ARTICLE ABOUT Pink Floyd FROM New Musical Express, July 8, 1972

A nice live review from Brighton Dome. Should have been there to experience this, but I was way too young and born in the wrong country.
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Front row reviews

Pink Floyd by Sue Horne

SITTING IN THE Brighton Dome, waiting in anticipation, when through the PA system came the first, weird exciting sounds of “Dark Side Of The Moon”. Talking stopped, ears strained in the darkness. Floyd had started.
“Moon” was, as ever, brilliant. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Floyd do anything badly, and tonight was no exception. As they took the audience round the dark side and back into the light, every nerve was centred on the moog, and the mood of the music. The number, which took the whole of the first half, finished to thunderous applause.
As you know, several groups have been banned from the Dome because of over enthusiastic receptions and this annoyed a lot of the audience. It’s difficult to listen to Floyd sitting still.
The second half of the set featured “Meddle”, which was truly magnificent overall. Though there were some poorer passages. “One Of These Days” started off much too fast, but they slowed it down round about the middle.
As encores they did “Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun” and “Saucerful Of Secrets” and, oh what, it was really incredible. During “Set The Controls”, Roger Waters was thrashing the gong as if his life depended on it and, all of a sudden, near the end the gong was set light to and really looked like the sun.
I just sat there spellbound. That, as well as their fantastic lighting arrangements went to make a truly good night out, well worth hitching down to Brighton for.

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ARTICLE ABOUT Pink Floyd FROM New Musical Express, November 13, 1971

A glowing review by an unknown reviewer. Pink Floyd was an impressive band.
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Floyd `meddle` to good effect

PINK FLOYD: MEDDLE (Harvest SHVL 795; £2.40)

Record review by (Unknown)

FLOYD have done it again; something I thought would be difficult after the brilliance they showed with the Atom Heart Mother Suite, a piece of musical mastery that took great courage to put on record, and even greater courage to perform live — which they did successfully. On the second side of this album we hear Echoes, which in many ways is more important than Atom Heart.
Side one is really three themes. One Of These Days and A Pillow Of Wind are linked to each other by the haunting wind (also a feature of Echoes, producing a continuing element), with gentle use of instruments including both acoustic and electric guitar, interplaying well. Days is more forceful, with Gilmour showing off his guitar techniques.
Fearless is on its own in many ways, with an almost countryish guitar and a variety of moods, with the football crowd chanting “You’ll never walk alone” totally relevant to the theme of the lyrics. Then San Tropez and Seamus have a feel of blues mixed with jazz. The former track shows much of Wright’s keyboard expertise and a more mellow Gilmour. The latter features howling dogs.
Now to Echoes — a zenith which Floyd have been striving for but only partly achieved last year. The introductory sound effects, giving the impression of a submarine underwater, provide a backcloth for the instrumentation – the effect then emerging and becoming wind. But it is more than that.
Before, I had regarded Nick Mason as a solid consistent drummer, but now he shows a lot more flair, and Gilmour, Wright and Waters all contribute strongly to the piece. The music is grand, a good example being the guitar bridge between the vocals, in what seems like a two part harmony, at the beginning. They use a similar technique in the arrangement to that used on Heart, building the music up, then easing it down, and never letting the sound go empty, maintaining a compelling interest.
The middle part is a strong rock structure, with Gilmour cutting through hard, while Wright works around the theme. The effects, sometimes comparative to an electric cayotte, bring back the opening mood. It fades out at the end, rather than leaving you in limbo – which always makes me feel frustrated.
The important thing is that Floyd have created dramatic music without having to draw off the strength of full brass and a choir. The wind is used as the choir, and the effects of the organ soar and hold like an orchestra, with a deep bass synthesised sound like a viola.
Though this piece, Echoes, is not as adventurous in structure as Heart, I feel it is more significant because they’ve done it on their own. An exceptionally good album.

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ARTICLE ABOUT Pink Floyd FROM New Musical Express, January 2, 1971

If you were at the right age, reading this review at the beginning of the year 1971, I guess you would be very curious of this band. I would have gone to see them – wouldn`t you?
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Concert review

By Tony Stewart

SNAP, crackle and pop, a whistling kettle, and the smell of bacon cooking opened the first set of the Pink Floyd concert at Birmingham Town Hall just before Christmas. (Friday, December 18). Needless to say it was the “Psychedelic Breakfast” from the Atom Heart Mother album.
Another surprise came for the opening of the second set. A 15 strong choir and complete horn section wandered on to the stage to accompany Floyd on “Atom Heart Mother” — the first performance in the provinces of this remarkable suite, which brought the 2,000 audience to their feet in acclaim.
The first set was an appetiser for the suite. Moving on from “Breakfast” Floyd played some very powerful music, with complicated time changes, stops and starts, and a very economic use of sound effects — ranging from crying babies, galloping horses, gongs, zissling crash cymbals to aircraft noises on the Moog topped off by the well controlled feed-back.
The Dave Gilmour vocals on “Fat Old Sun” were tinged with sentimentality, and he delivered the ballad-like tune well. His voice has a certain originality of nearly breaking into a sob, but not quite managing it.
The second set, which had been eagerly anticipated, was no let-down. As soon as Floyd started to play an electric excitement buzzed through the hall — which intensified with the pressure of the music.
The use of choir and horns enhances their musical abilities. At first the music is quiet with soft drumming, a good lead by Dave, a strong bass line and a soothing organ. The choir adds to the sounds, and then the introduction of the brass fuses the rock and classical music, generating a very powerful sound.
The use of brass is subtle, making the intricate music more urgent and forceful, highlighting Pink Floyd. Frequently they are left to put some very hard rock into the suite, driven on by the precise drumming of Nicki Mason, with some relief by Rick on the Moog, loosing the significance of the music in preparation for the climax.
And slowly the suite continued to gain strength reaching its final peak to the exuberant delight of the Floyd freaks.

 

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ARTICLE ABOUT Pink Floyd FROM New Musical Express, July 1, 1967

This is really some good stuff as this article was printed about a month before Pink Floyd released their debut album on August 4th, 1967. Really early days for the band but we can see the direction they were heading in, and later became hugely famous for, in this article.
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Nothing nasty behind our light and colour effects

Says Pink Floyd`s Roger Waters to Norrie Drummond

“WE are simply a pop group. But because we use light and colour in our act, a lot of people seem to imagine that we are trying to put across some message with nasty, evil undertones.” So said Roger Waters, bass guitarist with the Pink Floyd back in the NME Chart this week with “See Emily Play.”
The Pink Floyd as most people now know were one of the first groups to start the pop “son et lumiere” cult. By using equipment which threw liquid abstract shapes on to a stage backdrop the Pink Floyd built up large followings in London’s freak-out parlours like the Round House and the UFO club.
But the group themselves have always remained rather remote, mystical creatures simply because few people could see them properly.
It sometimes makes it very difficult for us to establish any association with the audience,” said Roger. “Apart from the few at the front no one can really identify us.”
The Pink Floyd — Rick Wright, Nick Mason, Syd Barrett and Roger — turned professional less than four months ago and already they have had two medium hits.
“We’re not rushing into anything. At the moment we want to build slowly and I think we’re doing not too badly. The important thing is that we’re doing what we want to do.
“We record the numbers we want and fortunately they seem to be the ones that people want. No one interferes with us when we’re in the studio. They just leave us, more or less, alone to get on with what we want.”
The Pink Floyd, unlike most groups, pay very little attention to what goes on in the charts.
“We listen to Radio London and the other stations,” said Roger. “But we don’t really concern ourselves with what other groups are doing. The Chart puzzles me because I just can’t imagine the type of person who would buy Engelbert Humperdinck’s record and the Cream’s. That is if there is such a type.”

What type of audience then did the Pink Floyd attract?
“We recently played a concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall,” said Roger, “and that’s usually where string quartets play. The people who came to see us there were a very mixed lot.
“Some really way-out people with bare feet and a few old women who always go to the Queen Elizabeth Hall no matter what’s on. But mostly they were average men and women between 17 and 25 mixed with a few teeny-boppers.”
The Pink Floyd want to play a string of these concerts in the autumn, “We’d like to play the major centres like Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow doing our own two-hour show.”
The group thinks that it would be a successful venture. “You see,” said Roger, “contrary to what some people think it’s not just the Southern audiences that we appeal to. In fact the further North we go, the better the reception.
“We played in Belfast recently and the reception there was great. The same thing happened when we played in Abergavenny. We had screamers and everything. It really astonished us.”
As I was leaving Roger he suddenly turned to his manager Andrew King. “I’ve just remembered a great idea I had last night.
“I was driving down the M.1 and the wing mirror on a lorry in front was vibrating finely. It was reflecting all the other lights on the road, winking indicators, stop lights and so on. Now, supposing we were to. . . .”
That, I suppose, is how a “Happening” begins.

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ARTICLE ABOUT Pink Floyd FROM New Musical Express, April 1, 1967

Here`s a real goodie from a time far, far away. Almost in another galaxy.
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School inspired Pink Floyd

By Jeremy Pascall

PROJECTED Sound, they call it. Also a Total Show. Lighting effects, distortions and a song about a man called “Arnold Layne” (in the charts this week at No. 26) who has a strange hobby – collecting clothes!
The group is the Pink Floyd, four off-beat young students. Organist Rick Wright studied music, bassist Roger Waters was an architect while Sid Barrett (lead) and Nick Mason (drums) studied art at Hornsey College.
It was at this art school that a laboratory of light and sound was set up. Sid and Nick became involved and saw potential in the effects created to exploit in their own group which had been formed for some time.
They developed a technique which they described as a “fusion of light, colour and music” consisting of projected images and weird luminous effects. But, they hasten to point out, it is NOT psychedelic!
They started this new music form only a few months back and gained immediate reception in the student circuits.
They played regularly at London`s freak-out palais – the Round House and numbered among their first fans a strange figure dressed as an Arab – Paul McCartney.
The Pink Floyd play all their own material which includes the extraordinary “Arnold Layne” written by Sid Barrett who shares the vocal with Roger Waters.

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