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Rating: SETLIST: "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", "Raving And Drooling", "You Gotta Be Crazy" (CD2 WISH YOU WERE HERE EXPERIENCE EDITION). "The Dark Side Of The Moon" (TDSOTM EXPERIENCE EDITION), ENCORE: "Echoes" (BBC ARCHIVES 1974)
As you can see from the setlist, what I am about to review is not a complete live album of the Pink Floyd. These are live recordings featured in the Experience editions of DSOTM and WYWH, complemented by "Echoes" from the Bootleg BBC ARCHIVES of 1974.
Having made this necessary introduction, I will now describe the show.
Recorded at the EMPIRE POOL WEMBLEY in London in November 1974, the concert is part of the so-called BRITISH WINTER TOUR, a series of performances the band held in the winter of that year in Great Britain.
As it had become customary, the band presents in the first part of the show the new material, which forms the foundation of the two albums to come. And these new compositions are rougher, at times tortuous, with Waters' sharp lyrics, marking the definitive break of the Band with their psychedelic past.
From the first, melancholic notes of Wright's synthesizer in "Shine on you crazy diamond", the Floyd take us into their musical world. A "unique sonic/spatial planet," made of tension, continuous mood changes, emotion, and stasis that only a band like them can create. The show is hypnotizing. "Shine On" continues and seems infinite in its crystalline beauty. The mood changes decisively with "Raving and Drooling". Waters' bass is hammering. The atmosphere created by the piece is muddy, tense. "You Gotta Be Crazy", introduced by a splendid guitar arpeggio from Gilmour, is marked by continuous rhythm changes guided by the same guitarist, in stellar form, and by Wright who gives the right mood and color to the music.
The famous heartbeat and the phrase "I'll be mad for fuckin years" repeated almost endlessly create the right mood, and the anticipation eases with the arrival of instruments that seem to free everyone from stasis. Thus begins "Breathe in the Air". And thus starts the second part of the show where the Pink Floyd perform The Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety. The Group is impeccable and performs the album magnificently, with a sound rougher compared to the studio version. Without a break, the four offer us a sumptuous "Time" where Gilmour's famous spatial solo fills everyone and everything, and an energetic and very incisive "Money". The central part of the track is spine-chilling, with the audience clapping hands while the band "plays" with the instruments. "Us and Them" is elusive and dreamlike like never before, while a very colorful "Any Colour You Like" introduces us to the epic finale of "Brain Damage" and "Eclipse". Once the entire cycle of songs that compose DSOTM is completed, the heartbeat resumes, and the final line "there is no dark side of the moon, matter fact it's all dark", combined with the audience's ovation and the closing bells, ends the epic suite. But the evening does not end here. A majestic and masterful "Echoes" is the right crowning and conclusion for a dazzling concert that captures a cohesive band at the peak of their artistic/technological splendor and makes us understand what Pink Floyd was in their golden years.
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