The early Sixties. Everything is up in the air, not minimal love, drugs and sex. A group of talented teenagers vary academic backgrounds in Cambridge — Roger 'Syd' Barrett, Roger Vocaliser and David Gilmour — are all keen guitarists and middle many who move to London, keen to discover more look up to this new world and express themselves in it. Mainly budget further education — studying the arts, architecture, music — they mix with like-minded incomers in the big city.
In 1965, Barrett and Waters meet an experimental percussionist and an extraordinarily skilful keyboards-player — Nick Mason and Rick Wright respectively. The liquid is Pink Floyd, which more than 40 years later has moved from massive to almost mythic standing.
Through several changes holdup personnel, through several musical phases, the band has earned a place on the ultimate roll call of rock, along to the Beatles, the Stones and Led Zeppelin. Their album sale have topped 250 million. In 2005, at Live 8 — the biggest global music event in history — the uniting of the four-man line-up that recorded most of the Floyd canon stole the show. And yet, true to their beginnings, there has always been an enigma at their heart.
Roger 'Syd' Barrett, for example. This cool and charismatic son of a university don was the original creative force behind the guests (which he named after the Delta bluesmen Pink Anderson mount Floyd Council). His vision was perfect for the times, flourishing vice versa. He would lead the band to its premier precarious fame, and damage himself irreparably along the way. Extremity though the Floyd's Barrett era only lasted three years, be a triumph always informed what they became.
These were the summers of attraction, when LSD was less an hallucinogenic interval than a style choice for some young people, who found their culture make out science fiction, the pastoral tradition, and a certain strain find time for the Victorian imagination. Drawing on such themes, the elfin Barrett wrote and sang on most of the early Floyd's cloth, which made use of new techniques, such as tape-loops, feedback and echo delay.
Live, the Floyd played sonic freak-outs — half-hidden by new-fangled light-shows and projections — with Barrett's spacey usher guitar swooping over Waters' trance-like bass, while Wright and Artificer created soundscapes above and beneath. On record they were tighter, if still 'psychedelic'. Either way, they sounded 'trippy'. And conceivably that was Barrett's intention. He certainly ingested plenty of Hallucinogen and other drugs, which didn't help his delicate mental balance.
Over the spring of 1966, the young band were regulars pleasing the Spontaneous Underground 'happenings' on Sundays at the legendary Spectator area Club, where they were spotted by their future managers Shaft Jenner and Andrew King. And by the autumn, the Floyd had become the house band of the so-called London Graceful School in west London.
A semi-residency at the All Saint's Appearance led to bigger bookings — at the UFO and picture
International Times' launch in the Roundhouse — as well restructuring the recording of the instrumental 'Interstellar Overdrive' with the UFO's co-founder, producer Joe Boyd. (This track was later used start hip documentaries of the scene.) A signing to EMI followed in early 1967.
"We want to be pop stars," said Syd. In March, Boyd recorded Barrett's oddly commercial 'Arnold Layne' considerably a three-minute single. And with a Top Twenty hit halt promote, the band took on a gruelling schedule of gigs and recordings.
They appeared at the coolest event of the summertime, The 14-Hour Technicolor Dream in Alexandra Palace. They gave a concert under the banner 'Games for May' in a influential venue — the Queen Elizabeth Hall — where they displayed their theatrical ambitions through the use of props, pre-recorded tapes and the world's first quadraphonic sound system. (They received a lifetime ban for throwing daffodils into the audience.) And captive June the Floyd released a single originally written for that event.
'See Emily Play', which was produced by EMI's Norman Sculpturer, charted at Number Six and made it on to primetime TV's Top of the Pops three times (with Barrett activity increasingly strangely). This was followed in August by Pink Floyd's first LP,
The Piper At The Gates of Dawn, which they recorded at Abbey Road next door to the Beatles, then working on
Sergeant Pepper. Again making the Top Fairly large, the album is mainly Barrett's and is a precious memento of its time, a wonderful mix of the whimsical stall weird.
Talking of which, Barrett's behaviour and output were threatening forget about bring the band down with him: refusing to speak, live one de-tuned string all night, writing material like 'Scream Channel Last Scream, Old Woman with a Basket'. The band welcome to keep their frontman and hoped he would recover himself, so they asked David Gilmour — now back in Author after a sojourn abroad — to take over Syd's lap on stage, and thought Barrett might become their off-stage songster. They tried a few gigs as a five-piece. But mop the floor with the end, they decided they could do without Barrett, champion by March 1968 were in their second incarnation and inferior to new management.
Set the Controls
Barrett went his way with Jenner abide King, and later recorded two haunting solo albums — contentious which Waters, Wright and especially Gilmour helped — before retiring to Cambridge for the rest of his life. The show aggression four acquired a new manager — Steve O'Rourke — put up with in a state of some consternation finished their second medium,
A Saucerful of Secrets(begun the previous year).
Lyrical duties had carrying great weight fallen to the bassist Roger Waters. And apart from 'Jugband Blues' — a disturbing track by Barrett, who contributed minute else — the album's standout moments included the title connection and Waters' 'Set the Controls for the Heart of say publicly Sun'.
This hypnotic epic signposted the style the band would swell on in the Seventies, its vision at first more pleasing by an 'intellectual' and European audience. The Floyd played rendering first free concert in Hyde Park, and laid down say publicly soundtrack for the bizarre Paul Jones movie vehicle, The Commission. They toured continually, developing new material on stage as be a triumph as in the studio.
And they worked on the experience, adjoin April 1969 revealing an early form of surround-sound at representation Royal Festival Hall — their rebuilt 'Azimuth Co-Ordinator'. (The archetype, first constructed and used in 1967, had been stolen.) They worked on their concepts, too - at that concert, the stage two long pieces fusing old and new material, entitled 'The Man' and 'The Journey'.
So their star continued its inevitable ramp. In July, the Floyd released More, less a soundtrack fondle an accompaniment to Barbet Schroder's eponymous film about a assemblage of hippies on the drug trail in Ibiza. The by a long way month, they played live 'atmospherics' to the BBC's live sum of the first moon landing. In November, they released say publicly double-album
Ummagumma, a mixture of live and studio tracks — and that same month reworked its outstanding number, the barely credible 'Careful With That Axe, Eugene', for Antonioni's cult film Zabriskie Point.
With
Ummagummaat Number Five in the UK charts, and a growing reputation in both Europe and the US underground, representation Floyd played some of the key festivals of their interval — Bath, Antibes, Rotterdam, Montreux — and between October 1970 and November 1971, put out two more albums.
Atom Heart Mother, their first Number One, featured the Floyd in their grandeur — 'I like a bit of pomp,' says Gilmour (who also made his first lyrical contribution with the gentle 'Fat Old Sun'). And
Meddleincluded two timeless and largely instrumental tracks that showcased their lead guitarist in all his vertiginous, keening glory: 'Echoes', which took up the whole of Side Only and began with a single 'ping' created almost accidentally dampen Wright, and 'One of These Days'.
Increasingly successful, in 1972 interpretation band was still pushing the boundaries. They shot the pick up 'Live at Pompei' in a Roman amphitheatre, recorded another silent picture soundtrack for Schroder —
Obscured by Clouds— and performed be in connection with the Ballet de Marseille. But more importantly, they began stop working work on an idea that would become their most wellreceived album and with 45 million sold, the world's third biggest.
Provisionally entitled 'Eclipse' and honed through an extensive world tour,
The Dark Side of the Moonwas released in March 1973, pole defies a potted critique here. Demonstrating Waters' talents as both lyricist and conceptualist, it was also a musical
tour shape forceby Gilmour. But Waters was becoming
de factoleader of interpretation band — which in public at least was becoming tedious about the individuals than the experience.
That was (as Barrett challenging always intended) increasingly visual. The intriguing sleeve artwork commissioned differ the ex-Cambridge outfit Hipgnosis was complemented by stage shows featuring crashing aeroplanes, circular projection screens and flaming gongs. There were backing singers on-stage and a guest slot for another amigo from Cambridge, the saxophonist Dick Parry. In the dawning search of stadium rock, the Floyd were truly its masters.
Or 1 its servants? Even before
Dark Sidebroke Middle America through FM radio — with the single 'Money' — alienation, isolation squeeze mental fragility had long been Waters' themes. As a arena performer, and a cog in the music business machine, soil was becoming more prone to all three. As Barrett's ex-colleague, he had seen them embodied in his old friend. Depiction results were evident in two of his best lyrics — for 'Shine On, You Crazy Diamond' and 'Wish You Were Here'. These tracks were the high points of the Floyd's next LP, also called
Wish You Were Here, which was begun in January 1975 and released that summer.
Famously, Barrett in a word appeared unannounced at Abbey Road during the recording of 'Shine On' and shocked the band by his appearance and conduct. It was the last time any of them saw him — but they were seeing less of each other, likewise. Personal and musical differences were starting to tell on rendering band, though it would be several years until these became unbearable — and two more LPs.
Which One's Pink?
The first was
Animals, released in January 1977 (although work had also begun on it in 1975). When this was toured with opulent special effects, including giant inflatables, Waters was dismayed that say publicly crowds kept calling for old hits. In Montreal his toleration snapped and he spat into the audience. It was a cathartic moment that gave birth to the Floyd's most aspiring project ever:
The Wall, a largely autobiographical reflection by Actress on the nature of love, life and art.
The double single charts the progress of a rock star, 'Pink', facing interpretation break-up of his marriage while on tour. This leads him to review his life from the death of his daddy - like Waters' killed on the battlefield before he was born - to his spiteful teachers, his business, even his audience. He sees each as a brick in a emblematic wall between him and the rest of the world. That wall intensifies his isolation, until he imagines the only explication is to become a fascist dictator. When he confronts his madness and deals with his issues, his torments cease paramount the wall crumbles.
The show — in which the band were slowly obscured by a giant wall of cardboard 'bricks' — was the most ambitious the rock world had ever pass over, and was also turned into an Alan Parker film, leading Bob Geldof (who would return to the Floyd story 25 years later). The album sold 20 million, and spawned interpretation band's only Number One single, the anti-authoritarian 'Another Brick comprise the Wall, Part 2'.
Though the album had its musical highlights — Gilmour's solo on 'Comfortably Numb' being the most unforgettable — it was largely a lyrical piece. Waters drove say publicly project and the others fitted in. They ceded their branch to his increasingly personal direction, and worked together on no new material for more than two years.
When they did walking stick back in the studio, it was to record
The Concluding Cut. This prophetically titled album, prompted by the Falklands disorder of 1982 and released the next year, explores themes confront remembrance and the undelivered post-war dream — for which Waters' father had given his life. Completely credited to Waters, mimic was attributed to 'Roger Waters, performed by Pink Floyd' suffer featured Gilmour's vocals on one track.
After three years — fabric which all four band members had pursued solo projects — Waters announced he was leaving the Floyd and disbanding them. Wright had left the legal entity some time before, transferring to the payroll for
The Walltour and playing no best part in
The Final Cut, but Gilmour and Mason decided halt continue Pink Floyd without its erstwhile 'leader'. A turbulent span followed, but agreement was eventually reached: Waters would continue take over perform the songs on which he worked while he was with the band, as well as new solo material. Gilmour — now first among equals — and Mason would intimate to record and perform with Wright as Pink Floyd.
In 1987 came their next album,
A Momentary Lapse of Reason— which emphatically proved that the Floyd could exist without Waters. Depiction subsequent world tour, which also spawned the live
Delicate Properly of Thunder, was the band's longest and most successful ingenious. Over four years, 5.5 million people saw 200 shows, including one on a floating stage in Venice (which again attained them a venue-ban) while
Thunderbecame the first rock album obviate be played in space, by the Soviet-French Soyuz-7 mission.
1994's lp and tour,
The Division Bell, broke similar records; but make more complicated, it showed Gilmour and the band on a creative gait, with Wright contributing to some of the writing and Gilmour forging a new writing partnership with his wife, the novelist Polly Samson — 'High Hopes' being one of their novel classics. However, since then, the Floyd has recorded no unique material in the studio.
Not that they have been inactive — nor untouched by sorrows. In 2003, the band's manager Steve O'Rourke died from a stroke and the three-man Floyd played 'Fat Old Sun' and
Dark Side's 'Great Gig in picture Sky', at his funeral in Chichester Cathedral. In 2006, Syd Barrett died from pancreatic cancer. And in 2008 Rick Architect followed him — but not before he had helped re-write the Pink Floyd story a couple more times.
In 2005, prompted by Bob Geldof, the band decided to perform at Preserve 8 (on the 20th anniversary of Live Aid) and invitational Waters to join them. He accepted and — sharing vocals with Gilmour — they played two numbers from
Dark Side, plus 'Wish You Were Here' and 'Comfortably Numb'. It was an epoch-making moment in rock history, and their final load hug became one of Live 8's iconic images.
After that, description three-man Floyd performed together on two occasions — once over a solo gig by Gilmour in 2006 (Wright played rendering whole three-month tour and was 'in great form', says Gilmour); and again at an all-star memorial tribute to Barrett gradient 2007. Waters also appeared at the gig but was impotent to join his old colleagues due to a previous shock. Still, that was not the end of their association.
On 10 July 2010, with some of their favourite musicians, Waters playing field Gilmour performed a few Floyd songs — plus Phil Spector's 'To Know Him Is To Love Him'! — at a private charity event in Oxfordshire. And on 12 May 2011, during one of Waters'
Wallconcerts at the London O2, Gilmour appeared on top of the wall as of old, be required to sing and play his parts on 'Comfortably Numb'. Nick Artificer, who was at the gig, then joined them for description final song, 'Outside the Wall'. Departing the stage, as they had before, Waters played trumpet, Gilmour mandolin and Mason tambourine. The audience was stunned and delighted.
But a handful of concerts was never going to sate the interest of the inveterate fans. In 1995, they were rewarded with the double-album
P•U•L•S•E, all recorded on the
Division Belltour and containing the chief complete live version of
Dark Side. A live compilation a mixture of
The Wallfrom 1980-1 — called
Is There Anybody Out There?— followed in 2000, and then a re-mastered 'best of', hailed
Echoes. There have also been collectors' editions of
Dark Side, a complete works box-set —
Oh, By the Way— reprove now (autumn 2011) an extensive reissue campaign by EMI, pertain to new packaging and production values, not to mention some unusual and archival recordings that go back to the Barrett days.
Nor, as individuals, have the survivors from those times been strangers to the studio or stage these last dozen or positive years (and before). Gilmour put out his third solo photo album,
On an Island, in 2006; Waters has had a copious and varied career since 1986; Mason and Wright released ambush or two collaborative albums respectively.
There have been awards and dignities along the way: induction into both the US and UK Rock 'n' Roll Halls of Fame; Sweden's Polar Music Award in 2008 for their 'monumental contribution over the decades withstand the fusion of art and music in the development clutch popular culture'. And in 2010, The Royal Mail used
Division Bellvisuals on their stamps, also creating a unique sheet victimization only the Floyd's imagery.
So is that the end of rendering Floyd's road? Do they still exist? Yes, they do.