30 Days of Floyd, Day 15 - May 15, 1988

May 15, 1988

Veterans Stadium, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Welcome to the month of Pink Floyd, where I’ll be celebrating the 30-day countdown until the release of the Early Years box set. Technically, it’s 31 days, but I’ll be celebrating the 31^st day differently… maybe. I’m bad at commitment.

The plan is to look at 30 random concerts from Pink Floyd history, even going past the content covered in the Early Years.

I finally get to talk about a 1988 concert. It’s one of my favorite for several reasons, and it’s in Philly. May 15, 1988.

This is rated M for Philadelphia.

I’ve talked about the Momentary Lapse of Reason tour before. Basically, first set of live concerts since the Wall, biggest and most expensive, first without Waters.  Started on September 9, 1987 and ended July 18, 1989 with an extra concert for charity on June 30, 1990. Altogether, 196 shows plus the last one.

I want to talk about other things, though. This recording, by billydee, captures the pure essence of a Philadelphia live crowd. Loud, annoying, possibly drunk and fighting with everyone, this recording captures everything. I will be having a lot of fun with that.

The other thing is that my Mom went to this concert. A while ago for Christmas, I created a list of the concerts she went to (created using a box of tickets she saved) and found as much of the concerts online as I could. I wish I still had that list, because I don’t remember much. (update: re-made the list from the ticket stubs. Apparently there's another Floyd concert unaccounted for, for a 1994 concert.)

The recording starts off pretty clear for Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I – V). The wine glass intro seems longer than usual, but it’s about average. Someone wants Echoes already. Geez.

Gilmour was pretty much perfect here. Once the keyboard section moves in, Wright is perfect. As for the vocals, they are so much better than the 1994 tour in my opinion. Fresh and with more passion. It’s almost like he’s pushing his voice more. Then come a small taste of the backing vocalists before the saxophone solo (which wasn’t anything too special, especially compared to the 1990 sax performance, but it did “swing”). The combination of Rachel Fury, Durga McBroom and Margaret Taylor is the greatest set of female backing vocalists in any Floyd tour.

Some guy is still hoping for an Echoes (which they did do for about 11 shows as an opener) and some guy just screams “Momentary Lapse of Reason!” like that’s a song he’s requesting. And Signs of Life starts. The synths are beautiful, but live it just serves as a buildup to Learning to Fly. There’s not much difference here. I’ve always liked how Gilmour played the guitar part in this song, with grace notes and overall fitting playing.

Learning to Fly. Live this song has a slightly longer intro that includes a bass line sort of thing alongside the drum intro. The crowd really get into this song, and I love that. It makes me feel like they actually came for Momentary Lapse of Reason and not just because it’s Floyd, even if that’s not actually the case. Everything about this song just works together so well, and the recording produces a great sound. Gilmour and our backing trio absolutely nail it. At some point it sounded like Gilmour was distracted a bit while the crowd was at their craziest, and that was because there was a stage prop, like a “soul” type thing, that would fly from the stage over the crowd. And they just ate it up. After that Gilmour’s outro solo was something special. Too much for an outro.

I could listen to this all day.

“What is it with you people here? Can’t you guys in the front here get those people in their seats or are they going to stand here all night?”

And with that distraction we move onto Yet Another Movie. The low bass sound from the drums sound nice here, but I imagine they sounded much better in person. But Gilmour and his voice going through effects? Amazing. Momentary Lapse of Reason as a whole demands your attention, and live it’s very effective. Especially since Gilmour is at the very top of his game both vocally and with his guitar.

Round and Around also is mixed in here. Nothing much to say here except that this recording picks up the synths exactly how I like them.

A New Machine (Part 1). There’s a couple soundboard recordings from this era that have pretty much just Gilmour. It’s much better this way, with both his voice and the effect heard. It’s also one of the better performances of this.

Some guy yells ONE SLIP because it has to be in the quiet songs. It’s the Momentary Lapse tour, I’m sure it’ll be included in way or another just calm down.

Terminal Frost has always been the weak point in the album for me. The song is nice, but that’s not going to cut it. The middle part is much better, with the backing vocalists singing behind an excellent saxophone solo and keyboard chords. But if I wanted a song like that I would just listen to Bowie’s The Wedding. But it does have nice guitar solos, so I can’t complain too much.

A New Machine (Part 2) is cut a little bit because of a fantastic tape flip. Just remember, it’s only a lifetime.

It’s only a lifetime.

It’s only a lifetime.

We’re getting into serious business when we get to Sorrow. Deep, slow guitar parts with use of the whammy bar? Count me in. I can only imagine this sounded much better from the stage than from a recording. But Gilmour, you just keep on doing you. I just love how good his performance is. He was a little flat in points for the “One world” part, but you could still tell he was putting all of his voice out there. The recording gets louder for bass distortion which isn’t too bad of a thing if it didn’t go back down when Gilmour came back.

The Dogs of War. Gilmour projects his voice to his fullest extent and someone says “I like that, man!”. He even gets those higher octaves in the “one world” lyric. Luckily the live version has more saxophone, and I’m all for more sax. However, if it wasn’t for Gilmour’s vocals here, I wouldn’t have much to say about this performance.

Mr. Gilmour says they’ll do one more song and then intermission. Maybe they’ll do One Slip? Some brave man hopes so.

But it’s On the Turning Away. It contains a longer ambient intro before Gilmour sings, and I guess some guys in the crowd are having some seating problems. Great vocals once again, and another perfect solo from our hero Gilmour. He gets so much time to do extended solos (extended as in about twice as long as the album version).

It was about time to mix things up, so after our intermission The Floyd come back with an 80s One of These Days. The difference between a 70s One of These Days and an 80s one is both the dirtier bass sound and a slightly synthier keyboard sound. The crowd is on their feet for the entire performance, clapping and uh, you know, making crowd noise. I thought it was a pretty interesting guitar solo, too. Very different from what I’m used to, opting for more slides than usual.

Also people screaming in my ear to sit down. Pretty much the entire concert. “SIT THE FUCK DOWN, FREAK” “alright that’s enough, you got it.” We’ll come back to this later.

Time. The drums sound like they were recorded in a bathroom; lots of dry echo compared to the rest of the song. Our bassist, Guy Pratt, goes for more of a slap bass kind of sound in area that become evident in this song when going for the singled-out higher notes. The guitar solo seems more depressing than usual, almost fitting in with the Momentary Lapse theme.

Crowd highlights for Time: “YOU ALL FUCKING SUCK”

“YO, CAN YOU SIT THE FUCK DOWN?”

It’s mostly one person.

On the Run is still a live favorite that Gilmour pulls out. In a way, it’s almost surprising how far this song has lasted in Floyd’s live set. Maybe it’s for the explosion in the end? The song doesn’t necessarily change too much, but 88 gave it some more loops to use. Nothing out of place or anything, just new.

And we go into The Great Gig in the Sky. There’s a synth sound before the normal keyboard and…

“Hey, everybody, let’s sit down! Yeah, that’s more like it!” and the crowd goes crazy. For someone sitting down.

The song is slower than usual for the intro, a bit more dramatic. BUT MY GOD IS THIS GREAT. I always tell people that this is the song to listen to. It gives me serious goosebumps and sometimes I just stand there in disbelief how good it is. The vocalist goes for it, and I mean just uses very ounce of her energy to make this so much more than perfect. I think that’s the best I could ever explain it.

Some guy is trying to persuade people they did One Slip a couple times before in the Meadowlands.

Giving me a second to relax, Gilmour goes into Wish You Were Here. Gilmour still is spot on in his vocal work, and the crowd sing a long for a little bit before Gilmour scats along to his guitar. If the crowd sang along with that there would be no need for any of recordings of anything. But really, it’s one of the best things the crowd did because it made the song even better. Other than that, if you’re not familiar, it’s just Gilmour with an acoustic, a simple drum beat, a keyboard part and the occasional wind chime for some reason.

Crowd highlights for Wish You Were Here:

“You’re faggots if you stand up.”

“Plant your fucking ass”

“It wasn’t like this in JFK!”

This is an actual title here. “Sit Down You Bimbo”

So here’s highlights.

“Yo, Stud!”

*constant screams of “SIT DOWN” from everyone*

“HEY DOLPHIN, HEY GILLBERG, HAVE A SEAT”

“Yeah, you bimbo”

Sorry for that, but it really needs to be written somewhere because it’s gold material.. Here’s Welcome to the Machine. For some reason Gilmour yells the entire song. Then comes the keyboards: one that creates a low bass sound and one that does the regular “whirr” part. There’s even a part of the song where the drums come in fully while the lead keyboard part jams. This is why they probably included this song instead of something like Have a Cigar, more room for newer jams.

Us and Them. It starts off with just a guitar and wind chimes call for the rest of the band. Wind chimes are like 80s Floyd’s cowbell. I’ve always thought Us and Them was a beautiful song, but live versions don’t do much for me. I like the studio polish for this song.

The taper correctly calls it, it’s time for Money. Everybody up, ev- oh wait no don’t do that. Bad idea.

Gilmour has an interesting spin on this song. With his gravelly voice, he’s more puts more emphasis on weird parts of words, like “Mon-AY!” and “IT’S a HIT!” and even throwing in a “Yes I do!” He seems to be enjoying himself up there, and in the end that’s all that matters next to making money I guess. Also, this tour introduces a 12-minute version of Money, something not even 1972 Floyd did even with their jams. This mostly includes spots for the backing vocalists to go “ooh” behind quiet instrument-solo sections (not solos per say, but just a little jam by themselves) going from guitar to the bass back to guitar, and even a duel between the guitar and sax. A very neat spin on the song.

Another Brick in the Wall (Part II) includes a sort of intro that’s just a small portion of the guitar bit with bass. Gilmour hits all his notes for the solo, and there’s a slap bass interlude between solos that fits in better than you imagine it would. So great job all around.

I think the taper talks to someone about him not wanting to get busted. He’s one of the more vocal tapers.

Here’s a section titled “Stand Up, It’s the Last Song.” We have learned nothing.

Comfortably Numb. Everyone sings, even the taper. I love it.

They did the same thing for their 1990 performance, but Gilmour does his regular vocal parts while Waters’ parts were replaced with a double-vocal duty from (possibly) Guy Pratt and Tim Renwick (basically everyone is mentioned as vocalists so I have no idea). I think Gilmour was finally getting to get tired, but it’s hardly noticeable. The outro solo seemed a little less inspired and not too impressive compared to other versions around this time.

My favorite part of the night. They finally play One Slip for the One Slip guy, and the Echoes guy things it’s Echoes.

“Yo, they’re playin’ it!” “What, Echoes?”

“Can I switch places with one of you guys so I can get a better tape?” And they let him?! People should put their differences beside them to make bootlegs more often, the world would be a better place.

I’m so distracted. The performance was hit and miss in some places, which is depressing since it’s the one song someone in the crowd wanted. It includes a funky slap bass solo out of nowhere. Gilmour couldn’t get the same energy he had for the majority of the concert, but I can let it, well slip I guess.

Get that double encore in with Run Like Hell. Something I haven’t said yet and should’ve, but Mason’s drums are the best they sounded all day. Another hit and miss, but not as much as One Slip. Gilmour was definitely tired, and I don’t blame him for a 2 hour 30-minute set with intermissions that probably made it around 3 hours. That’s a lot of music. The guitar sounds great and like it should, and Gilmour’s “Run” overlapped the audience’s make for a nice recording that only an audience member with a tape recorder can make. THEY’RE GONNA SEND YOU BACK TO MOTHER IN A CARDBOARD BOX.

Extra Highlights: “You’re ruining the concert!”

“…You’re ugly! Yo, gorgeous!”

“Throw something at em” *And then they probably did actually*

A perfect performance above a sea of rowdy Philly fans. It’s both entertaining and a perfect example of the best of the Gilmour-era Floyd. I mean it, I think this might be some of Gilmour best work live. And the best Great Gig in the Sky ever. I’m extremely jealous.