Davy O'List were considered, it was David Gilmour, then unobligated, who was brought on to replace Syd as need arose during shows. For the first four shows of 1968, Pink Floyd was a five-man live act again. When they were on the way to their show at Southampton University on 26 January 1968, they decided not to pick up Syd.
Transition and experimentation
See: Pink Floyd European Tour 1968
A typical 1968 set list would include some of the following:
Although their management company Blackhill Enterprises parted ways with them over their decision about Syd Barrett on 29 June 1968, Pink Floyd headlined the first free Hyde Park concert organized by Blackhill. Others performing were Tyrannosaurus Rex, Roy Harper and Jethro Tull.
A second tour of the US during July and August 1968 was launched to tie into the release of their second album, A Saucerful of Secrets. Increasingly throughout 1968 and 1969, shows consisted of post-Barrett compositions, with notable exceptions being "Astronomy Domine" and "Interstellar Overdrive", both of which were performed into the 1970s. Their audiences changed during this time as well, drawing a more "intellectual" crowd who would remain quiet until the last note of a song was played. By early 1969, most of their excess earnings were funneled into upgrading their sound equipment rather than maintaining a permanent light show. If visuals were to be used at all, they had to be provided by the venue or the local promoter.
A typical 1969 set list would include some of the following:
The shows at Mothers, Birmingham on 27 April 1969 and the College of Commerce, Manchester on 2 May 1969 were recorded for the live part of the Ummagumma album. One source also claims that the show at Bromley Technical College, Kent England on 26 April 1969 was also recorded for the album.
On 14 April 1969, at Royal Festival Hall, they debuted their new pan pot 360 degree sound system dubbed the "Azimuth Coordinator". This show, named "More Furious Madness from the Massed Gadgets of Auximenes", consisted of two experimental "suites", "The Man" and "The Journey". Most of the songs were either renamed earlier material or under a different name than they would eventually be released.
A UK tour of occurred during May and June 1969 culminating in the show dubbed "The Final Lunacy" at Royal Albert Hall on 26 June 1969. Considered one of the most experimental concerts by Pink Floyd, it featured a crew member dressed as a gorilla, a cannon that fired, and band members sawing wood on the stage. At the finale of "The Journey" suite the band was joined on stage by the brass section of the Royal Philharmonic and the ladies of the Ealing Central Amateur Choir, and at the very end a huge pink smoke bomb was let off.
An additional complete performance of "The Man/The Journey" occurred at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam on 17 September and was taped and later broadcast by Dutch radio station Hilversum 3. Portions of the suites were being performed as late as early 1970.
The "Atom Heart Mother" era
A typical 1970 set list would include some of the following:
Early in 1970, Pink Floyd performed at gigs a piece from their film soundtrack for Michelangelo Antonioni's film Zabriskie Point referred to as "The Violent Sequence". This was the musical basis for "Us and Them", from their Dark Side of the Moon album. Lacking only the lyrics, it is identical to the final song and is the earliest part of the seminal album to have been performed live. The song "Embryo" was also a part of the live repertoire around this time, but was never to appear on a studio album, until the compilation album Works.
On 7 February 1970, the band began performing a then untitled instrumental piece, which would eventually become the title track to their next album Atom Heart Mother. At this point, it had no orchestra or choir accompaniment. This is the first time they performed a song live in an unfinished form as a work in progress, something they continued to do until 1975. The song officially debuted at the Bath Festival, Somerset England on 27 June 1970 under the title "The Amazing Pudding" (later the name of a Pink Floyd fanzine) and for the first time with orchestra and choir accompaniment.
Announced as "The Atom Heart Mother" by legendary British broadcaster John Peel on his BBC Radio 1 show "Peel's Sunday Concert" on 16 July 1970, a name suggested by him to the band,, it was also announced as "The Atomic Heart Mother" two days later at the Hyde Park free concert. Partly due to the difficulties of finding and hiring local orchestras and choirs, the band often played what is referred to as the "small band" version of the song when they performed it live.
Pink Floyd also appeared at a Free festival In Canterbury on August 31 which was filmed. This was the end leg of the Medicine Ball Caravan tour organised by Warner Brothers, which was later made into a film of the same name . It appears that the Pink Floyd footage was not included in the movie but spectators report that Atom Heart Mother was part of the set that was recorded. The audience must have been one of the smallest to see Pink Floyd at this era, only 1500 were present as the festival was not widely promoted.
In contrast, over 500,000 people witnessed their show at Fête de L'Humanité, Paris on 12 September 1970, their largest crowd ever. Filmed by French TV, the show was never broadcast.
Experimental on the album Atom Heart Mother, the song "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast" was performed at a few gigs in December 1970. "Breakfast" being made was part of the song. The first part of this lasted around four minutes. The second part of "breakfast" preparation was around a minute followed by a 3 minute tape of British DJ Jimmy Young, whom the band disliked. The song lasted a little over 24 minutes.
For a great recording of some of their material from this period check out the show in San Francisco, California on 04/29/1970 on Wolfgang's Vault. This show includes material from Ummagumma and Atom Heart Mother. This was a short tour since their equipment got stolen a few weeks after this show and they canceled the rest of their tour.
Early performances of "Echoes"
A typical 1971 set list would include some of the following:
January 1971 saw the band working on a track in the studio of then unconnected parts whose working title was either "Nothing - Parts 1 to 24" or "Nothing Parts 1-36". This song made its live debut under the working title "Return of the Son of Nothing" on 22 April 1971 at Norwich, England and as "Atom Heart Mother" before it, it was a work in progress. This was later to be released as "Echoes" on the album Meddle.
It contained additional lyrics and although none of the unofficial recordings of shows during this period are very clear, the lyrics are approximately:
- Two planets meeting face to face
- One to the other cried, how sweet
- If endlessly we might embrace
- The perfect union, deep in space
- If Heaven might this once relent
- And give us leave to shine as one
- Our two lights here forever
- One light blent
- And through that longing to be one
- The parting summons sound is wrong
- I'll see you back to travel on
- And on and on, around the sun
Although announced as "Echoes" on 6 August 1971 at Hakone, Japan, the song was still performed with the additional lyrics at later August gigs. The show on 18 September 1971 at Montreux Switzerland and subsequent shows do not have the additional lyrics.
"The Dark Side of the Moon" live
A typical 1972 set list would include some of the following:
Playing 98 shows in 1972, the most until 1994, Pink Floyd debuted the live performance before its release not of a song but a whole album. The original title was Eclipse, then Dark Side of the Moon - A Piece for Assorted Lunatics, the name under which it made its press debut in February 1972 at London's Rainbow Theatre. The title changed for the first part of the US tour to Eclipse (A Piece for Assorted Lunatics) during April and May before reverting to Dark Side of the Moon - A Piece for Assorted Lunatics in September for the second part of the US tour and finally released in 1973 under the title of The Dark Side of the Moon.
Remarkably, at its first full live performance at Guildhall, Portsmouth, England on 21 January 1972, most of the album was in the form it would be when released 14 months later. The significant differences include:
"On the Run", whose working title was "Travel" or "The Travel Sequence", was a guitar and drum jam and would remain so for the rest of the year's performances.
"Time" was played at a slower speed and the first half of the verses were sung by Gilmour and Wright together. The line "Lying supine in the sunshine" was sung instead of "Tired of lying in the sunshine". The former lyric was also sometimes used in shows after the album's release.
"The Great Gig in the Sky", whose working title was "Religion" or "The Mortality Sequence", consisted at the debut in January of synthesized organ and various tapes of "preachers" either preaching or reading from such passages as from Chapter 5, Verse 13 of Ephesians, a book of the Bible, or reciting The Lord's Prayer. Starting in September, the music of the song as per the album was performed, without vocals. A portion of the song contained the aforementioned "preacher" tape recording of Ephesians, at much lower volume, and it was performed this way for the rest of the year.
"Money" began with a longer introduction on the bass, and the saxophone solo was instead played on the electric piano.
"Us and Them" during 1972 lacked the saxophone solo as found on the album.
At the debut, the song "Eclipse" was nothing more than lyricless extension of "Brain Damage" that devolved into various odd sounds. The version with lyrics and music as found on the album debuted at Bristol on 5 February.
Finally, none of the spoken word pieces as found on the album were done during 1972.
One of the two shows at The Dome, Brighton, England on 28 June and 29 June was filmed by Peter Clifton for inclusion on his film Sounds of the City. Clips of these appear occasionally on television and the performance of "Careful with That Axe, Eugene" is on the various artists video Superstars in Concert.
In November 1972, during the middle of the European leg of their 1972 world tour and again in January 1973, Pink Floyd performed with the Roland Petit Ballet. The set list for which their portion of the ballet was choreographed to was "One of These Days", "Careful with That Axe, Eugene", "Obscured by Clouds", "When You're In" and "Echoes".
A typical 1973 set list would include some of the following:
1973 saw Pink Floyd go on two relatively short tours of the US, one in March to coincide with the release of Dark Side of the Moon and a later one in June. Sandwiched between them were two nights at London's Earl's Court on 18 May and 19 May where they debuted the special effect of a plane crashing into the stage at the end of the song "On the Run". This was also the first year that the band took additional musicians on tour with them, unlike the earlier performances of "Atom Heart Mother" where the band would often hire local musicians.
Due to the overwhelming chart success of both Dark Side of the Moon, which reached #1 in the US in late April, #2 in the UK, and the US-released single "Money", the nature of Pink Floyd's audiences changed in June 1973. David Gilmour said of the change "It was "Money" that made the difference rather than Dark Side of the Moon. It gave us a much larger following, for which we should be thankful. ... People at the front shouting, "Play Money! Gimme something I can shake my ass to!" We had to get used to it, but previously we'd been playing to 10,000 seaters where, in the quiet passages, you could hear a pin drop." They could now sell out stadiums.
On 4 November 1973, Pink Floyd played two shows at London's Rainbow Theatre to benefit musician Robert Wyatt formerly the drummer of Soft Machine, a band they'd played with in their UFO Club days. Wyatt fell from a fourth floor window in June 1973, breaking his back and making him a paraplegic.
Knebworth '75
A typical 1974/1975 set list would include all of the following:
Encore:
In 1975, the band launched a short tour that ended two months prior to the release of Wish You Were Here, which eventually sold out stadiums and arenas across America.
The last gig of the tour was as the headliner of 1975 Knebworth Festival, which also featured The Steve Miller Band, Captain Beefheart and Roy Harper (who joined Pink Floyd on the stage to sing "Have a Cigar"). It was the second Knebworth Festival, which featured artists such as the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Genesis and Frank Zappa between 1974 and 1979.
Despite some technical problems, the band managed to perform a remarkable concert, which as well as the usual special effects featured a fly-past by a pair of Spitfires. This was supposed to synchronise with the start of 'Breathe' but the band had tuning difficulties and the planes flew over before the start of the set. Knebworth was the last time the band would perform "Echoes" and the entire Dark Side of the Moon with Roger Waters.
In the Flesh
See: Pink Floyd In The Flesh Tour 1977
A typical 1977 set list would include the following:
Encore:
The 1977 Pink Floyd - In the Flesh tour was the last time Pink Floyd performed a major worldwide tour with Roger Waters. The tour featured the famous character inflatables puppets, and also featured a pyrotechnic "waterfall" and one of the biggest and most elaborate stages to date, including umbrella-like canopies that would raise from the stage to protect the band from the elements.;
Pink Floyd's market strategy for the In the Flesh tour was very aggressive, filling pages of The New York Times and Billboard magazine. To promote their four-night run at Madison Square Garden in New York City, there was a Pink Floyd parade on 6th Avenue featuring pigs and sheep.
The Animals tour was the first tour since their 1972 tour that Pink Floyd didn't use female backing singers. The musicians that augmented the band for the tour was sax player Dick Parry (occasionally playing keyboards too out of view of the audience) and guitarist Snowy White (who would also help out on bass guitar on some of the songs).
In the first half of the show, Pink Floyd played all of the Animals album in a slightly different sequence to the album starting with "Sheep" then "Pigs On the Wing (Part 1)", "Dogs", "Pigs On the Wing (Part 2) and "Pigs (Three Different Ones)". During "Pigs (Three Different Ones)", Waters would shout the number of the concert on the tour, such as "1-5!" for the fifteenth show. The second half of the show consisted of the Wish You Were Here album in its exact running order ("Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts 1-5)", "Welcome to the Machine", "Have a Cigar", "Wish You Were Here" and "Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts 6-9)"). The encores would usually consist of either "Money" or "Us and Them" from Dark Side of the Moon or both. At the Oakland, California show on 09 May they played "Careful with That Axe, Eugene" as a third encore; it was the last time it was ever performed live. The final night of the tour on 06 July at Montreal's Olympic Stadium had a third encore of "More Blues" which saw David Gilmour sit out the final encore as he was unhappy with the band's performance that night. Snowy White played a bluesy guitar solo with the rest of Pink Floyd in Gilmour's place.
During the tour Waters began to exhibit increasingly aggressive behaviour, and would often yell abusively at disruptive audiences who wouldn't stop yelling and screaming during the quieter numbers. In the New York shows they had to use local workers as lighting technicians due to union problems with their own crew. They had several difficulties with the workers; for example, Waters once had to beckon one of the spotlights to move higher when it only illuminated his lower legs and feet while he was singing. He eventually became exasperated, brought the whole band to a halt to remark "I think you New York lighting guys are a fucking load of shit!", and then continued the song.
The Montreal show, 06 July 1977, the final performance of the tour, ended with Pink Floyd performing a blues jam as the roadies dismantled the instruments in front of the insatiable audience who refused to let the band leave the stadium. A small riot at the front of the stage followed the band's eventual exit. That night, Waters spat in the face of a disruptive fan; The Wall grew out of Waters' thoughts about this incident, particularly his growing awareness that stardom had alienated him from his audience. Three unofficial audience recordings are known to exist (one aptly named Who Was Trained Not To Spit On The Fan?, a pun referencing a lyric in the song Dogs, played that night, and the spitting incident); during "Pigs on the Wing (pt. 2)" Roger halts the performance to yell this at the rather rowdy crowd:
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