Together with The Beatles on the roof of Abbey Road studies, the concert offered by Pink Floyd at the Roman theater of the Italian city of Pompeya, in the early 70s, has become one of the most unusual recitals in history, since, in addition to its magical scenario and its psychedelic repertoire, it was held without a public. The bolus is now edited, for the first time, in a double and expanded format.
Pink Floyd at Pompeii (Sony Music) is now available for the first time more than 50 years after its realization and in various formats: double vinyl, double CD, digital and Dolby Atmos. Made in 1971, a time in which the concerts, following the Woodstock model or the stones in London, sought to attract tens of thousands of people, it has passed through history by showing the London quartet in a naked and without audience, that of the Roman theater in the city of Pompeya, the city of southern Italy that was destroyed by the Vesuvian volcano.
Already with David Gilmour to the guitar in substitution of the ill -fated Syd Barrett, the Floyd was one of the Folding Groups of Progressive or Psychodelic Rock of the early 70s and several European television channels struggled to make a documentary about them. The Frenchman Ortf, the Belgian RTBF and the German Bayerischer Rundfulness hired the young Scottish director Adrian Maben – today with Belgian nationality – to materialize the filming.
Although originally he thought about filming the group playing between paintings and sculptures of artists such as Chirico, Magritte or Delvaux, since he was a great art fan, Maben finally chose the Roman amphitheater royal of the Italian city of Pompeii, raised 70 years before Christ, as the stage of the recital. And he did almost by chance, since the idea arose after returning to the amphitheater when he was without audience to find his portfolio, which he had lost in the typical previous tourist visit.
“At that time it was fashionable to make films about a group and capture the public’s reaction. The best example was Woodstock and its hundreds of thousands of spectators ”Maben explained. “It seemed to me that with Pink Floyd you had to do something else. Therefore, the main idea was to prepare an anti-Woodstock movie, in which there was no public,” the filmmaker bet. The group approved him, but he refused to do playback, so the situation became more difficult because the recital had to be recorded with a single eight -track magnetophone, “which complicated everything,” according to the group itself.
Dust and heat
The shooting of the concert, now also available, re -remembered in sound and expanded with an alternative version of Careful With that Axe, Eugeneas well as the original version, without editing, of A Saucerful of Secretstook place between October 4 and 7, 1971 and was not easy. Besides that Several coils of the filming were lostthe group performed the songs in an empty stage, with a suffocating heat and annoying dust damaged by the filming and recording team.
In spite of this, the visual and sound atmosphere of the recital, which later expanded with some shots and interviews in Abbey Road and Paris at the end of 1971 due to technical and synchronization problems, turned the passage of the Floyd through Pompeii into one of the most legend and influential concerts of the history of rock. The good fan will never forget Roger Waters, who was about to creatively take over the quartet, playing a gong; Gilmour with the chest making devils with his guitar, without stridency and turning the sound into pure liquid; To Richard Wright with a peculiar hat, and Nick Mason with hair and muston with inserts of lava rivers running alongside the music.
Prior to the subsequent commercial and artistic top of The Dark Side of The Moon y Wish You Were HerePink Floyd already anticipate in the current introduction of the album the beat that sounded in The Dark Side…, with the synthesizers playing with the stereo before giving way to EchoS, one of the meddle jewels that rescue, with a single historical Gilmour and an unforgettable crescendo. The other es One of These Days And his incredible rhythmic section, with the Marcial de Waters and Mason reciting “one of these days I will cut you into pieces.”
Famous in its time for transitions and links between the mostly instrumental compositions, the album moves between the sky and the nightmare, between the slow blues with harmonica of Seamus, here called Mademoiselle Nobs although the prominence of the dog’s bark of the Nobs is maintained, and the terror passage of Careful Whith…, heartbreaking and recited pre -thriller included. In addition, two emblematic cuts of the era Syd Barrett: A Saucerful of Secrets y Set The Control for The Heart of The Sun, Lisergic trips full of sound effects, monolithic rhythms and amazing games between guitars and syntles.
