The Last Ever Show?

London, England - October 29, 1994

by Gerhard den Hollander and Philippe van Roy

Gerhard: What better show to review for the "Is Pink Floyd dead?" issue than what is very likely the last Pink Floyd show ever?

Philippe: Of course, one could always debate what the last Pink Floyd show was exactly. Was it the last show with Syd in 1968? The last show with Roger in 1981? Or even the last one from the 1977 tour (reviewed in a previous issue of Spare Bricks) since it could be argued that the Wall shows were more rock operas than 'real' concerts.

Gerhard: And we'll ignore the rendition of "Wish You Were Here" with Billy Corgan (and Rick and Dave) at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction. ;)

Philippe: One could even claim that Roger's shows in Wembley where Nick Mason joined him were the last Floyd shows.

A whole separate column could be devoted to this subject, but to keep it simple we'll stick with the last official Pink Floyd show (by name) on October 29, in Earls Court.

The Floyd's final show has been bootlegged under a variety of titles, with a variety of interesting cover art.

Gerhard: This has been released (sort of) as a RoIO entitled The Last Ever Show? (note the question mark) and as part of the Complete Earls Court RoIO set.

Philippe: Apparently Free Range Pigs are on the verge of releasing this show in the very near future. It's even possible they have done so by the time you read this. Unfortunately for us this wasn't available to us by the time of publication, so we'll have to manage with this mediocre tape recording we have of it.

Gerhard: The last show of a Pink Floyd tour usually is something special. Consider the November 20, 1971 show, which had a 30-minute "Embryo", or the last Animals show with the unplanned extended blues jam as extra encore. The 1975 Knebworth show featured a Spitfire fly-by and Roy Harper guesting on "Have A Cigar". Even Waters on his solo tours did some extras on his final gigs, such as Clare Torry guesting on "The Great Gig in the Sky" at the end of his KAOS shows, and Nick Mason sitting in on "Set The Controls" at the end of his In The Flesh World Tour.

Philippe: Not to mention the worldwide TV broadcast of Pink Floyd's Venice show in 1989.

Gerhard: With that thought in the back of my mind, I am a bit disappointed by this show, as there wasn't that much special about it. Of course, one can argue that a 14-night series of shows, which included some special guests (Douglas Adams) and could have included Roger Waters (who declinded), is a special ending. And of course, not all Floyd tours went out with a bang.

Philippe: I agree. I was expecting a fantastic performance, but it turns out it's nothing special. I have a dozen or so RoIOs of the 1994 tour and at least half of them are far better than this one.

Gerhard: So what do we have here?

It's an average sounding recording (for the 1994 series) of an average performance. The two Giants Stadium shows, which were the second and third performances of Dark Side, are probably my favorites; there is a very clear, back-of-the-hall audience recording from the first Giants Stadium show (July 17) in circulation which is probably my favorite recording from the 1994 tour).

Philippe: Yeah, that one is indeed great. My other favorites are the June 11 show at Yankees Stadium in New York (The Bell Gets Louder), July 30 in Paris (Bells From Notre Dame), and September 11 in Lyon (France 1994--apparently the longest show of the tour).

This one, on the other hand does virtually nothing for me: the sound quality is very dull and there is no real 'live' feel to it. Where is that great 'live' atmosphere?

Anyway, on with the track list. We won't elaborate too much on these, because everyone already has these (except "Take It Back") on their copy of PULSE. In fact, the video release has the exact same setlist.

"Shine On You Crazy Diamond" (parts I-V)

Gerhard: The tour opener. Not really a shocking performance. A crowd favorite, and a good way to start off a show, as it introduces the three Floyds pretty much one-by-one (the opening organ drone by Rick, the Syd theme by Dave, and Nick's drumming).

Philippe: A solid performance, but nothing special (this could be said of almost all of this show), except the surprise addition of part seven right after the end after the sax solo, which is very nicely done and was only played in the last month of the tour.

"Learning To Fly"

Gerhard: "Learning To Fly" introduces the rest of the band, as this is more or less the backing band song. The drums are clearly being banged by Gary Wallis, Jon Carin pounces the keys, and the guitar solo is nicely being handled by Tim Renwick.

Philippe: The solo by Renwick and Wallis' drumming in the middle part are some of the only special things on this whole show.

"High Hopes"

Gerhard: The end of this song is my second favorite moment of the first set ("One of These Days" being the best part). The beginning of it is standard, but it's the end of the song, when Dave settles himself behind the steel guitar, and proves why he still is one of the best guitarists in the world.

Philippe: Absolutely. The rest of the song is also very nice, but pales to this majestic solo. But that was brilliant on almost every show of the tour, so once again nothing exceptional here.

"Take It Back"

Gerhard: Yes, indeed, please. The moment during the 1994 concert I went to the bar for a beer refill. And I clearly wasn't the only one.

Philippe: But then you would have missed that excellent accompanying light show! But I guess reviews of that belong in the previous issue! Maybe it can be said that the weaker songs on this tours were disguised by a spectacular lights display. Anyway, you're right: this is a very weak song. Beside the intro and slowly rising middle part this is a trite pop song. And that kind doesn't belong in the Floyd catalogue.

"Coming Back To Life"

Gerhard: In fact, it was so crowded at the bar, that I was not back until halfway through this song. And I don't think I missed anything...

Philippe: Here I have to disagree. This is a very emotional song, only marred by the rigid drum rhythm starting in the second half. Still, I prefer Gilmour's acoustic version from 2001-02 (as seen on his In Concert DVD).

"Sorrow"

Gerhard: Brilliant opening, but the rest of the song doesn't do much for me.

Philippe: Once again I have to disagree: the ending verses and extremely long last solo are highlights for me. But the best solo of this can be found on the June 11, 1994 show.

"Keep Talking"

Gerhard: The extended talkbox solo is another highlight of this set.

Philippe: Absolutely. Unfortunately the rest of this performance is very weak: Stephen Hawking's spoken bits are barely audible, and the synth solo in the middle must be one of the one of the dullest on the entire tour.

"Another Brick In The Wall" - part 2

Gerhard: Helicopter sounds... yup We don't need know education.

Philippe: I will gladly go to any Floyd related show that doesn't have this overplayed 'hit single' on it. Maybe that's one of the reasons why I liked Dave's shows in 2001-02 so much.

Right, now that the casual fans have gotten their money's worth, can we get on with the real show, please?

"One Of These Days"

Gerhard: The highlight of the first set. The psychedelic Rick Wright section in the middle... delicious.

Philippe: And still, there are far better versions of this song out there. I wonder what was wrong with them this night. Maybe they were too much looking forward to the end of the grueling tour after three weeks of almost non-stop playing in Earls Court, and not that interested in going out with a bang?

Gerhard: Or maybe they were just tired ...

Dark Side Of The Moon

Gerhard: And speaking of tired: The Dark Side of the Moon performance we got here is more or less the same as on PULSE. There are some differences, but it's not that shocking.

Philippe: Yes, there's no real need to review most of this since most of you already know it from PULSE. If you don't, why are you here? Please go buy all the official releases before you start collecting RoIOs. :-)

Gerhard: "Any Colour You Like" is better than usual, though.

Philippe: That would indeed be about the only thing on this entire recording that stands out from other performances...

Gerhard: And Dave's comments at the end are different. "See you soon," he says. Yeah, right Dave. It's been nine years since then... well except for Philippe, who saw Dave's solo tour.

Philippe: If you could call four gigs in London and two in Paris a tour.

"Wish You Were Here"

Philippe: This is about as standard as can be. It does sound as if the audience is singing along louder than usual on the last verse, or is that just my imagination?

"Comfortably Numb"

Philippe: Usually the end solo would be another highlight and here it does sound very nice most of the time, but Dave ruins it in the end when he can't really manage to get the sound on his guitar right for the climax.

"Run Like Hell"

Gerhard: A nice way to close of the show. The teaser at the beginning (where Dave plays the opening riff, the lasers flash, and then nothing happens) was a nice gimmick, especially if you were watching in the

stadium. Dave did it three or four times (with 20-30 seconds intervals) when I saw him live.

Philippe: Yes, these intros were always very nice, and fortunately here it is something special: the last two melodies he plays here are the opening of "We'll Meet Again" by Vera Lynn (also heard on the PULSE video, but here it's longer), followed by a riff from the intro of Gilmour's solo song "Short And Sweet". The outro also seems even longer than usual. Which is only fitting.

But it can't manage to save this show's status from being anything better than just plain ordinary. Too bad.

Gerhard: And yes, dear readers, this review dies down on a bit of a low note, and without much ado. But then again, so did this show.

I'd say skip this RoIO, and get the PULSE video (or the soon-to-be-released DVD) and rip the audio of that, and listen to that. Or even better, get the first Giants Stadium show, and listen to that one instead.

Philippe: And I would also once again like to recommend the RoIOs I mentioned above. I'm sure a lot of you can come up with a lot of other personal favorites because there were quite a few excellent shows on this tour, but this doesn't seem to be one of them.

But before we slag off this RoIO completely we would like to postpone our final judgment until we've heard the upcoming release of this by Free Range Pigs. It's possible that that will sound a lot better, but unlikely. We'll let you know in a next edition of this review column.

Gerhard den Hollander and Philippe van Roy are staff writers for Spare Bricks.