October 17, 1971
Golden Hall, San Diego, CA, 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 31st 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.
The concert in review is from October 17, 1971, the second
performance from the Meddle Tour.
The taper for this show is Gordon S. The quality is very
nice for 1971. We’re only in day two of the 1971 Meddle tour, but that doesn’t
mean these songs are fresh. The tour is where you really start to see songs
played before their actual release. Meddle won’t even be released until the end
of October. Set list wise, it’s unique in that it has no Echoes or One of These
Days, or even a Saucerful of Secrets, but it does have More Blues. In a way,
these concerts had less songs and more jams. Five out of the 7 songs are close
to double the running time on their original releases, while the other two are
their exact times, and are pretty much still just jams.
Some guys near the taper are surprised to see Careful with That Axe, Eugene placed in
the opening slot. It’s cool to see that Floyd has a live following that
recognized past set lists and can compare them. A lot of tapes have that kind
of banter, but later on it becomes “PLAY ECHOES” instead of “This is a nice
touch, I like me some Echoes.” Rick is up front in the mix, and that is a
treat. If you’re new to the Floyd live scene, the band jams for six minutes
with a prominent bass line until Waters finally screams to signal the change.
Even during the loud part, you can hear every instrument nicely, and the
instrumentation is on point for today – just listen to that guitar. I love how
they can easily transition from the insane, midpoint of the song back to the
slower side.
One of my favorite things about the 1971 tour is the
fantastic 15+ minute long Fat Old Sun’s
that are played. They debuted it to their regular touring set list on September
26, 1970 as part of the Atom Heart Mother world tour, and it only got better.
Everything goes together: the beautiful keyboards, Mason’s drumming, and the
slow vocals from Gilmour, all before a long Fat Old Sun jam, based on the
second half of the song. The middle of the performance starts to becoming a
sort of an Echoes-type jam, as well, until going into something much different
than Fat Old Sun. Fast drums included. It’s the version that I wanted from the
album. Not only is the guitar solo fleshed out, but there’s so much more
content on one of my favorite songs. It’s strange to think that, on the studio version,
it was basically Gilmour doing all the instruments, and Wright providing his
organs.
Atom Heart Mother
is next. This version is without an orchestra and choir, something we’ll get to
listen to and enjoy as a studio version once the Early Years box set comes out
(we actually get a few 1970 versions of this song from that box set). After a
short buildup, they jump straight into the band introduction part of the song, where
Gilmour has a little more work to do on his guitar to fill in space. He also
has extra work on vocals, doing the choir part which I found hilarious and satisfying
at the same time. Maybe a bit overkill. The song still has its sound effects, as
well as Wright mostly mimicking the brass sections. The song was a trip to
begin with, and they are top notch on their performance here, down to the
guitar tone during the solos. Every bit counts.
Next is an another long version of a short song, Embryo. It feels like a continuation of
Atom Heart Mother in a way with long, guitar-based jams to start it off before
going into the vocals. If you’re only familiar with the studio version of
Embryo, the live version is a new song entirely. At around 7 minutes there’s
some guitar plucking that sounds like those “beeps” in Interstellar Overdrive,
but otherwise it’s a brand new song with extended jams.
Set the Controls for
the Heart of the Sun. Out of all 7 songs, this is the only song Waters
still plays, in a bit jazzier form for some reason but, hey, it’s his song. The
song has a cymbal introduction before going into that iconic bass line that
everyone loves. Even the crowd recognizes where this is going. Nearing the end
of the song, when it starts to get “spacey”, a guy near the taper gets confused
about a sound, probably the guitar effects they’re using. Overall, the song is
pretty close to what you expect, even if you’ve only listened to the studio
version.
Cymbaline comes
out to no response, at least on tape. It’s weird to think that this song gets
no response even after two years being in the repertoire. It won’t last much
longer either, since the last time they’ve ever played the song live was in
Cincinnati on November 20th, 1971. That concert also comes with the
last ever Embryo, at 26 minutes long. But this is about this performance, and
it’s average high time, Cymbaline. Great echo-y guitar solo, though, including
a part that sounds like the build-up from One of These Days.
Afterwards comes the part of Cymbaline that Wikipedia calls “Nightmare,” a series of sound effects
like footsteps and laughter and so forth. They used this opportunity to show
off the ability of quad sound on stage, and thanks to the wonders of stereo bootlegging,
we can kinda hear that. Someone says “What’s going on?” and later, someone else
says “why?” It’s Floyd, that’s why. They go back into regular Cymbaline
afterwards.
Blues or More Blues or whatever you want is
next. It’s a blues jam with slow guitar solos and resonant organs. Actually,
after listening to the stereo Nightmare, I’ve noticed that they have the guitar
moving around a bit. I’m not sure if that was on purpose or even the only time
during the concert that that happened.
It’s a bit of a weird way to end a concert, especially since the other
songs have been 12+ minutes of extended jams. More Blues would still be tossed
around as an encore for a bit in 1972, before being lost to time until a
one-off performance with Snowy White on July 6, 1977, after Gilmour left the
stage unhappy with the performance. I might make an exception to talk about
that one, because that is an important concert.
Phew, almost didn’t make the deadline.
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