Thursday, May 05, 2011

Pink Floyd 1967 Happening: More reports/reviews

A short article from the newspaper Hallands Nyheter (in Swedish).
Here's a translated excerpt:

Last Tuesday a couple hundred people relived the gig at the Golden Circle. With custom-made Pink Floyd-dolls on stage the tape was played on the same Revox used 1967. "Matilda Mother", "Astronomy dominant, " "See Emily Play", and others, was met with great excitement in the crowded club and we did indeed hear the "Set the Controls for the heart of the sun" that the band had not recorded in the studio at that time.

Although the vocals are almost inaudible, it's fascinating to hear the dynamics of the band at one of the last live shows in which Barrett is still capable of playing guitar.

- I was in London in January and met with representatives of Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett's heirs and played them select parts. They tried to stop the shoe here in Stockholm but we checked with the lawyers that it was okay to play known songs. However, we removed one seven minute jam that has no real title, " says Anders Lind.

- They were at least surprised that the recording existed. My hope is that they want to publish it in some way and there has been talk of doing it in the context of a re-release of "Piper at the Gates of Dawn". If they release it, fine. If not I can give the tape to my children...


Svenska Dagblandet's Dan Backman reviews Roger Water's The Wall show in Stockholm as well as the Pink Floyd Happening (in Swedish).
A translated excerpt:

The day before The Wall spectacle some kind of rock history geekiness record was set when a tape recording of Pink Floyd's first Swedish concert, 10 September 1967, was played on exactly the same tape recorder, a Revox G36, and in exactly the same room, the Golden Circle on Sveavägen.

Adding to the geekiness were four modified mannequins depicting Pink Floyd, but it all disappeared the minute recording engineer Anders Lind for the first time in rock history started playing the tape to the audience. The music's raw and almost distorted psychedelic force took over and showed what an innovative improvisational band young Pink Floyd was.

If you didn't know better you'd classify the sometimes free-form monotonous music as krautrock rather than British psychedelia. That Pink Floyd and the people around them have shown great interest to release the recordings is understandable.

The evening was crowned by the Lost In Rick Wright's Wardrobe performing covers of Pink Floyd songs from the years 1965 to 1968. The young group, with three women and three men, did it with such charm and personality that immediately passed P-Floyd and the country's other oldster heavy Pink Floyd cover bands.

Female vocalists and instruments like mellotron and flute lifted the songs Cymbaline and Careful with That Axe, Eugene to strange new heights. The group is too good to just dig in material from the 1960 - and 70's. I look forward to hearing their own material.
Here's a few pictures from event organizer Mellotronen's blog.

And finally there's a thread discussing the show and the recording here on yeeshkul.com.

Radio Dupree will be there for the second and final show this Saturday. Expect a full report Sunday.

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