Big Pink Floyd Survey - Pt2 - Concerts

[Freddie Mercury]

Saw them in '94 at Ames, IA. My friends were blown away but...having seen the Delicate Sound of Thunder tape and other live footage previously, I was pretty disappointed.

I wanted to see the cool droids fly around above the band. But...they weren't there. They didn't have the droids pop up from the stage anymore either. Instead there was the big arched screen behind the band that they never seemed to know what to do with other than project some poorly-faded black-and-white Macintosh screensavers on. I didn't really understand why they bothered putting it up.

This was before PF were doing all of Dark Side. They didn't perform "On The Run"...so no flying bed/airplane. Nothing ever flew over the audience which was a pretty surprising letdown.

And get this: THERE WASN'T EVEN A FLYING PIG! The two pigs did jump out of the towers at the end of OOTD, but come on...no flying pig at a Pink Floyd concert?!? (I think Roger banned them from using the flying pig concept, but...it was Pink Floyd, you'd think they would have came up with five other things to fly around to make up for it.)

I just wish I could have seen the '87-89 tour instead, because it had such more inspired lighting that actually went with the music, and more moving parts, and surprises around every corner.

At least they did have Mr. Screen (I thought he wouldn't be there either!) but he didn't appear until after the intermission, but at least I got to see the real Mr. Screen. And the surround-sound was cool (the beginning sounds of "Money" circled the stadium for a good minute before the song began, and they played the weird "alien" "Money" film)...I'll probably never hear surround-sound in a football stadium again. And I got some great photos. But when it was done I was really surprised at how "tame" it was for a Floyd show. In terms of visuals, U2's ZooTV a year earlier may have had our Pink Floyd show beat (though maybe not the more elaborate show on the Pulse DVD). Luckily the first of Roger's DSOTM shows I saw at the Hollywood Bowl in '06 made up for it (with a flying pig)....

[moom]

If nothing goes wrong, then since 29th Oct I'll be among those 45,1% who have seen a PF tribute band live

The thing is, on that day a PF Tribute concert will be held, and several local tribute bands and fan musicians, including some famous ones, will be performing ! I just got a ticket!