'Soldier Field 1977' - June 19th 1977 - Soldier Field, Chicago, IL, USA

Sound Quality: B

Performance: A

Overall: 3

The way I do these reviews is make notes as I listen thru then I add this section at the top, the final scores above and the summary at the end. Today I found myself complaining way too much in the track breakdown and when this happens I normally add it here. So let’s just agree a new capital offence should be put on the books for talking during songs at a Pink Floyd concert with no statute of limitations and we will be good. There is a fucking idiot who talks both between songs, which is annoying but can be tolerated, but also during songs, sometimes not even the quiet parts! The crowd is pretty bad even apart from this guy, lots of shouting and high pitched whistling.

The performance was really good, the highlight for me was the second half of 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond' that featured a really good, long guitar solo which was just sublime. I gave the show an 'A' overall for the performance, quite a bit of improvisation, solid versions of a lot of tracks and great versions of other. It is just a shame the crowd ruins the show.

Track Breakdown...

Sheep: The sound in general is pretty good but there is a lot of crowd noise as well as seemingly ambient in the stadium, which I would think is understandable given the openness of the venue. The performance is pretty good though, lots of energy. And the vocals are clear and the overall sound is pretty crisp.

Pig On The Wing (part 1): The delicate nature of this song highlights the ambient noise issue, I am not sure if it is a recording issue or actually occurred, it sounds like wind, which is possible, open stadium in the windy city after all.

Dogs: Good version, great guitar work from Dave on this one, liked it a lot.

Pigs On The Wing (part 2): There is a guy near the recorder who is annoying loud talking, this is a shame because the guitar solo seems to be a bit of a break away from the norm, not by much but though and it is spoilt by this idiot.

Pigs (Three Different Ones): The vocals from Roger are less clear than Dave's, not vastly but noticeable. Rip-roaring rendition which would have a been a joy to behold if not for the crowd noise.

Shine On You Crazy Diamond (parts 1-5): The guitar sound here is more raw the normal clean precise tones. Now that could be in part to the recording but whatever the reason it is good. 

Welcome To The Machine: The vocals are little on the low side, volume-wise.

Have A Cigar: Nice work from Dave again, he was having a good night for sure, really good funky vibe

Wish You Were Here: Nice intro guitar work is different from usual, using an electric guitar instead of acoustic. I have heard this before on this show but it is still nice, it continues for the parts between the lyrics.

Shine On You Crazy Diamond (parts 6-9): Really nice, log guitar solo on this track and minimal crowd noise which is refreshing.

Money: You got some double duty guitars on this rendition which doesn't work too well in my opinion, I have never heard this before, I think it is missing the sax so they improvised, they need some more practice.

If you can handle crowd noise and talking then this will be a good one to grab, if it annoys the hell out of you, skip it.

'Hyde Park (Master)' - July 18th, 1970 - Hyde Park, London, UK

Sound Quality: C+

Performance: C+

Overall: 2

This is one of the free concerts from Hyde park, London that were popular in the late 60's and early 70's. I am not certain but I believe the 'open air' type of the show was a strain the bands equipment at the time and coupled with the bad quality of the recording makes this show tough to listen too at times. There are a lot of volume changes throughout and I found myself tweaking the level often. There are a handful of drop outs but that is not so bad. Being a free concert I expected more audience chatter than I found, the level was negligible and not annoying at all.

The performance seemed rather flat to me that might have been somewhat intentional though being a festival atmosphere maybe the idea was to be more subdued, I am not sure but, as I tend to keep harping on about, you lose that edge in songs like 'Careful With That Axe, Eugene' and it really misses the mark.

The highlight for me was 'Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun', it was the most energetic of the songs performed, even though still not a par with other great versions. This was the best recorded of the tracks also which was good. Also notable was the blues start to 'The Embryo' this was very good and segued in well with the rest of the track and gave me another chance to hear Dave's great blues playing.

Track Breakdown...

Blues/The Embryo: We start off with a slow blues piece in the same kind of vein that we are used to.  The volume is a bit up and down then we kind of bleach into 'The Embryo' which has the same kind of volume issues, lots of ups and downs with the music being very ragged sounding which worked better for the bluesy start. The part where Rick's jaunty keyboard picks up is low volume too and we get some crowd noise here but it subsides pretty quickly. The whale song was very low key and we get the familiar children playing sound effects as Rick continues

Green Is The Color: After Roger's introduction to this song and the next we get a few songs where the recorder seems to adjust the recording. Dave seems to be a little looser with his playing style for this song than usual which is good.

Careful With That Axe, Eugene: This was a real disappointment, it never seems to really hit the up point it just kind gets a little louder but the crescendo is virtually gone, the song is flat and lifeless. I found a site online (http://www.ukrockfestivals.com/Hyde-park-7-18-70.html) which says of this song - "Even in the latter the volume was down and the mood reflective."

Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun: Takes over a minute to get going, part of the is an intro my Roger and a really long slow build up that might have been hard to pick up due the quality of the recording. This song at least had a little bite unlike the last and seemed to be recorded well with less volume fluctuations that previous tracks.

Atom Heart Mother: BRASS! The recording sounds more dull than the previous track, could be a different source but could be just changes in the performance or the recording due to the short break between tracks. Not a bad version but was the worst recorded so all round not a winner.

Not worth the effort to find, its not great, not really historic. There is some video footage of this concert that exists, I will try to look for it but just really for completeness sake.

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Original Info...

Pink Floyd

"Hyde Park (Master)"

Blackhills Garden Party

Hyde Park Free Concert

Hyde Park, London ENG

1970-07-18

AUD [Master]

Technical: Lineage: <none>

 Source: <see Notes>

Setlist:

01. Blues / The Embryo

02. Green Is The Colour

03. Careful With That Axe, Eugene

04. Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun

05. [missing] Atom Heart Mother [missing] (announced as "The Atom Heart Mother")

Notes:

Well here it is at last the lost tape from the 18th July Hyde Park 1970 - this is the genuine article. It is a shame that this recording is not complete as it is missing "Atom Heart Mother". 

I was contacted by the guy who taped the show and this is a transfer direct from his master tape. The transfer was carried out as follows:

The transfer was made on 10th September 2005 from the master BASF L-C60 cassette onto a Nakamichi ZX-7 cassette deck. Manual adjustment to height and azimuth of playback head to match that of the original tape recorder and to optimise the sound. Direct connection to analogue input of Audiophile 2496 soundcard via high quality Clicktronic interconnects with 24K gold plugs. Recording made to Wav file at 44.1kHz

I fixed a few pop's so that I could normalise the recording but apart from that this is an unaltered version of this show. The sound quality ranges from good to very good, there are some microphone "nudge" noises and some wind noise.

The show was recorded using a mono Phillips cassette recorder with a microphone mounted on a 6 foot pole. The taper, David, was about 100 meters from the stage to the left of centre. Overall the recording quality is mostly very good.  Some wind noise is picked up by the microphones and also the quality of the sound changes due to wind "blowing the sound around".  Occasionally there is a little distortion but really nothing to complain about considering how this show was taped.  

If anybody has a genuine version of the Atom Heart Mother from this show then please contact me.

For Trade or Give Away only - Do not Sell - Do not encode as MP3

Merry Christmas

Steven Carr - 18th December 2005

www.LiveMasterTapes.co.uk

ß-*-ß-*-ß-*-ß-*-ß-*-ß-*-ß-*-ß-*-ß-*-ß-*-ß-*-ß-*-ß-*-ß-*-ß-*-ß-*-ß-*-ß-*-ß-*-ß-*-ß-*-ß-*-ß-*-ß-*-ß-*-ß-*-ß-*-ß-*-ß-*-ß-*-ß-*-ß

MY NOTES:

I DL'd this from hejsan in one of the Hubs on 2007-12-16.

According to Povey/Russell (p. 95), the Floyd opened with "...a quietand lazy, bluesy, introduction, they went gently into "Green Is The Color"...", yet The Embryo is in between; and the missing "AHM" contained the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble and the John Aldriss Choir (conducted by John Adlriss). 

I renamed the tracks, saving a copy of the original verification mechanism and editing a copy of the original.

pnkflyd@pnkflyd.net

www.pnkflyd.net

real.serious.music.

2007

HYDE PARK recorder 2

Blackhills Garden Party, Hyde Park Free Concert

Hyde Park, London, England, July 18th 1970

Sound Quality: VG/VG+

Source: Audience (recorder 2) 

Generation: unknown source > FLAC

4. ATOM HEART MOTHER (24:05m)

well well well... for years getting the Hyde Park recording was a holy quest, and

in the lapse of 2 years, two different recorders surfaced! This new recorder 2

sounds much better than recorder 1, missing Blues/Embryo but having AHM! -which

seems genuine-...

Recording sounds really nice compared to rec1, this seems to be recorded somewhat

near backstage...you can hear the brass section rehearsing between CWTAE & STC,

and you can hear lots of movement of people. About AHM... i checked with all the

others orchestra version and this one seems genuine, or at least, never heard it

till today. The banter at the end ('thank you... ok... we'd like to do some more

but we gotta take our ....' or something) is not present on any other AHM

performance....

There's been some discussion about this source being lossy or not.. some people

here at Y did a great investigative job on this, (http://www.yeeshkul.com/forum/

showthread.php?t=5442) i'd recommend you to go there and search for the thread

and read what's been said. (avoid the insults :p) -gbc

Joined together and artwork re-mastered by Sgt Weatherman February 2009

'Port Chester (original weed source)' - April 22nd, 1970 - Capitol Theater, Port Chester, NY, USA

Sound Quality: C+

Performance: B+

Overall: 2

Bad recording, ordinary performance.

Track Breakdown...

Grantchester Meadows: Nice rendition, nothing out of the ordinary, bird noises are clear and vocals are good.

Astronomy Domine: By Contrast to the previous track the vocals here are hardly audible (because of the last one was acoustic), the music side of things is not bad, a bit booming. The last 3 minutes can be skipped for those of you who are so inclined because it contains some speaking by Roger and a comment by Dave, just to the crowd upstairs should come down because of the lack of speakers upstairs.

Cymbaline: Suffers from the same issue as the last track, the bass is distorted and the sound has that booming quality like it was too much for the recording equipment.The vocals are a little better because the music is gentler. Sound effects segment is clear and nicely recorded. Another 3 minutes or so at the end can be skipped if you wish, it contains tuning this time.

Atom Heart Mother: Although it is introduced as having no title it will eventually become 'Atom Heart Mother' so I will refer to it as such. Suffers from the same issues as the rest of the recording, distorted bass etc but having no vocals there are no issues there. There is also a couple of recording problem spots.

Intro & Rant: Not really a typical Roger rant really subdued, skip if you want.

The Embryo: Bass distortion continues into the second set so it seems like that will be the case with the whole show. The vocals are better now, but not by much. Nice version though, couple of minutes of tuning and stuff at the end.

Green Is The Colour: Even though this is a gentler song so the vocals are good in places there is a heavy bass note here which is horrible sounding.

Careful With That Axe, Eugene: This is killed by the bass issues, it is one of the important parts of the piece and is horribly distorted so it totally blunts the edge of the axe, so to speak. Minute or so of tuning at the end before the next song. Roger introduced the next track by saying that he is not sure what the song is about but he knows what it is called.

Set The Controls For The Heart of The Sun: The vocals on this track are normally lower volume by design but here they are hard to hear. Minute and change of tuning and introduction to the next track.

A Saucerful Of Secrets: Cut! we only get about 2 and a half minutes.

Leave this one alone.

------------------

Original info...

Pink Floyd

Capitol Theater, Port Chester, NY

4/22/70

source: unknown audience

Disc I

1. Granchester Meadows   08:42

2. Astronomy Domine (1)  13:06

3. Cymbaline (2)         16:24

4. Atom Heart Mother(3)  20:37

total time- 58:52.51

Disc II

1. Intro & Rant(4)                                 00:54

2. The  Embryo (5)                                 15:36

3. Green is the Colour>                            03:36 

4. Careful With that Axe, Eugene (6)               13:52

5. Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun (7)   17:18 

6. A Saucerful of Secrets//                        02:38 

total time- 53:56.19  

(1) Roger: If there's anybody sitting upstairs, I suggest they come downstairs to the right because of speakers that we're playing tapes and things through they set out around the hall.  We didn't have enough to fit speakers upstairs as well as downstairs.  So if there's anybody up there in that blackness, my advice would be to get down ???

Another band member: 'Cause there's plenty of seats.

(2) Roger: This next thing is a song that we recorded for a French film called "More" that's, um, it's called "Cymbaline."

(3) Roger: This next thing we're going to play is a new number ??? that we're recording for our new album and uh, after we finish this one we're going to take a break, regroup.

This Doesn't have a title yet, so if you think of anything clever let us know... 

(4) Roger: ??? the album cuts, we'll do that later ??? Anyway, this is a song you've NEVER HEARD BEFORE, unless you've heard it before (drum roll/cymbal crash).  I think they had a bit more electricity at the Fillmore than they have here. ??? Something was different ??? we got it all working, right Nick? 

So anyway, this is called "The Embryo."

(5) Roger: We're going to play two things cleverly run together now, the first of which is a song called "Green is the Colour" and the second is an instrumental called "Careful With that Axe, Eugene."

(6) Roger: So that was an instrumental about foul murder.  This is a song about... actually I'm not quite sure what this song is about but I know what it's called and it's called, "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun."

(7) Roger: All right.  This is the last tune we're going to play and it's off the album before last, before last and it's the title track and it's called "A Saucerful of Secrets."

Thank you all for coming.  It's been nice seeing you,

'Cruel But Fair' - April 26, 1975 = Los Angeles Sports Arena, CA, USA

Sound Quality: A

Performance: A+

Overall: 5

I had reviewed another bootleg from this concert before so I knew it was a great performance but that one had issues so I was really hoping to get a clean boot, waiting for it to all go belly up. There was an issue with 'Have A Cigar' which, for about, 30 seconds or so we have a switch to what seems to be a different source or something gets changed the music is seamless so if it does switch to an alternate source and back it is really well done. It is still listenable and the source is only a little worse.

The vocals are amazing clear especially during the often hardships of 'Raving and Drooling' and 'You Gotta Be Crazy', the music is crisp and sounds very low generation a really great, bright recording.

The performance was simply stunning throughout, each song was a great version and some exceptional.

Track Breakdown...

Raving And Drooling: Long intro with tuning, song starts after about 3:30. Fantastic version, About 1:30 of tuning at the end of the end of the song. Vocals are so crisp and clear.

You Gotta Be Crazy: Great performance again here, the lyrics in the pre-cursor to 'Dogs' are more difficult to sing and get the timing right and Dave does a good job. The vocals again are crisp, there is a little bit of frequency distortion during  one section but barely noticeable at all. Again about 1:30 of tunings at the end of the track.

Shine On You Crazy Diamond (parts 1-5): Its hard to describe the main solo section, it is that clean, shard sound that is Daves signature but yet it has a real blues edge thats really great.

Shine On You Crazy Diamond (parts 6-9): Some nice improvisation during this one, nice work all around.

Time: I dont understand why the metronome sound starts then stops, then we get the clocks going off then back to the metronome, just a little pet peeve of mine.

Money: Nice version, good funky feel which is always appreciated on this track.

Us And Them: Nice intro from Rick before the familiar keyboard notes start, another good rendition

Any Colour You Like: An often undervalued part of 'Dark Side Of The Moon' this track really comes into it's own played live with both good sections by Dave and Rick, this also had really great bass work on it.

Echoes: Takes a couple of minutes before the song starts and this performance is very good, not as exceptional as some other I have heard but still great.

Go out and find it, now! Awesome bootleg great stuff.

----------------

Original info

PINK FLOYD

Cruel But Fair

Los Angeles Sports Arena,

April 26, 1975

Extraordinary stereo audience recording

Disc 1:

1. Sheep (Raving And Drooling)

2. Dogs (You Gotta Be Crazy)

3. Shine On You Crazy Diamond 1-5

4. Have a Cigar

5. Shine On You Crazy Diamond 6-9

Disc 2:

1. Speak to Me

2. Breathe

3. On the Run

4. Time

5. Breathe - Reprise

6. The Great Gig In the Sky

7. Us and Them

8. Any Colour You Like

9. Brain Damage

10. Eclipse

11. Echoes 

David Gilmour - guitar, Nick Mason - drums, Roger Waters - bass,   Richard Wright - keyboards

According to some, this is the very best Pink Floyd bootleg ever.

This is the same disc as Dogs And Sheeps