Anyone who knows me will recall that I’ve been banging the drum for 1969-71 era Pink Floyd since before Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets was a thing. Indeed one of their number once scoffed at the very idea. Well, today has been a red letter day, as – while trying to piece together what was recorded for Zabriskie Point – I’ve come across two shows I’d never heard before, both remarkable in their way.
The first is from the refectory of Southampton University in May 1969. It’s the same tour that brought us the live tracks on Ummagumma but its version of Astronomy Domine is vastly different and Interstellar Overdrive is almost unrecognisable. But what makes this show interesting is that, having already played Careful With That Axe Eugene, the band launch into Beset By Creatures of the Deep, considered by most to be essentially Careful again. Mindful of this, instead of Roger Waters’s whisper-to-a scream crescendo, Dave gives us some slide guitar parts and Nick Mason drums at double speed. It’s unique and was almost certainly never played the same way again.
Then we come to Birmingham Town Hall, February 1970, when, for no apparent reason Pink Floyd decided to play a load of rare stuff. It starts with a live version of Embryo (if you’ve not heard these, like Fat Old Sun, they rock out a lot more than the recorded version). This one is augmented with David Gilmour testing, seemingly for the first time, the “seagull” effect he’d add to Echoes later that year, and an extended guitar coda. In total, Embryo is more than 12 minutes long. It’s followed a very jaunty, experimental run at the Main Theme from More, one of only two performances I know of. We also get the seldom-heard, brooding horror theme-esque Sysphus, and a sequence that’s said to contain variations on Heart Beat, Pig Meat, Quicksilver, Moonhead and The Violent Sequence. I don’t recognise all of these component parts, but I can tell you it starts with what sounds like a guitar or bass being hammered like a percussion instrument (though it could be some very echoey rototoms), before Waters joins in with his Pictish screaming routine. It’s Pink Floyd at their most abstract, even more so than on The Man, The Journey. Quicksilver is a Rick Wright glockenspiel-and-organ noodle, a little like the pretty but formless Love Themes from More; Moonhead (composed and broadcast during the moon landings) is another jam, but this time exploring the bluesy progressions we hear on Money; and speaking of Dark Side of the Moon, this section finishes with a pretty full-band version of Wright’s Violent Sequence, which would go on to become Us and Them.
I’d love to know why the Floyd chose this one night in Birmingham to play so many unusual songs. One commenter suggests it’s because their gear hadn’t turned up, so they decided to have a bit of a jam. And are there any further oddities to be unearthed? I’ll put links to both shows in the comments if you’d like to listen or should Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets wish to extend their repertoire (Theme from More would be great). Be warned, though, the Birmingham show is best described as “lo-fi”.
Martin Horsfield says
Southampton
Birmingham
Vulpes Vulpes says
Have you checked if any of these are on the usual suspect ROIO sites, or maybe even in a cleaned up form on Dime?
yorkio says
The Southampton show appears to be the restored version from Dime. Can’t find the Birmingham one on there although that may well be due to the useless search function on the site.
Lodestone of Wrongness says
Those pesky young people don’t know nothing – I’ll bet my meagre pension none of them have ever listened to Ummagumma whilst “stoned” on some “weed” which turned out to be cat-pissed-upon nettles.
Set the controls to Gary’s house …
fitterstoke says
I think it’s known as wee’d when that happens…
Gardener says
my photo shows the exact moment they became boring
Moose the Mooche says
Oh those stickers. “Did I ask you to review my work? No. Here’s a sticker for your face!”
….is what I felt like saying but obviously never did.
Gardener says
The pic was published in Q magazines ‘readers worst gig photos’ edition, naturally I was quite proud of this one, taken at Wembley Stadium on the Momentary Lapse Of Reason Tour.
Moose the Mooche says
The 80s was wild. People took photos at gigs and looked at them afterwards.
Vulpes Vulpes says
Even weirder, they used cameras to take them!