Saturday, December 18, 2021

Saturday Sounds - Pink Floyd - Live, Lyon 12 June 1971, Tokyo 16 March 1972

Pink Floyd recently released a bunch of live recordings from 1971 and 1972,  before Dark Side of the Moon took off and became one of the best-selling albums of all time. I was lucky enough to see them at the Ford Auditorium in Detroit on their first Dark Side of the Moon tour, and it was an amazing show. 

Today's recording is from two concerts. The first from Lyon, France features some of their psychedelic early material*. The second part, from Tokyo, Japan is an early performance of DSOTM. Flip the order around and you get most of what I saw in Detroit. 

Pink Floyd became one of the biggest touring acts, selling out arenas and stadiums around the world, but their later shows didn't have anywhere near the impact that they had when seeing them in a relatively small hall in 1972. They were one of the very few musical acts that actually scared me with their music (Echoes, if I remember correctly. It felt like a seance that was making contact with something primeval). 

*If, like me, you are a fan of pre-DSOTM Pink Floyd, do check out Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets. I missed their previous Toronto appearance in 2020, so was excited to find out that they will be on tour again in early 2022 with a Toronto date in January. Unfortunately, because of the current COVID-19 situation, I am not going to risk going (even assuming the concert happens as scheduled, which I very much doubt).

No comments: