Oct 062012
Please explain: Where’s this clip been all my years of poking around YouTube for holy grails, and what version of Pink Floyd is this anyhow?
I know these questions may expose me as a real rock dummy, but I’ve never seen this before. There’s at least one Syd Barrett-era song, but I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a coherent live performance by Barrett or the early Barrett-less Floyd playing anything but their proto-space jams. That’s not Barrett on guitar is it, but rather David Gilmour with Syd hair? Maybe what I’m actually getting at at is that I never knew Gilmour wore his hair that way.
Oh, life in the Halls would be so much easier if only our old friend tonyola resurfaced! Here’s looking at you, kid.
Far Holier-Grail-y would be a clip of Floyd on stage and any of the band members making eye-contact with each other
aloha
LD
If the date’s right, this performance is from between their first and second albums. The strangest thing is that the host seems to stay on stage and even play with them during the songs.
Yes, this clip is confusing. Glad I’m not alone.
Great challenge!
1. I don’t think Nick Mason has ever been given enough credit, especially in the era of the band.
2. Does anyone else struggle with Floyd after Meddle? I think they really achieved all they needed to say between Arnold Layne and Echoes.
“Does anyone else struggle with Floyd after Meddle?”
I’m the other way ’round. I got into the Floyd with The Wall and worked backwards, so the only stuff I really love pre-Meddle are the soundtrack albums–minor works but more plain enjoyable than most of their later, superior stuff–and some of their live performances. I respect and admire the Syd Barrett stuff but I just don’t love it the way I wish I did. Meanwhile, Animals may actually be my favorite album of theirs. Not their best, but my favorite.
I’d forgotten how trippy early Pink Floyd was. I don’t think I’ve listened to “Set the Controls…” since early college.
You can connect the dots and make a line between “Set the Controls…” and Massive Attack’s “Butterfly Caught.” Just listen to these vocals:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g45PgMJMqLY
Interesting, Mr. Royale and I were just looking over the Barry Adamson canon today and came across his “Set the Controls For the Heart of the Pelvis” featuring Jarvis Cocker. I was hoping there was a closer connection (a sample at least) but there doesn’t seem to be. However, the next track on the album, “Something Wicked This Way Comes” samples Massive Attack. Circle of Life, baby!
I’ve written about this before. I didn’t like classic Pink Floyd much at all while in high school. Many of their songs made me nauseous. Somehow I found myself in a movie theater watching The Wall, which I actually liked. From that time forward I’d pick up albums at yard sales for $1 or less. Freshman year in college I discovered the Syd Barrett stuff. I think half of Piper… and a few songs from that early singles collection are great, but I like the Barrett solo albums better. Out of the Waters-led albums I somehow like Animals best, too. It has a good flow and rests in the background in an interesting way that doesn’t make me wonder how they can be such poor songwriters, in the traditional sense, as I often think when trying to listen to more than one song at a time by the band.
I watched The Squid & The Whale (again) last night, so “Hey You” is still ringing in my head.
I also didn’t mind the songs on The Wall all too much either. Perhaps because of the narrative. For some reason I always enjoyed the quieter numbers on that album, “Thin Ice, Goodbye Blue Sky, Hey You, Nobody Home, Comfortably Numb”.
I understand where everyone is coming from when they talk about Dark Side and Wish You Were Here, but the seriousness of it all just doesn’t resonate with me. I just preferred when they exploring on the early albums.
I think I have stumbled across this clip before, the brief Syd-era being the only iteration of PF that much interests me. But, no, of course that is not Syd but Gilmour during the period when he really was little more than a (really handsome) stand-in for Syd. Obviously he was into the role since he looks almost as zonked-out as Syd himself.
I can see how an argument could be made either way and I put the cutoff at the same place. I think Meddle could fall on either side.
I don’t struggle with it as I look at the first album as Syd’s band then a struggling-to-find-our-not-Syd-sound band up until Meddle and then Water’s band afterwards. So really 2 different bands with a searching phase separating.
Actually in my head I consider Syd’s version The Pink Floyd and Meddle and later simply Pink Floyd.
The second song “Flaming” is a Syd song from Piper as is “Astronomy Domine”. “…Heart of the Sun” is from A Saucerful of Secrets which only had one Syd song “Jugband Blues”