30 Days of Floyd, Day 9 - September 13, 1967

September 13, 1967

Star Club, Copenhagen, Denmark

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.

Another 1967 concert, this time its September 13, 1967. I’m tired today, so a shorter concert is a more realistic option for me.

Pink Floyd did a lot of playing in 1967. Setlist.fm has a total of 201 performances, which would be the most in any year by a whole lot, except it also counts TV performances. A lot of these performances have little or no information in them at all, which means there are even less recordings from this era. What we usually get from 1967 Floyd is BBC recordings, which are very nice but not what we’re looking for. We want that raw Syd-era Floyd.

So we get that here… in a way. We have two really good recordings from this era, September 10 and 13, but both recordings have no vocals that are audible.  In our rare chance to get a listen to Syd live… we actually don’t.

The more recently uncovered recording from the 10^th is in much better quality and will be available on the Early Years set. We won’t know for sure the exact quality because the only version of that show we have is an audience recording of that audience recording, taken when they played it back on some speakers.

So the 13^th is the other one. It’s still a concert full of rarities and, even better, a One in a Million recording in both meanings of the word.

The concert starts with Reaction in G, an instrumental only played (as far as we know) in 1967, and only 7 actual performances that we know of. There’s some high quality BBC versions that float around, but this is an actual live version. The highlight is, of course, Syd’s guitar playing. I’m sure if there was a high quality version available it would be a great example of a hard rock sound coming from Pink Floyd. There’s not much you can compare it to, either. It’s a very unique song and performance, and no one misses a beat here.

Arnold Layne is an instrumental without a home thanks to the lack of audible vocals. Syd guitar playing is wonderful though, and it fills up the otherwise empty song switching between playing chords for the rhythm and types of arpeggios to give it flavor. It’s a lot of work.

One in a Million is next. This is the only known performance of this. It’s sung by Waters and is the only song with any audible vocals. The heavy chords and a condensed vocal effect that Jack White would love. It’s also a slower song with a menacing bass line and a guitar part that sounds like something out of an early Black Sabbath song like Electric Funeral. The guitar is played muted while Waters and Syd (?) share vocal duties for the verses, which go like phrase-guitar riff-phrase-guitar riff, then a chorus. You can’t hear any vocals during the chorus though, but I think it’s there. It also comes with a guitar solo.

This one is called Matilda Mother. This is probably the most vocals you’ll hear due to the quieter nature of the song. You can hear the bass, especially when it follows the vocals, but you can really only hear the keyboards during Wright’s solo, and you can just barely hear it. It also sounds like Syd turned down his guitar for this song since it’s not really about the guitar. A bass-heavy Matilda Mother sounds better on paper, and Waters is really busy on this track, but it would be a lot better to hear everything else, since that keyboard solo goes on at least half the song.

Scream Thy Last Scream is next. It’s going to great having a studio version of this song after so long.

Anyway, it’s a tiny bit slower than usual, which is because the song speeds up gradually during the jam part in the middle. Syd plays mostly chords until the solo while Waters continues to create a busy and intricate bass line. Luckily, the keyboards are a little more audible this time around, and you can hear the solo more often than not. Everyone plays fast and loud for the crescendo before ending the song like it started, probably minus vocals.

And we end the day with Astronomy Domine, a normal Floyd live song since late 1966 going into late 1971, before being picked up again for the Division Bell tour. Comparing Syd’s version with later versions, it’s amazing how much more Waters does on his bass. You don’t really know him for doing anything too fancy on bass, but he probably does more in this 7-minute performance than he would in much of his later and longer performances. Syd’s guitar playing is equally interesting as he throws out a lot of different techniques and a lot of sliding around. You can’t hear him as much this time around, though, and the same goes for Wright and even Mason. For once, you hear more guitar than drums. You can really only hear cymbal crashes.

Syd’s guitar is loud, and the bass sound covers up the rest of the performances. You can hear a limited amount of keyboards and an even smaller amount of vocals. These performances, and Syds playing for that matter, are so unique it’s hard to explain them. It’s not like I have much to compare it to.