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RoIO Review By Jacki Dimitroff May
1, 1977 Melancholy has a taste, a feel, a sound all its own. You cannot describe it, but you know it when it cloaks your mind and your memories. When melancholy comes to visit, you cannot reach beyond it, no matter how hard you try. But melancholy can be good company from time to time: a hard lesson learned, a memory that is beautiful yet painful to relive. Melancholy is a state of mind, yes; but it is also a state of art. If I may, let me take you away: it's May 1, 1977 in Fort Worth, Texas, and the Floyd are ready to play; but its also May 1, 1997 in Forth Worth, Texas as I remember a day: It's hard enough going through my brother's things, but there was one box in the attic that made me stop dead in the middle of my doings. It was so small I almost missed it, but there it was, tucked away so deep in the insulation it made your skin itch just looking at it. I pulled it out and there was only one thing written on the box: "through the fish-eyed lens of tear stained eyes." Whoa, that was better than "Do not open upon pain of death!" Amidst the love letters to girls and love poems from girls, I found two cassette tapes, simply labeled "one" and "two." What were these? They looked oddly familiar. I ran through the house and found a set of headphones and a portable player and headed back into the attic. As soon as I heard the first few seconds of tape one, I knew what I had found.
Back in 1977, my brother attended the Pink Floyd concert. Since I was too young to go at the time, he promised to bring me something back that I would always remember. Three days after the concert, sitting in my brother's hospital room, I remember his friend bringing these tapes. It was a live recording of the show, just for me. My brother's friend also brought a tape player, and the three of us sat around the room reveling in the music and discussing the politics. Going through my brother's things in the attic, the moments came swirling back: The crowd roars as the first hard notes of the bass and the first gentle notes of the organ begin "Sheep." My brother and his friend try to tell me what it was like at the concert, but the words are lost to me as I drift slowly into the submission of the song, waiting for that indulgently satisfying moment of anger. As I listen, with eyes closed, Roger sets me up with words and David sets me up with music, and I can't wait for the culmination: the 23rd Psalm parody. But I can't hear it! My eyes pop open in question, but my brother and his friend have no answers. They heard it, and it was great. I put my ear to the little speaker of the tape player, and I get a hint of it; yes it was there, but I am still disappointed.
The three of us sit in my brother's hospital room, and listen to "Pigs on the Wings, Part 1." There's a look of understanding between us that goes beyond the room and beyond my years. The song is short, sweet and definitely makes a connection to relationships big and small. And there I am at 14 listening to The Floyd telling me that I am he and he is me, but I sit in the attic--at 34--watching for Pigs on the Wing.
As "Dogs" opens, my brother and his friend prattle on about earlier versions of this song in prior concerts. I quiet them as I listen to the first guitar solo, which melts with pure emotion. The crowd in this recording is relatively silent until the first solo, but then there's a small eruption of applause. "Everyone was transfixed on that single guitar," my brother tells me. I'm still pretty amazed at how a live performance matches the studio version so closely, even if it's out of order. As the first guitar solo continues I ask myself: which came first, Gilmour or the guitar? The vocals have that feel of impending doom, just as I fell in love with on the official release. My brother smiles from his hospital bed, and his friend nods in quiet agreement. David does something unique with the second guitar solo, and I can picture him stepping forward on the stage, showing all the air-guitarists how it's done. As the final couplets play, I listen to my brother and his friend tell me how alive the band appeared, with Roger attacking the lyrics and David attacking his guitar and his harmonies. 'You MUST listen to me,' they seemed to cry, like the guy with the sandwich board who has the phrase "John 3:16" spray-painted on it. I am laying next to my brother in his hospital bed as the first notes of "Pigs on the Wing, Part 2" play. The gifts we give each other are our true selves, lest we be dog-fodder. A nice impromptu guitar solo sends that message home. I hear pigs grunting, is it three different ones? The organ's melody sends a kaleidoscope of sound and meaning through my brother's hospital room. Are the Pigs three of we or three of they? This performance surprises me because the harmonies are a bit off-key, but they are right on target. The emotion grips me well before the powerful first "Ha-ha! Charade you are." For the first time in my life, I actually picture Gilmour, strumming, picking, attacking his strings. The guitar is truly the stand out so far, but the keyboards come in as a close second. I open my eyes at the end of this song and find all three of us playing the air guitar. Back in my attic slot, I was playing the air organ. The band breaks after the Animals set and rejoins the crowd with "Shine on You Crazy Diamond, Parts 1-5." As the first notes of "Syd's Theme" ring out, I sit in the attic and recall a day when my brother showed me how to play these on the electric guitar. It is one thing to hear those notes, and truly another thing to actually play them. Its like the music itself reaches down your throat, grabs your heart, and makes it beat differently. But that's the extent of my guitar repertoire. Up here in the attic, with 20 years or so to ponder, I realize how much I missed in this song, such as Nick Mason's drums. But I remember what draws me to it most now, and what drew it to me most that day in my brother's hospital room: the keyboards. I find the French horn to be a beautiful instrument, second in glorious sound only to the cello. It is a perfect choice of instrumental sound for regret, remorse, remembrance--melancholy. Roger wails out his lyrics like he understands them better now than when he wrote them. The conclusion builds around Gilmour's guitar and then fades away with Gilmour's guitar. Just as your anticipation builds as the journey begins, and your eagerness fades as the journey ends, fades away in remembrance and melancholy. As "Welcome to the Machine" plays, the three of us sit on my brother's hospital bed and sing along, not missing a beat, because this live version is very close to the studio recording. Almost on cue, a nurse enters to remind us that visiting hours will be ending shortly. Like a Greek Chorus, we reply in tune with the song: "so welcome, welcome, welcome to the machine." Once the nurse is gone, my brother's friend lights a smoke and prances about the room with the music. He's so Vinnie Barbarino. They try to describe the concert atmosphere to me again, but I am lost in the sounds of the guitar. "Have a Cigar" phones in with all the crassness and brassiness of the studio version. I sing along with my brother and his friend, but I have a hard time connecting with this song. Sure I can understand the disillusionment of fame, but I cannot accept the "hand" of Pink Floyd as they try to take me on this journey. I was hoping for some insight in a live rendition, but here too, I am disappointed. With many years between, I sit up in the attic, and I feel exactly the same way. As I sit amongst the dust and dragons of my past, I listen to the next tune starting, and I know what it is and what I'm in for, unlike the memories I first had listening to this. The distant acoustic guitar takes me faraway in today's time, but it couldn't take me anywhere in my youth. No, it took the second acoustic, played on electric for this performance, to really mean anything to me. The lyrics are the same, but the meaning changes across the years. Running barefoot through the dew-laden grass on a Saturday morning, squirt-gun fights with my brother that always ended with a cry of "uncle," and finally getting it right so you kicked the snot out of him in Monopoly. The music makes me feel the same way I did when my brother would grab hold of one arm and one leg and swing me 'round and 'round yelling "airplane!" Wish you were here. You'd think the bass intro to "Shine on you Crazy Diamond, Parts 6-9" would've brought me out of my reverie, but it didn't. Ever been depressed? Ever wonder where your life would be if you took that other path? Ever wonder if the people you had early in your life hadn't been there then, or weren't there now? Imagine every moment of melancholy in your life and it's here. And then it ends with a few final notes when every last regret in your life shines through the cracks in the attic ceiling. But the beauty of Wright's final piano segment cannot be ignored. I felt it in my brother's hospital room and I feel it now, 20 years later--it's like floating on a pillow of notes, each one placed carefully to help me ride the tide of my own emotion. If there was a single song to help me wash away the business of the day, this would be it. It doesn't strike me as any surprise that "Money" is the first encore. A mega-hit for the band, but a remembrance of an album entrenched in lunacy. I feel like the lunatic on the grass, sitting in an attic listening to a relic of my life. As I listen to this live version, however, I realize it takes on the melancholy tone of the entire concert, as though it's an integral part instead of just an encore. The next song, the final encore, is called "Us and Them," but it feels like "Me, me, me and you, you, you." Remember the years that built the bond, which can never be forsaken. Remember when it was the two of us against the world, but the world somehow sneaked in anyway. The days of Monopoly games are over; the times I snuggled you during a scary episode of Twilight Zone are over, the days I nursed you in your hospital bed are over. It is just me now, here in the attic, with the music you left behind for me to find. I look at the lyrics my brother wrote on the box, and I finish the thought aloud to the attic dust: "I can barely define the shape of this moment in time."
"HEY," my brother's familiar voice cries out from the stairs at the bottom of the attic, "are you done up there yet?" I smile at his voice, his friendship and his being. "Hey," I yell back, "you'll never guess what I just found!"
Jacki Dimitroff is a guest contributor to Spare Bricks. Her account of the 1977 concert is fiction. The Camera Eye by Richard Mahon NOTE: The following concert videos are being graded as a guide to documenting the live performance history of Pink Floyd and Roger Waters. Past video reviews are posted at the following site - http://members.xoom.com/RichM66/sbarchive.htm
Pink
Floyd This video is shot from the floor. The picture is faded, grainy, and out of focus. There are times when the screen goes completely black. Unfortunately, this is the standard for 8mm film shot during the 1970s. In the end, this is one of only two clips that make up all of the available video footage to document the 1977 Animals tour. Some watchable footage includes Snowy White's guitar solo during "Have A Cigar." You can make out Gilmour playing a Telecaster during "Dogs" and Waters playing a Stratocaster during "Pigs (Three Different Ones.)" Of the various 8mm films of Pink Floyd that were filmed during the 70s, this is the only available film that features sound. The video saves its best shots for last as there are a nice series of close ups of Gilmour during his guitar solo for Money to close the video. I grade this video "C-" and the audio "VG."
Pink
Floyd This video is also shot from the floor but it isn't quite as dark as the Vienna film. This footage does a better job of staying in focus, which in turn provides better use of some of the stage set up and props. This makes for some nice shots when the view is unobstructed and focused. For example, there is a nice shot of the flying pig bursting into flames. The disadvantage is that this is a silent 8mm film with sound dubbed from an audience recording. These dubbed films never seem to be in synch. This is a common trait among older 8mm films. The camera is unstable when the camera operator zooms in. Other highlights include pyrotechnics on the sides of the stage and the unusual upside down umbrella shaped weather shields that cover the band. The camera pans between Gilmour and Waters for the duration of this footage. Though it is difficult to see, the Gerald Scarfe footage of the leaf that appears in "The Trial" can be seen on the projection screen for a few seconds. I grade this video "C+" and the audio "VG."
Richard Mahon is a staff writer for Spare Bricks Web Review By Maglor
Overall the amount of useful information found here overcomes the site's most serious defects, like the lack of elegancy (not very pleasing to the eye, despite some animated gifs) and structure. Rating: 7 piglets (out of ten) Maglor is a staff writer for Spare Bricks. Is There Anybody Out There? The Spare Bricks Retro-review By Rick Karhu
• • • The good news up-front: Is There Anybody Out There? is a great album and it's long overdue. After years of suffering through even the best quality bootleg recordings of The Wall shows, it's nice to finally have something with audio quality that can be tolerated. Even detractors of Pink Floyd will acknowledge that the legendary performances of The Wall were important events in the history of rock-n-roll. That no documentation of such a monumental show has ever before been officially available almost seems like a crime. But it's finally here and it was well worth the wait. All albums have strengths and weaknesses, and fortunately, the strengths far outweight the weaknesses on Is There Anybody Out There? What's most striking is the contrast between the studio album of The Wall and the new live release. Where one fails, the other suceeds, and vice-versa. Where the studio album suffered from a lack of Rick Wright's distinctive keyboards, the live album absolutely overflows with them. Where the studio album could at times lack the sort of energy that previous Floyd albums had, the live version of The Wall kicks things up a notch and keeps driving hard and with conviction throughout. It's easy to believe that the band was not always fired up when recording the studio version of The Wall, but their delivery and passion is wholehearted and unrelenting on Is There Anybody Out There? Especially noteworthy is the bass playing. And again the contrast is evident. On the album the bass is low-key and does little more than keep time, but on the live version, it steals the show on more than one track. (Check out "Young Lust" for a prime example!) On the other hand, the studio album still surpasses the live version on at least one issue: consistent sound quality. While it's obvious from the first listen that the sound quality of Is There Anybody Out There? is excellent and was handled expertly (as usual) by sound engineer James Guthrie, there are a few puzzling gaffes that cannot go by without mention. The worst is the persistent hiss evident on the vocal track of "Nobody Home". The hiss is audible enough to make the song near-impossible (for me at least) to tolerate. Die-hard audiophiles will doubtlessly develop a habit of skipping it which is a pity since the performance is excellent. There are a few other moments where tape hiss is evident and one really annoying edit during the intro to "Another Brick In The Wall, Part 1". Overall, the sound quality of Is There Anybody Out There? is superb, but parts of the album do not live up to Floyd standards. The bumpy sound quality, fortunately, doesn't ruin the album. The studio album also wins hands-down when it comes to overall atmosphere, something with which a live show simply cannot compete. The atmosphere of the studio version has always been one of Pink Floyd's most stunning achievements; those barely audible voices, the well-placed sound effects, the often creepy and detached drone of the television. It's not suprising the live version doesn't match that. Nothing else, Floyd or otherwise, ever has. I will admit having mixed feelings about the inclusion of "Last Few Bricks" (one of the "unreleased songs" touted in the promotion of Is There Anybody Out There?). As with the rest of the album, it's nice to finally have an official release of this piece. However, when placed alongside other achievements in the band's career, it is ultimately a forgettable hodgepodge of tidbits from The Wall. It sounds like what it is--filler. (A variation of the song was played before the end of the first half of each performance to allow the wall builders on stage to catch up in the event they were not on cue.) As far as unreleased material goes, the offerings on Is There Anybody Out There? are unremarkable (and I only bring this up because it was made a selling point in promoting the album). I would gladly have traded "Last Few Bricks" for the studio version of "What Shall We Do Now?" which exists in an official form here, on Roger Waters' Live In Berlin album, and on the film of The Wall (albeit in a truncated form intruded upon by the movie's own sound effects). Of course, none of those are official album releases of the studio version. It's a minor gripe, but a legitimate one. How about "When The Tigers Broke Free"? The inclusion of a third CD with some of these stray tracks would have been a wonderful addition. (Maybe it could have been a second attempt at the long-lost film soundtrack. Oh, well. I suppose I shouldn't review what could have been, although it's fair enough to point out that this would have been a great opportunity to do this.) So where does Is There Anybody Out There? fit into the Floyd catalog? In my opinion, it rates fairly high. In terms of live albums, it's far better than The Delicate Sound of Thunder and probably has an edge on Pulse as well, although it doesn't match the energy of Live At Pompeii. Not only does it deserve a great deal of attention for its importance in respect to the history of Pink Floyd, but it deserves serious attention from those interested in the history of rock-n-roll. Sadly, from that perspective, the silly decision was made to severely shorten Gary Yudman's faux speech to the audience. Whereas bootlegs exist that document the latter portion of the speech (where Yudman points out that people not observing the rules will be shot) and prove how entertaining and engaging this bit of the show was, the official release gives this part of the show less time than it deserves. But most of these gripes are minor. Is There Anybody Out There? is a long-overdue document of the most spectacular marriage of rock music and theater. The magic at those shows was captured and preserved. That's the best any Pink Floyd fan can hope for and it ensures that the album will join other timeless classics in the Pink Floyd collection. Rick Karhu is editor of Spare Bricks
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So
I wait until the next best moment: the great guitar finish. Empowerment!
How can you not listen to those notes and not want to take on the world?
Many years ago, my brother locked me in a closet and told me to figure
out how to tie my own damn shoes, and he wasn't letting me out until
I did. Gilmour's guitar finish to "Sheep" resonates with the same joy
I felt in my heart when I banged on the damn closet door and told my
damn brother I had tied my own damn laces, no thanks to him or the rest
of the damn world. 
Editor's
Note: The concept of reviewing any Pink Floyd release in
Spare Bricks seems a bit pointless as a majority of the readers
will have no doubt already purchased any given release, listened to
it endlessly and developed opinions too strong to be swayed by any mere
review. Certainly, few Floyd fans are going to make a purchase decision
based on any review. Since this is the first official Pink Floyd release
since Spare Bricks has gone online, we're going to start a tradition
of reviewing new releases at least a full month after they are released
and frame the review in a less traditional way--we're dubbing it the
Spare Bricks Retro-Review. In a retro-review, we will attempt to examine
how any new release fits into the overall scheme of Pink Floyd's history,
where it ranks relative to other Floyd albums and whether it's a worthy
(or worthless) addition to the Pink Floyd catalog.