Pink Floyd

My alltime favourite band that I have listened to from 1969 with the release of Umma Gumma. This marked the start, in my mind, of their most creative period which lasted all the way to The Wall ten years later. They had lost the whimsy and wordplay of Syd Barrett but were to find their feet and musical strengths in Atom Heart Mother, Meddle and their record breaking masterpiece Dark Side of the Moon. Wish You Were Here, Animals and The Wall all quickly followed and their fan base grew exponentially meaning seeing them ‘live’ was expensive as well as near impossible. That said, I did have the pleasure of seeing this lineup in 1972 as they were previewing Darkside which, at the time was called ‘Eclipse’ and a good few weeks before the famous press launch at The Rainbow in late February of that year. The album wasn’t released until November 1973 and by that time had changed somewhat from the live version I saw. I still have the bootleg somewhere which was recorded from the press release concert and sold a couple of hundred thousand copies before the official version hit the shops. To find out more about Pink Floyd click here.