Tag: 1970

Pink Floyd – Rome, Italy (03/xx/70) – Zabriskie Point Sessions

Pink Floyd
Zabriskie Point

01. Heart Beat, Pig Meat
02. Country Song
03. Fingalís Cave
04. Crumbling Land
05. Alanís Blues
06. Oenone
07. Rain in the Country
08. Come In Number 51, Your Time Is Up
09. The Violent Sequence
10. Country Song Theme (band)
11. Country Song Theme (acoustic)
12. Take Off (version II)
13. Love Scene 1 (organ & guitar)
14. Love Scene 3 (band)
15. Love Scene 4 (piano & vibes)
16. Love Scene 5 (double vibes)

The History
In the summer of 1969 Michelangelo Antonioni completed the filming of his visionary and prophetic view of America and our society. All that was left was to complete the movie with a good soundtrack. Antonioni was interested in everything that was new and trendy among young people. Don Hall was on the air during his nocturnal DJ program on KPPC FM Pasadena when he was contacted personally by Antonioni at the end of the summer of 1969. Antonioni really liked Don and invited him to have some screenings of the movie. After that Don provided a list of songs he felt would work, most coming from his program. Antonioni asked MGM to hire Don as Music Advisor for the soundtrack and came back to Roma (Don still has a letter from Antonioni, sent from Rome with the list of the songs he’d like to be in the movie, all songs for the radio-desert sequences).

Still they had to find how to score all the main sequences: Beginning, Violent, Take Off, Love and Explosions sequences (and eventually more). Antonioni wanted original music for those sequences. Many artists and bands were contacted to write original music for the movie, but none of them was asked to write the whole soundtrack of the movie.

In October ’69 Don was in Rome with Antonioni trying to find a way to score the whole movie in time for Christmas. Near the end of the month it happened that Clare Peploe (cowriter of the movie and Antonioni’s girlfriend at the time) brought to Rome a brand new copy of the new Pink Floyd album, Ummagumma, from London. Antonioni, Don Hall and Clare listened to the new album with a small stereo at Antonioni’s house in Rome. Antonioni REALLY liked Ummagumma and listened several times to the whole album. He liked ìCareful With That Axe, Eugeneî very much and told Don that he’d like a new version for the final sequence of Zabriskie Point. They decided to try and hire Pink Floyd to record all the original music they needed for the movie. MGM contacted Pink Floyd. After that Steve O’Rourke came to Rome alone during the first days of November ’69 to check and organize it all. All was done in few days, and Pink Floyd came on the 15th of November with Pete Watts and Alan Stiles, cancelling some shows planned for their present tour. Antonioni and Don showed the movie to them several times with some scenes already scored, highlighting those without. At that point Steve and Roger Waters had a talk and asked Antonioni to try to score the whole movie. He, been enthusiastic about Ummagumma, agreed.

Pink Floyd produced a large quantity of music, especially for the Love Scene but Antonioni was not satisfied and the sessions ran longer than planned. In the end Pink Floyd went back to London with some songs to finish. Out of all the entire production of songs, including themes and variations, Antonioni ended up using only three songs. He kept on searching for “something better” till the last days before the premiere of the movie. In London Pink Floyd completed their final versions of eight songs with the intent of them being their eventual album for the Zabriskie Point soundtrack.

Pink Floyd – Hannover, Germany (03/15/70)

Pink Floyd
15 March, 1970
Niedersachsenhalle
Hannover, West Germany

Disc One:
1. Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun 11:46
2. Careful With That Axe, Eugene 8:17
3. Cymbaline 9:16
4. A Saucerful Of Secrets 14:28
Total: 43:47

Disc Two:
1. Embryo 9:18
2. Interstellar Overdrive 13:57
3. Consequently (Atom Heart Mother) 19:16
Total: 42:31
Grand Total: 86:18

Pink Floyd – Paris, France (01/23/70)

PINK FLOYD
January 23, 1970
ThÈatre Des Champs-ElysÈes
Paris, France

THE SET-LIST :

  1. Daybreak (aka Grantchester Meadows) [7:18]
  2. Work [4:37]
  3. Tea Time (with band introduction by french radio host) [2:14]
  4. Afternoon (aka Biding My Time) [6:12]
  5. Doing It [0:37]
  6. A Saucerful Of Secrets (end only) [3:12]
  7. Green Is The Colour [3:07]
  8. Careful With That Axe, Eugene (beginning only) [2:32]
  9. Main Theme from “More” (beginning missing) [3:59]
  10. Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun [12:16]
  11. The Amazing Pudding (aka Atom Heart Mother) (end missing) [14:55]

Pink Floyd – Birmingham, England (02/11/70)

PINK FLOYD
BIRMINGHAM TOWN HALL
Birmingham, England
2/11/70

01 [11:55] The Embryo
02 [11:28] Main Theme from More
03 [00:49] Tuning
04 [10:09] Careful With That Axe, Eugene
05 [11:57] Sysyphus
06 [05:45] Heart Beat, Pig Meat
07 [06:24] Quicksilver
08 [04:21] Moonhead
09 [08:02] The Violent Sequence
10 [13:32] Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun
11 [22:57] The Amazing Pudding

|| [107:24] Total Time

Pink Floyd – Nuremberg, Germany (03/14/70)

Pink Floyd
1970-03-14
Meistersinger Halle
Nuremburg,
West Germany

CD1

  1. Astronomy Domine – 9:42
  2. Careful with that Axe, Eugene – 10:12
  3. Cymbaline – 10:09
  4. A Saucerful of Secrets (cut) – 14:52

Total: 44:56

CD2

  1. Atom Heart Mother – 20:10
  2. The Embryo – 9:29
  3. Interstellar Overdrive – 14:20
  4. Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun – 12:07

Total: 56:07

TOT LENGTH: 101.03

Pink Floyd – Zabriskie Point Live

PInk Floyd
Zabriskie Point Live

Creating the definitive Collection of Pink Floyd’s Zabriskie Point Material always meant to me to add the 3 known live performances from Jan/Feb 1970. As most of us know, the quality of most of these recordings is extremely brutal. Although I think that these recordings from Fairfield Hall, Croydon 1970-01-18 Theatre de Champs-Elysees a Paris, 1970-01-23 and Town Hall, Birmingham, 1970-02-11 never sounded better, they are still an addition for the sake of completeness.

What we have here are live performances of Heart Beat, Pig Meat, The Violent Sequence, Variations of Oenone, Moonhead and fragments of Rain in the Country, now rearranged in the Floyd’s then brand new work-in-progress The Amazing Pudding, which during the following year’s road work became the title track of their 1970 studio effort Atom Heart Mother.

The Remaster:
The tracks were all -one more, one less- denoised. Nowadays Noise Reduction is possible with almost no to no NR artifacts at all, which these recordings clearly benefit from.

Static Hum was removed on all tracks.

The Croydon and Birmingham recordings have almost no high-end. By means of harmonic synthesis a kind of artificial high-end was added. This might sound a little „robotic“ at times, but it makes the songs far more listenable.

But in the end you can’t change shit into marmelade…

Paris is a bit better. Sourced from the 1995 FM rebroadcast it is the most enjoyable portion of this collection. This is why I added TAP from this date instead of the 2 others, which have that track available as well. Only the beginning of TVS had to be patch with the AM broadcast.

In the end one can only say that it is a shame that no better recordings of these dates exist as they absolutely were the climax of early Pink Floyd’s most creative period. Let’s close and pray for a soundboard to surface one day while diving down into some of the most mystic moments of Pink Floyd on stage…

Tracklist:

Croydon, 1970-01-18
01 Heart Beat Pig Meat
02 The Violent Sequence

Paris, 1970-01-23
03 The Violent Sequence
04 The Amazing Pudding

Birmingham, 1970-02-11
05 Heart Beat Pig Meat
06 Oenone
07 Moonhead
08 The Violent Sequence