Pink Floyd

1977-07-01 Pink Floyd

in ,

Madison Square Garden

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It was a major rock concert event when Pink Floyd toured its new Animals album in the summer of 1977, and this was performance #1 in NYC, as denoted by the stub.

During the Animals tour, Floyd played that album in its entirety, then the Wish You Were Here album in its entirety, and then a couple of Dark Side numbers for the encore . With Animals, the order didn’t follow the album; the show began with a jaw-dropping rendition of "Sheep," followed by Pigs on the Wing Part 1. During the guitar-chord sequence out of Sheep, what appeared to be giant sheets streamed down behind the band, in sync with the jamming guitar chords ... an opener one could not easily forget! (As noted in the next post there’s now a good quality audience recording of N2 posted online, the Animals set ripping with intensity.)

The classic Fender Rhodes electric piano intro to “Sheep” by Rick Wright opened the first song and the show. At only 30 minutes in to the show, you were already blown pretty far away by the intensity of Sheep and then all of Dogs, with its rousing dueling lead guitar parts played by Gilmour and Snowy White and its swirling light show sequence at the end.

With the song Pigs, a big flying piggy was cut loose in the Garden, and Gilmour cut loose, playing blazing leads. Roger Waters pointed at the flying pig, asked the crowd whether they like his piggy, and proclaimed proudly what a big piggy it is.

On the first night I sat in section 133 of the old MSG, just above the main walkway that went all the way around the middle of the arena. In the front of those sections there was a white concrete barrier at the corners of the stairs separating the first rows of the section from the people walking on the main walkway. In those days lots of illegal fireworks were available in Chinatown in the days leading up to the 4th of July each year. People were lighting off firecrackers inside the venue, which made it a somewhat scary and tense scene, and we hoped that the concrete barriers would help shield us should anyone light off some explosive in the aisle... During the break a guy started going to the front of the sections, yelling that if he sees anyone light a firecracker he's going to beat them up. Not the most relaxing way to prepare your mind for the experience of the entire "Wish You Were Here" album coming up during the second set.

On the N2 recording you can hear how bad it was - fireworks going off during softer sections of songs, like the mellow bluesy section they added to the jam outro from Pigs. People started to boo the fireworks and culprits. But the performance still drips with intensity.

Several nights later at MSG, someone notoriously threw a firecracker or other explosive on the stage during the band's performance of "Pigs on the Wing," at which time Roger Waters stopped the band and asked the audience "Where's the stupid mother__ who just did that?" .... and these events contributed to the themes that Waters addressed in the next Pink Floyd album, The Wall.

1977-07-02 Pink Floyd

in ,

Madison Square Garden

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I sat with a friend in some amazing center/left floor seats for this show, Night 2 in NYC.

Among other things, the movies during “Wish You Were Here” were especially captivating up close. Vivid recollections remain of looking up at Gilmour playing the Fender lap steel guitar while the lights flashed and smoke billowed up during the intense jam with Rick Wright’s synthesizer leads during the second part of Shine On.

Before the show I had a good look at Wright's keyboard rig. I saw he appeared to have two of the same moog synths side by side on top, and a total of 26 keyboards.

Recently a good quality audience recording of this show (called “Audiophile Edition”) was posted online. You can hear the fireworks going off as the show opens and then well into Sheep and during quiet segments of the show. Aside from that problem though, the recording is kind of, like woahhh …, freakishly, religiously incredible. Gilmour plays some of the most classic rock guitar to be found anywhere. Welcome to the (1977 time travel) machine.

1980-02-24 Pink Floyd (The Wall)

in ,

Nassau Coliseum

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(From local newspaper coverage.)

(From local newspaper coverage.)

From the time the album was released and the shows announced, everything involving The Wall had that aura of rock history in the making.   And at the concerts, it felt that way from the start of the shows.  These shows were among the few actual live performances of The Wall by Pink Floyd in early 1980 shortly after the album was released.  Due to the complexity of the stage props (which included giant puppets and mechanical arms adding bricks to the Wall as the concert progressed), the American shows involved only two venues, with a run of shows in LA and then in NY. (The first London performance took place later that year.)  This was the first NY performance, on a Saturday night. 

I was lucky to have excellent floor seats for N1. A friend managed to get a home movie camera in on some nights, and took some good footage of the performances, including the infamous flower sequence.  

A fan video of this entire show, with both video and audio recordings from the audience, recently surfaced and although it is of somewhat dubious quality in spots, it is very amazing to see and hear so much of the actual show, in sequence. There’s also a fairly high quality version of the London (Earl’s Court) shows that came later, which are very cool to see.

There were a number of theatrical aspects of the show, starting with the voice of an MC who came on before the show, which played into the themes of the album and the delusional state of the main character. During the performance, a "surrogate band" appeared during certain parts of the show (following the storyline of the album), sometimes playing alongside with the members of Pink Floyd. The Wall was constructed, brick by brick on an ongoing basis, from the song "Another Brick in the Wall" onward, during the first set. 

During the intermission and when the performance continued with side 3 of the album, the Wall stood in its entirety, in between the stage and the audience. During "Hey You" we could see the stage lights flashing above and behind the wall, but that's all. The sequence of songs from side 3 of the original album culminated in Comfortably Numb with Gilmour playing a classic guitar solo while standing on a platform high above the wall, with Waters playing Doctor while he sang in a white coat way below. 

These live performances contained a song that was omitted from the album, but which can be heard on the bootlegs and in the movie version, as discussed in this wikipedia page.  The animated "flower sequence" discussed in the aforementioned article appeared on the round screen used for years for Floyd’s video sequences. During the performance of "Young Lust," Waters joined Gilmour at his mic to sing vocals together, rock and roll style a la Mick and Keith. 

During "Nobody Home," Waters sat in a chair with a television on, in what looked like a college dorm room, carved out of one area of the wall.  He flipped channels and, as far as it appeared, he was actually viewing live television. 

At the conclusion, after the wall came down, the band members came out and played the final tune with acoustic instruments, Rick Wright playing the accordian.

The fact that the shows were only done this way by Pink Floyd several times, as limited-run, big multi-media performances, made it a real tragedy that the films of the shows were destroyed.  I could barely watch The Wall movie when it came out, remembering the shows I saw and knowing all the while that the concerts themselves were supposed to serve as the raw material for the movie.

With the previous album, Animals (see my posts about the two 1977 shows at which Pink Floyd played that album in its entirety), this album pushed further into existentialism, and also the psychology of war, and totalitarianism.   In the fan video of this show you can see Waters refer to the giant Piggy, which made a renewed appearance at the Wall shows, and he makes a similar introduction as he did in 1977, noting that there’s sometimes more to a Piggy than meets the eye. True, no?

Below: Publicity for the film’s release.