In contrast, Heylin’s book calls it a “huge seller” and floydboots “massive selling”. I do wonder if some include the copies made in the US by TAKRL & CBM & in Japan under different names? A look through past auctions documented on popsike does turn up an above average number of copies but plenty of these are the later copies made around 2007.
How many pressings were made in the 70’s? The originals have 17610 II 2-A / B in the matrix and the misspelling “Gotta Be Crasy” on side A.
Then there is this variant, supposedly with matrix 176102-A:
Finally, this one is listed on discogs as a 1975 original but I suspect it isn’t. I doubt any of the European originals included the name of the band on the label.
Thecopies have PFL 7501 A/B and I believe they don’t have laminated covers.Floydboots mentions a black label with silver writing but there is no image proof anywhere so far.
Speaking of Kustom Records (as mentioned in my previous post) … a holiday present to us all (thank you, Karl!).
I guess the transmission date is 8th of April’71, after all.
The concert Peter Grant’s talking about was Led Zeppelin’s appearance at Munich’s Circus Krone on 08 March 1970 (no recording has ever appeared of this concert).
It feels like we are watching the moment Pink Floyd’s hatred for bootlegs started.It’s quite remarkable that what is likely their first encounter with one of their bootlegs was the incredibly rare Pinky, pressed in a first pressing run of just 50 copies (matrix: DJ3003),
a UK copy of this Dutch release:
Matrix: XA44332/YB44332 – first edition with the misspelling “LIFE” on both sides. Second & third corrections had “LIVE/LIFE” and finally “LIVE/LIVE” on front and back.
“Atom Heart Mother” on side 1 and “Embryo” and “Interstellar Overdrive” on side 2, recorded at the Audimax in Hamburg 1970-03-12
***
Re. Kustom Records: This is the US cover for the Beatles pirate JUDY
It’s preposterous to claim these tracks were copied directly from the original masters from the Abbey Road vault, as the BBC reporter sets up the story and Mr. Collins willingly indulges him (although the claim may of course originated with him).
I still believe that Kustom was mostly a US label and they were only to happy to sell Collins a few hundred records and he had his own b&w knock off covers printed based on the original designs.
’37’ on the labels vs ’39’ in the matrix, no wonder someone got confused.
This and the Hendrix insert are the first were WCF used the ” Compatable for STEREO ” phrase.
STEALIN’, the 2nd rock bootleg ever produced, had originally been released by Ken & Dub in September of 1969.
WCF/Berkeley Records released this title two more times. First, ca. 1974 as part of their series of releasing albums in a wrap-around folder cover: “There was also a release that has an orange folder wrap-around cover with blank labels, & no matrix.” (bobsboots.com)
Where did the inner sleeve come from though?
**
And in 1975, when they reissued many of their old stampers in b&w covers and branded as Berkeley Records (with a fake UK address):
The matrix number was now ‘ 2010 A / B ‘ and bobsboots reports: “This Label had been been releasing titles by copying TMQ LPs and creating their own cover. The quality of the recordings was therefore less than the original TMQ. Since this LP has the same unique track order as the TMQ release, one would assume that this was a copy of it. However, the quality on this release is just as good as the TMQ version.”
****
The track names are all incorrect. When CBM released this album as Rainbow Bridge, they (re-)used the same track names.
USA: 1971/2 – TMOQ’s MAUI, HAWAI album (also a copy of INCIDENT…) was released in June of 1971, so WCF’s version likely came later.
If you know the matrix number, please leave a comment.
Just like STEALIN’ this was another title that was copied many times by different bootleggers. It goes back to this somewhat obscure US release on a label referred to as Dragon:
The two inserts that came with the album were thankfully picked up by the copying labels and used for their own art work. WCF picked the left one and TMOQ the right one.
Source: A fragmented audience recording from both free Hendrix and the Experience shows July 30th, 1970 , which became known as the “Rainbow Bridge Vibratory Colour-Sound Experiment”. 17 minutes of heavily edited live material appear towards the end of the film “Rainbow Bridge”. Hendrix’ performance was arranged to inject some much needed excitement into the floundering film project. The JHE had a show to play in Honolulu on August 1st anyway, so the timing fit. Less than 1,000 people saw the actual sets Hendrix played that day. The movie was released in the fall of 1971.
“Disc two contains an audience source from this show but is far from complete. Its origin is unknown to me although it could be taken from Incident At Rainbow Bridge, Maui, Hawaii, a single LP on the Dragon label and contains only a few tracks from the show. It sounds like it is sourced from very clean vinyl and has commentary from someone during “Guitar Intro” which is really the intro to “Hey Baby” from the early set. The quality is fair to good and will appeal to serious Hendrix collectors. Jimi’s guitar is high in the mix with the drums almost nonexistent but it is still an interesting listen where Hendrix is in excellent shape and makes me wish I had the entire audience source. The third track is actually “Jam Back at the House/Straight Ahead” and not “Villanova Junction Blues” as listed. “Here My Baby Calling” is “Here My Train A Coming” from the early set and “Incident At Rainbow Bridge” is the proper “Villanova Junction Blues” which segues into a minute of “Ezy Rider” that has the drum intro edited with the tail end of the song. This audience source is very fragmented but still a nice inclusion in the set.” (from a review of the CD bootleg Maui Hawaii on the Scorpio label)
from an eBay ad: “The introductory minute of side one is an overview of what we are about to hear from who, I assume, is the person recording this concert. It’s an excellent tribute and introduction to a fabulous performance. The recording is very well done, and the playing is unlike anything you have ever heard. The track list is a little strange because, while there are only five tracks, you’ll hear pieces of “Red House” and “Hear My Train A’Comin”, as part of the noted tracks.“ Rainbow Bridge Vibratory Colour-Sound Experiment, Haleakala, Kailua (Maui) (HI), United States. 30th July 1970, 1st show: Side A 1. Intro / Hey Baby (New Rising Sun) (titled ‘Some Slow Thing’) 2:07 [“This track has a spoken introduction dubbed over by an unknown male voice. This was added later, not spoken at that time.” Geldeart/Rodham “From The Benjamin Franklin Studios Part 2]
Rainbow Bridge Vibratory Colour-Sound Experiment, Haleakala, Kailua (Maui) (HI), United States. 30th July 1970, 2nd show: 2. Red House (titled ‘Boogie It All Together’) 6:50 3. Beginnings / Instrumental Jam / Straight Ahead (titled ‘Guitar Improvisation’) 11:38
Rainbow Bridge Vibratory Colour-Sound Experiment, Haleakala, Kailua (Maui) (HI), United States. 30th July 1970, 1st show: Side B 1. Hear My Train A Comin’ (titled ‘Get On Home Boogie’) 8:37
Rainbow Bridge Vibratory Colour-Sound Experiment, Haleakala, Kailua (Maui) (HI), United States. 30th July 1970, 2nd show: 2. Villanova Junction / Ezy Rider (titled ‘Stevie’s Walk’) 6:52 Total duration: 36:04
The Bootleg release history for this title, slightly amended from Geldeart & Rodham’s book:
B12a. INCIDENT AT RAINBOW BRIDGE MAUI, HAWAII (Dragon) B12b. MAUI, HAWAII (Trade Mark Of Quality JH 106) – released June, 1971 (Trade Mark Of Quality TMQ 71018) RE B12c. LIVE IN HAWAII-1970 (WCF: Hen 37) B12d. MAUI, HAWAII (no label listed, deluxe cover, see below)
USA: 1985 (don’t mind the label, it always said the same, just like the old “Duck Records” and Ruthless Rhymes labels). The copy shown here sold at auction last month for a healthy $157.50
Repressing from the original plates of the fairly rare single LP CBM release (matrix: 1036 A/B), a straight copy of the Pompeii movie soundtrack, released ca. 1975 on the King Kong sub-label (using Instant Analysis or dragon paper labels). CBM stopped operating ca. 1977.
To the best of my knowledge this is the only time that the mid 1980’s reissue label Full Tilt re-pressed a CBM title.
Vinyl is still very much alive and so are new vinyl boots, it seems. They are just much more expensive now (but the pressing runs are more limited as well).
1589 A: SET THE CONTROLS FOR THE HEART OF THE SUN /IF 1589 B: WELCOME TO THE MACHINE /HAVE A CIGAR /WISH YOU WERE HERE /PIGS ON THE WING /IN THE FLESH 1590 A: NOBODY HOME /HEY YOU /THE GUNNERS DREAM /THE PROS AND CONS OF HITCH HIKING 1590 B: BRAIN DAMAGE /ECLIPSE /MONEY /RUN LIKE HELL
Sources: 1589 A, B and 1590 A: Roger Waters (with Eric Clapton), third performance of the Pro’s And Con’s of Hitchhiking Tour at London’s Earls Court on 21 June 1984. 1590 B: First two tracks from the 4th performance on 22 June 1984 and last two tracks: David Gilmour at L.A.’s Universal Theater on his About Face tour 22 July 1984
Quality rating: Vgs
***
Another Japan bootleg containing material from Roger Water’s 21 June 1984 Earls Court. Is this the from same source tape? If you know more about this title, please leave a comment.
Japan: Year ?
First edition cover; back cover detail:
Side A: Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun / Money / Have A Cigar / Wish You Were Here Side B: Pigs On The Wing / In The Flesh / Nobody Home / The Gunners Dream
The rare second pressing using the official concert program as cover art:
Seller’s comments:
“VERY FAMOUS JAPANESE DOUBLE ALBUM PINK FLOYD / “THE WALL PERFORMED LIVE” WITH A WHITE/BLACK & GRAY SLEEVE + PLAIN WHITE LABELS. THIS ALBUM WAS LIMITED EDITION 300 COPIES ONLY MADE JAPANESE DOUBLE LIVE ALBUM. AKA – “THE WALL SHOW IN NEW YORK ’80” (BUT “THE WALL PERFORMED LIVE” IS MUCH RARER!)”
**
The U.S. original (do not believe what the back cover or folks on discogs say) on the infamous White Knight label – Beatles collectors will remember it for the Rarer Than Rare double, Who collectors for Such A Knight and The Keith Moon Memorial Concert. While I found something to like about any bootleg label reviewed so far, I really don’t like White Knight. Terrible art work choices and miserable high generation masters for their exclusive material.
If anyone has a nice scan of the back cover and the label, let me know.
Source: Nassau Coliseum, Long Island, NY – Tuesday, 26 February 1980; audience recording. There is some confusion in some of the online resources regarding the correct dates. For example, http://www.pf-roio.de/text/wall.txt assigns The Wall Show In New York ’80 to the 28th but the White Knight original correctly.
Quality rating: “Gs” in HOTWACKS
Side-A: IN THE FLESH / THE THIN ICE / ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL (Pt.1) / THE HAPPIEST DAYS OF OUR LIVES / ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL (Pt.2) / MOTHER
Side-B: GOODBYE BLUE SKY / EMPTY SPACE / WHAT SHALL WE DO NOW / YOUNG LUST / ONE OF MY TURNS / DON’T LEAVE ME NOW / ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL (Pt.3) / GOODBYE CRUEL WORLD
Side-C: HEY YOU / IS THERE ANYBODY OUT THERE? / NOBODY HOME / VERA / COMFORTABLY NUMB / THE SHOW MUST GOES ON
Side-D: IN THE FLESH / RUN LIKE HELL / WAITING FOR THE WORMS / STOP / THE TRIAL / OUTSIDE THE WALL
***
There are three different sources for Pink Floyd’s third Wall performance at the Long Island, NY Nassau Coliseum:
Comment: 2 tracks filled from 6-8-80 [really? Are they on the master like that? I believe that this is the source acquired by White Knight in 1980 but from a high generation transfer, leading to a very modest quality rating].
2nd source: Taper Location: Mid right side / Equipment: Nakamichi 550 using (2) nak 700 shotguns w/nak700 omni blend / Generation: 1st Gen / Length: 111:11m
Comment: “This show at times you think you’re getting hit on the head. You can hear the sound effects moving around like no other wall recording, beautiful and capturing, I also did the transfer myself. This without question is one of the better sounding shows. For some unknown reason, the master disappeared in the early 80s but a 1st gen cass survived, the reason that this show never made it out was He felt it didn’t compare to the last night. Years later, Feb 2004, I did the transfer . WE WERE SHOCKED!! ”
“It picks up all the detail from the stage and with a gorgeous mix with the audience reaction producing a beautiful live sound. “
3rd source: TDK SA C-60 cassettes x 2 (low) / Length: 113:27m
***
Concert identification –
Intro by Gary Yudman:
“Believe me, there’ll be enough explosions in your mind. Also when the concert’s over we have to leave safely and, ah, a number of people felt up (by Joe’s Peach) our show’s peach and gone over, it’s too cold for that. Please, if you hit the highway go safely and nicely. Well, I think the band is about ready to go …”
***
General concert review from collectorsmusicreviews.com:
“The band are tight and the audience are even more loud and demonstrative than the previous. In “Another Brick In The Wall Part I” Wright really tickles the ivory on the piano and plays the same spacey keyboard interlude found in “Shine On You Crazy Diamond Parts 6-9.” The psychedelia soundscape is rudely interrupted by the helicopter and the Scottish school teacher.
It builds up nicely to “Another Brick In The Wall Part 2,” motivating the audience to dance in the aisle (so it seems). The audience are particularly vocal during the performance of “Mother.” Waters’ line about “Mother, should I run for president?” draws cheers since February 1980 was the start of the presidential primaries. (New Hampshire held their elections this night with incumbent president Jimmy Carter beating Edward Kennedy for the Democratic vote and Ronald Reagan beating George H.W. Bush for the Republican).
The next line “Mother, should I trust the government” draws an even louder response, as loud as Bob Dylan received for the line “Sometimes even the president of America must sometimes stand naked” in “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” during his 1974 tour with The Band. The cheering, and the elections in November, illustrate the frustration with Carter’s presidency.
After “What Shall We Do Now?” Waters give a curt “This is called ‘Young Lust.’” The rest of the first half continues without incident.
“Hey You” draws a big cheer, as does the glimpse of New York television in “Nobody Home.” The highlight of the show, and perhaps of the entire box, is this performance of “Comfortably Numb.” Everything sounds very strong in the mix including an additional, faint guitar melody. Waters’ vocals are biting and Gilmour’s sound very sweet and convincing.
Before “Run Like Hell” Waters asks, “Do you like our pig? We like him. He hasn’t got a lot of class but there’s a lot of him.” He gives his dedication to “all the paranoids in the audience” and yells at the pig “Home, piggy, go home. Raus!! Schnell! (German for “OUT! QUICKLY!”)
There is a malfunction with the backing tape on “The Trial.” It takes a few embarrassing seconds to correct (seconds which feel like hours). “
***
Which brings us to the question: Which one was the first vinyl release following the L.A. and New York Wall shows? Or maybe the Italian bootleggers beat them to it with their London recording from June: The Wall Performed Live (E.M.K.A. Productions)? At the moment, my money is still on the black triple set from the last Nassau Coliseum show – Pink Floyd (BH 410), clearly I shouldn’t have sold Andreas Kraska’s PF vinyl bootleg bible The Records.
Do leave a comment, if you know or remember or just would like to speculate?
And what can be said about the studio opus “The Wall”? Some brilliant music that burned itself into the collective hard drives of millions as the 70’s closed up shop but also the reflection of its lacking-in-humor creator who found himself hating performing at a dangerous level leading to all kinds of fascist imagery and symbols. “Lighten up, Roger, it’s not that bad”, I’ve been meaning to say for decades – “Roger used to laugh once a year” – was it Nick who said it? Still, this piece/concept album is made for being performed live as obviously nobody will come to your house and build that wall while you listen to the LP/CD.
It is reported that back in late ’79/ early 1980, Roger rejected his band mates attempts to be talked into doing a proper and longer tour. Fast forward to our time and he has toured The Wall Live! all over the place. How times have changed! Well, it was now or never as nobody’s getting any younger. When the circus stopped at our Olympic Stadium I would have gone despite finding it ridiculous to pay the high ticket price for a stadium show (not that that stopped me from seeing the Floyd at Oakland Stadium in ’94) but I was out of the country then.
Source: Wembley, Empire Pool, 15 March 1977, except ‘^’, unknown date
Side 1: Sheep / Pigs On The Wing 1 / Dogs / Pigs On The Wing 2
Side 2: Pigs (Three Different Ones) / Us And Them^
**
I love the titles picked by the MARC and this label. Several come from collected UK music magazines, as this blog has shown, such as SOUPED UP RORY and THE STING OF EL FERRANTI , hinting at collecting and careful archiving of what must have been treasured foreign memorabilia at the time. I don’t know if there ever was a Pink Floyd article titled “Giant Barn Dance” – I looked and didn’t find one – but it’s a great title for an ANIMALS era PF bootleg and one the band seemed to subconsciously quote when titling their best of album A GREAT COLLECTION OF DANCE SONGS many years later (although considering the band’s hatred for bootlegs, that’s rather unlikely).
**
***
Side 1: Shine On You Crazy Diamond Parts I-V / Welcome To The Machine / Have A Cigar / Wish You Were Here
Side 2: Shine On You Crazy Diamond Parts VI-IX / Money
**
Complete concert set list (taken from an alternative source):
01. Sheep [11:51]
02. Pigs On The Wing Part 1 [1:38]
03. Dogs [18:04]
04. Pigs On The Wing Part 2 [2:38]
05. Pigs (Three Different Ones) [14:28]
06. Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I-V) [16:32]
07. Welcome to the Machine [7:33]
08. Have A Cigar [5:16]
09. Wish You Were Here [6:10]
10. Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts VI-IX) [18:32]
11. Money [9:02]
Based on the “Gm” HOTWACKS rating, I always believed, this sounds absolutely terrible. What we can hear is a somewhat distant very low volume, yet quite clear recording. The master tape has never surfaced, so these two Japanese bootleg LP’s are the only surviving source.It seems when this was copied in 1979 by Ken for his Impossible Recordworks label as KNOBS, the recording was ‘remastered’ as best as possible.
The color cover reissue of KNOBS on Ken’s Toasted Records from the early 1980’s:
***
“Recorder 1: complete – this is the very common recorder as surfaced on the famous “Knobs” LP (released under 2 labels: IMP 2.15 IMPOSSIBLE RECORD WORKS and 2S-907 TOASTED RECORDS) all the CDs in circulation are sourced from the LP […]; The LP was released on CD as well in the 90s with the following cat. number: MPH 016/2 Microphone Records – Italy 1994, being itself a transfer from the LP and not coming from the tape source used for the LP; attempts of remastering the Knobs CD and LP surfaced as well […].
About Us and Them on this release: some notes accompanying the CDs sometimes suppose that Us & Them is from a different date… someone said 1977-03-19; of course it can’t be from March 19 as Us and Them wasn’t performed on that date, it wasn’t performed on THIS date as well; the dating of the song is maybe not so important anyway …the Us & Them on the Knobs release is just the first verse of the song repeated over and over all along the track followed by a patchwork of pieces of the song merged together … making it the weirdest stuff I’ve ever heard on a RoIO actually.
Recorder 2: missing Money – this widely circulated as coming from the Master of from some clone of the masters; Money was not recorded by this taper, it was filled in all the versions in circulation (probably patched by the taper himself) from the Knobs LP… even if it turned out sounding quite similar to the rest of the songs. Versions of this recording are: Untitled Master; “If Pigs Could Fly” (Digital Reproduction), which is a speedcorrectd version of the untitled Master version. Recently another version of this recorder is in circulation, not including Money on the “Reeling In Pink Floyd” series.”
Reviews for the 15 March ’77 performance:
from “Melody Maker” (taken from the “Echoes” Book):The time has come for the Pink Floyd to completely re-think their stage act. They play in vast, windy auditoria and do nothing to turn their concerts into human events: the ambience they encourage is that of a few thousand robots responding to a computer. Last Wednesday evening at Wembley’s Empire Pool was no exception. It was rather like sitting at home in the dark listening to their albums at lot louder than the neighbours would permit, with more treble than anyone would wish and giant inflatable pig hanging over your head. And this is rock? A band playing though their two latest albums, with as little variations as possible? It was all so cold, clean and clinical. The Floyd have altered the whole concept of rock; they’ve turned the stage into a one-take recording studio, dispensing with the human bond between artist and audience.
from “Sounds” magazine:BLINDED BY THE LIGHT – Pink Floyd at Wembley. Tim Lott Gets an Eyefulby Tim Lott
A YELL from Arena right.“Wally.”Blank eyed, lank greasehairs lean on buttresses. The last acid casualty leftovers.“JeezizlookwhentheywerewithSidrightIsawthemwellitmusthave,man,been…”A middle aged man in pinstripes (incognito) sidles up. Cut glass voice intones:“excuse meh. Is this block C?”Why yes. Block C, south entrance. The Empire Pool. In Wembley. There’s a pop concert happening here. All these people are here for some fun.HaHaHaHaHa. Fun. Fun is not what the Floyd are about.Rock ‘n’ Roll is not what the Floyd are about. I wish I knew what the Floyd are about. Maybe I can find out. Maybe this concert is going to tell me. Maybe.So here we are then. Ten years on, and waiting.CHECK OUT the prelude. The T-shirt sellers and the overpriced bars and paper cups and spreading grime and empty air expanses and headbands and teenqueens and Burtons and Levis. There are no programmes.Inside, take a look. First you notice this barricaded trapezium at the rear. The barriers surround the mixing desks for the quad system and anticipated special effects controls. There’s a lot of it.Above the stage – no surprise, this – a huge, oval projective screen. Banks of lights surround it, but not so many. Where are the rest? Later, later. Wait.So here I am, seat 14, row 13, off to the right side facing the stage. In front of me, speakers. To the left and right and rear, high up in the terraces, more speakers.Hm. Hm. Hm. Hm.
Ah. The lights are going down. But only on the Arena. Upstairs they still pick out the masses sharply. Onstage movement and the band are there. Zero impact entrance. Upstairs they’re still wondering why the lights are still on. Downstairs you notice all the empty seats. Perplexing.Quadrophonic baaaaaas. Onstage lights are up to the sounds of surprisingly unexcited audience response, a sort of ‘come on get on with it’ note mingled in the less than lusty cheers.‘Sheep’.One, two, thr… six musicians? An extra guitarist and keyboards man, Snowy White (really?) and Dick Parry, session man on ‘Dark Side of the Moon’.(I only know who they are because I asked EMI. They weren’t introduced.)Well then, ‘Sheep’. Well then. That’s all it was . Not one of their best numbers on record, ditto onstage, not a good opener. It’s very loud, pretty much average chunka chunk stuff. It would have been boring but…Half way through there’s a stirring in the wings.WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN?
This. Two bloody great claw-like lighting towers loom out of the edges of the stage. Enormous, they shoot red and blue and green light at the audience, at the band, soar high to the ceiling and swoop to almost head level, picking out each musician. Courageous lighting engineers cling to the pinnacle of each.This is very effective.What mars the whole shebang is that:(a) it renders the music completely irrelevant for about five minutes as the monstrous towers absorb all attention.(b) It marks the first cock-up of the evening. As the platforms rose from the darkness, each should have had sparks shooting out from behind for illumination. It only worked on one of them.Whoops.The lighting towers weren’t the only distraction, ten minutes of the band being onstage people were still wandering in and shuffling about and whispering and nose blowing and God knows what else. When the sound quietened down for a four-way wind effect, the excess noise was noticeably annoying. Disinterest? Or post-mortem?However.
‘Pigs On The Wing’.Strummedy strum. Roger Waters sounds a bit shakey.‘Dogs’.Dry ice. I am surprised. It envelops Dave Gilmour’s feet as he takes the lead vocal, then swirls about his body and head. Down swoops that tower and spectrum spotlights glare into the mist five feet above his head, and as the vapour diffuses the lightbeams track it.The beams switch to electric blue and scan the crowd, as the music lulls. More stirrings sidestage, faint woofwoofs from four speaker sources.This bit I don’t believe.It’s a Family, you see. An obscene, fat, inflatable, blank faced family with white light pouring from somewhere within their synthetic loins. A besuited bizman, his gross wife stretched on billowing settee, his rotund and evil-faced son in painted shorts. Enormous and floating a hundred feet above the stage.Is this funny? Is this frightening?What are the Floyd about?Mrs and Kiddie fatso gradually deflate but daddy pinstripe lumbers airily across above the stage, looming down, to maybe a few feet above head level. No-one can take their eyes away. Again music fades into insignificant background, as the masses wait to see what this… thing… is going to do.What it does is deflate, reflate and piss off.Er, look how are we supposed to react? The whole thing is just a touch ludicrous. All I can think is “so what”.‘Pigs On The Wing’.Same as last time.‘Pigs’.I think we’re all expecting something like this. Personally, I hoped to see a whopping great helium stuffed Mary Whitehouse swooping all over the place, but it is not to be.
Instead an ultra loud, metallic KO guitar passage from Gilmour preambles a shout from Waters, “Turn it on”.It is turned on. It comes sailing across the Empire Pool with flabby grace, dwarfing the 7,000.It is, of course, a pig.This time I have two distinct reactions. Astonishment as the sheer scale of spreadeagling balloon. And oblique amusement. I mean look up there, a very, very, large curly tailed swine, lurching about like a drunken, misshapen Zeppelin. So what happens now?Like it’s tailored predecessor, porky does a quick shudder, nips backstage again, assumedly for a quick swill at an inflatable trough before getting his snout down for a snooze, ready to emerge breezily for the next night’s epic performance.AM I saying the right things? I mean what about the music man?Have you got the ‘Animals’ album? That’s what they did. Stuck close to the vinyl score. The only difference is that Roger Waters’ vocals were quite appalling on the less bludgeoning passages and that Dave Gilmour’s guitar was too loud (from where I was sitting anyway). Musically they were as good as their material. Their material was below par.
“We’re going to take a twenty minute break now.”Oh for the love of Jesus. Why? Onstage for less than an hour, crowd only just settled down. Maybe the work was just too hard actually playing for all that time.Still a chance to look around as the lights come up. What have we got?Still a surprising number of empty seats.An unsurprising number of people resembling members of that very airborne family the band were lampooning minutes earlier.Behind the annoyance of the unnecessary break, what?Disappointment. I am left cold. They have acted as machines. No acknowledgement of the crowd. Minimal enthusiasm. Ragged inmental approach from the band, but ‘Snowy White has several times shown Gilmour up as fairly limited. The Floyd have never been virtuosos, but they always achieved effect. This time, no.Even the audience seem subdued. Still hiding from pigs on the wing I shouldn’t wonder. If that bloody great thing fell on you you’d know about it.Then the audience come out of hiding. Whistles, general derision, direction uncertain; the atmosphere-damaging lights shining disconcertingly on the tier audience? Or the band itself?Speculation cut short by the return of the indifferent wonder boys.(Indifferent, sure, and why not? The tickets are sold, the albums are selling, the position is consolidated.Money, it’s a crime, artistically rather than politically.)
‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’.For the first time, my heart works double time, the edge of my seat teeters. The best single latter day Floyd number. Will they won’t they blow it?They blow it.The visuals distract and fascinate. The giant screen is now alive with impressionist stop/go oblique images – sea, beaches, gentle movement, Vaseline photography. Almost beautiful, marred by shampoo and approach but constantly interesting.Meanwhile, the live soundtrack is falling on its knees and begging inspiration.The main, destructive, ruining, hopeless avoidable, grating flaw is still Waters’ vocal stumblings.The obvious thing to do would be to have Gilmour’s relatively strong voice handling all lead singing with Waters occasionally chipping in for a bit of strained harmony. Waters either insisted on his solo spots or maybe it didn’t occur to him just how inept a singer he is. His voice completely ruined my enjoyment of what might have been the high point of a low level concert. Gilmour’s guitar – again propped by Snowy White – though in a slight rut, is jagged, and he manages to reproduce the vinyl cut competently, even superlatively. And Rick Wright’s synthesizer patters, though somehow blurred at the edges are effective enough, especially juiced up with Dick Parry’s additional keyboard support. Unfortunately Parry’s sax solo on the same number is dilute and foetid, building to a barely acceptable climax at the end of the number.But that voice…Ah well. Long time to go yet.
‘Welcome To The Machine’.Chink. Durrrrr. Cue onscreen visuals. This time the film clip is superb – an impossible steel insect parading across desert landscape, cut to perspective-warp too-real buildings that cry rivers of blood, to flying monoliths. No idea what it all means, but very pretty, very pretty. Barely notice the musical accompaniment but it complements the film nicely.It now dawns on me. All the way through the music has literally become incidental to the sight barrage. Maybe Floyd have achieved what they set out to do years ago – create a successful soundtrack to an avant-garde visual piece. ‘More’, ‘Zabriskie Point’ and ‘Obscured By Clouds’ all ultimately failed but this… I mean as pure music it’s pretty poor but as soundtracking it fits.Nah, that’s not the answer. Not with them still coming up with numbers like…
‘Have A Cigar’.First number of the concert that improves on the vinyl score. No uppity visuals to distract, no studio sterility. Mainstream mainline straightforward rock, nice soloing, gritty vocals. I feel… involved for the first time. Oh, and Snowy White upstages Gilmour again, with a fine, fluid piece of aggression that fixes attention past Gilmour onto the session players slightly-lit for form behind. Can it last?Not really. A tiny transistor radio and more seeping dry ice introduce,
‘Wish You Were Here’.Enigmatically the radio is playing material from the new Peter Gabriel solo. Then into the Floyd flood, diamond backed muzak. The visuals take over again for the final climax. From this point the music is little more than a faint organised noise behind the mental volume of films and mirrors.Onscreen, a faceless, sexless figure falls through blue sky, and the sky cracks, the figure falls through emptiness, into endless corridors… all corny enough, but superbly put together. The adventures of this unfortunate wraith continue through ‘Wish You Were Here’, but even this is only preamble for the Killer Gimmick, the most expensive cheap trick ever.From the depths of centre stage rises… something. The finale is just beginning.
‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond Pt Two’.The… something is like a flower, right, a flower made of glass. I’m not quite sure what a lotus looks like but I guess it might look like this. Inspecting closer it looks like it’s made of lots of tiny pieces of glass. It is, of course, giant.So there I am thinking, well, it’s outsize, and unusual, and I guess it’ll deflate in a minute or something and go away when someone, simply points a spotlight at it.I suppose that made it all worthwhile. The spotlight separated into a million lightsplinters, shooting out and fluorescing at the crowd, like a massive laser bank, firing clear, defined shafts of light at all angles. The lights switch shades through the spectrum, the lotus rotates, speeding the light pulses, mesmerising and astonishing.It is beautiful.What music, what Empire Pool? Consciousness is totally absorbed by the extravaganza. The white… no, blue… no, red… no, green rays live and pulsate. A zillion ballroom spheres welded together and activated. It’s so…“That’s it. Good night. That’s it. Thank you very much.”The tone of a man whose got a tiresome job thankfully out of the way, Roger Waters brings the crowd back to earth.Still hypnotized by the crazy diamond, we clap, we stomp, we cheer, we work hard for more than five minutes and they return.
The encore is not, thankfully, ‘Echoes’, the encore is:‘Money’.Appropriate I guess, because that is precisely what this concert is about, and choosing ‘Money’ as an encore is half-acknowledging the fact. But it’s OK, a good down-the-line peaking number, immediate and hard. Lots of tapes, more hopeless vocals, class sax solo, another ace film.Then the cash register closes for the night and the lights are on.I heard two comments on the way out. ‘Brilliant’ said the businessman. ‘Incredible’ said the longhair.What are the Floyd about?I think…Look, I sat right down, waiting for the sound and vision.Something was wrong with my reception (or was it their transmission).All I got was the vision. The sound was somewhere else, imprinted on vinyl grooves, waiting for a stylus.I STILL don’t know about the Floyd. I suppose I was just looking in the wrong place.
In (early) 1970, the second ever vinyl bootleg of a Beatles performance was created when someone came into possession of a radio broadcast reel to reel on the east coast and produced the ‘Great White Wonder equivalent’ of a Beatles concert recording.
ALIVE AT LAST
Matrix: 1001 A / B
IN CONCERT AT WHISKEY FLAT
Ken & Dub got a hold of the east coast release and quickly copied it. They were not shy in announcing who the artist was in their version of the title stamp. As there was no clue on the recording which concert this was, they just made up a name and location in jest.
” … July 1970 – plain white label, colored vinyl, OPD 19 / OPD 67 matrix – copy of an East Coast bootleg”. [TMOQ wiki on the record collectors guild website (now sadly removed)]
As I have only seen this title with 1 / 2 labels and these weren’t introduced by (pre-)TMOQ until March/Spring 1971, I doubt the date given by the TMOQ wiki of July 1970.
Much later, the recording was identified as probably coming from a broadcast by Philadelphia radio station WIBG-AM (known as “Wibbage”) but positively identified as the 02 September 1964 concert at Philadelphia’s Convention Hall.
On the West coast, the team that ended up becoming Berkeley Records and were in their early days known as White Cover Folks (WCF) also issued their own version and the first one with a slip sheet (with an image brazenly copied from the fan club Beatles’ Christmas Album) in 1971.
LIVE CONCERT AT WISKEY FLATS
Matrix: 510-A-X / 510-B-X
Also exists with blank white labels and insert in different color shades (for example, red).
In the second half of 1972, Contraband then copied this release as CBM 3552 under a slightly changed title and brought it back to the East coast.
LIVE CONCERT ATLANTA
First editions (?) came with a unique ‘two-tone’ color design and wording – who are the Kyoto Klucks? – , unlike any other I have ever come across for CBM.
Without Contraband symbol.
Alternative labels found with this title:
2013091114570000
The label version copied by JL
In late 1975/early 1976, for a reissue on the King Kong sub-label, the folks at Contraband thought they knew the real location for this recording – someone may have pointed out that the Beatles did not play in Atlanta until 1965 – and in a rare move, they added a correction to the slip sheet (which was still incorrect):
LIVE CONCERT ATLANTA (which really is HOLLYWOOD BOWL SECOND SHOW)
Matrix: RI-3552 A/B
**
THE BEATLES LIVE (TPL 3032 A/B)
Another rare Japanese bootleg claiming to contain Atlanta material is this one. This was produced around 1975, based on the one other release found by this label (see below).
From the auction text: “BEATLES-LIVE (LP), JAPANESE PRESSING LP, INCLUDES 2 LIVE SHOW + BONUS, TPL-3032 SIDE A : LIVE IN ATLANTA”1. TWIST AND SHOUT2. YOU CAN’T DO THAT3. ALL MY LOVING4. SHE LOVES YOU5. THINGS WE SAID TODAY6. CAN’T BUY ME LOVE7. IF I FELL8. I WANT TO HOLD YOUR HAND9 BOYS
The other TPL release: The rarest Japanese Pink Floyd bootleg titled LIVE as well, matrix: TPL3003 A/B
Dated as a 1975 release on floydboots.com and containing five performances from their June 1971 Hakone appearance in excellent quality.
****
JL 522: The ROLLING STONES / The BEATLES – BATTLE
The matrix images can be found under the JL 512 entry.
JL 511 Pink Floyd Europe 74 JL 512 Beatles / Rolling Stones BATTLE JL 513 Paul McCartney James Paul McCartney 514 Beatles Live in Europe & US TV Casts JL 515 Beatles Live in Vancouver Canada
Then, Contraband wasted little time and copied this LP relatively shortly afterwards as:
This means that JL 511 was pressed in 1976 at the earliest.
****
JL 512 (as the matrices say) orJL 522 (according to the cover #) The BEATLES / ROLLING STONES – BATTLE
**
The original:
Released in 1971. An early example of a “hybrid bootleg”. The track list on the insert is incorrect. While the excellent sounding Rolling Stones tracks are just in the wrong order, the Beatles side underwent a complete change that must have come too late for the “Art Department”.
Side 1: Looking Tired (2:15 – (06 September, 1965 at RCA Studios-Hollywood, Los Angeles, CA) / Tell Me Baby (1:54) (11 June 1964 + all following tracks: At Chess Studios, Chicago, IL) / Down in The Bottom (2:43) / Stewed And Keefed (4:09) / Hi-Heel Sneakers (2:59)
The Vg quality Beatles side lists the songs performed on their 1965 Ed Sullivan Show appearance from the 14 August ’65 but is actually a partial copy of side one of the LAST LIVE SHOW LP, starting with “Twist And Shout”.
****
JL 513: PAUL McCARTNEY & WINGS – JAMES PAUL McCARTNEY
I had written previously in this post that this was a copy of the CBM version – I hope that this is really the case as the cover joins the TMOQ ‘smoking pig’ version from 1974 with the added CBM logo, and unless one listens to the actual JL version record, it is not confirmed (CBM simply copied TMOQ’s insert text, despite changing the track list).
THE AMAZING KORNYFONE LABEL 