Just amazing that they churned out Obscured By Clouds, which is a good album, on the side while recording and touring Dark Side. Such a prolific period.
You know it's good when it's timeless. People do reaction videos to the songs and they're blown away. Just a few years ago, a younger dude I was playing guitar with heard me talking about it, so he bought a CD and just let it play. He said I couldn't believe that someone was able to even DO that. I first had a tape cassette and later a CD of the album. The curious thing about Floyd is that when you discover them, you have this "why didn't I KNOW about this?" feeling as you listen to it.
Every time I listen to Dark Side I’m still just blown away by the production and the overall sound, still one of my absolute favourite albums and undoubtedly one of the greatest rock (and generally overall) records of all time
I always prefer Dark Side to The Wall. And I found that my favourite PF songs (e.g.Dark Side, Echoes, Crazy Diamonds) just happen to be group efforts, rather than "Roger's work with contributions from other members" like The Wall
'Undisputed'? I think we have our own opinions in that regard, lol! IMO The Wall doesn't play well as an album. Now some people may have experienced it first as a film and relate to it better that way. But for me it feels like some strong songs separated by weaker ones that I skip past. Dark Side, however, flows very well. It's like a dream where the last thing you did leads to the next thing, even if the next thing is not necessarily predictable (which makes it even better).
Pink Floyd just released a lot of the dark side tour recordings from 72 on Spotify. In one of these shows my dad was in the audience and I can' t tell why this is a special feeling for me to know that he was there in this venue before I was born. Dark side always was one of my absolute favorite albums since my dad introduced it to me. Now he' s gone and what a pity it is he couldn' t listen to this concert once again.
DSOTM is my favorite albem ever... I first listen to it when I discovered the original 33r from my father circa 1988... It became almost instantly my favorite one, partly because the 'almost' part was a period of being scared hearing the lady screaming at the start (I was 12), but the more I dug into the more I was seing "life" like never before... Since then I might have listen to this album at least once a day.
On March 5th 1973, Pink Floyd played Cobo Hall in Detroit, just five days after the release of Dark Side of the Moon. About half way into the show, with the PA at full volume and Alan Parsons at the FOH console, a ballast weight fell from the rafters into a flash pot (a canister filled with pyrotechnic chemicals) and caused a massive explosion on stage. The weight itself was blasted into small chunks of flying shrapnel. According to what I was told by the crew at the time, the explosion ripped a hole in the stage and threw chunks of wood 30 rows into the audience. Roger and Alan Parsons told me separately, that one man was hit in the chest by a chunk of plywood and critically injured. It was a miracle that none of the band or crew were killed. The force of the explosion blew every single driver in every single cabinet in the PA system! Let that sink in for a moment. This was one of the largest PA systems ever constructed to that time, and according to the crew, chunks of drivers showered down on the first ten rows of the audience. I can't imagine their shock. Something that I didn't know until 2015 when I met Roger after all those years, was that immediately after the explosion, the PA crew scrounged together some spare cabinets and built a tiny system, one cabinet per band member, and they finished the freakin' show! That was the beginning of a heroic effort on the part of two sound crews. I was a roadie for Heil Sound at the time. Heil Sound was one of the largest PA companies in the US with two large systems, one for Humble Pie and one for The Who along with lots of other gear to put together smaller one-off systems. We were also one of the only JBL speaker rebuilding companies in the mid west. It turned out that Bob had met Pink Floyd some months earlier when he flew to London to purchase a Mavis console for the two big systems. So Bob knew who Pink Floyd was, but most of us on the crew had no idea. At least I had no idea who they were. The night of March 5th, someone from Pink Floyd, somehow got Bob's home phone number (communication was NOTHING like it is today!) and told him of their plight. Bob rallied a crew, me included, and the next morning at dawn we loaded up a straight bed truck with piles of 18" and 15" JBL speakers, boxes and boxes of mid range and tweeter drivers, hundreds of drivers in all and headed for Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis, Pink Floyds next stop on the tour. We met the Floyd crew at the stage door and formed a plan. They would bring in the cabinets and begin constructing the system as planned and as they built the massive stacked system, we would remove the backs from the cabinets and replace the blown drivers with brand new JBLs. If I recall there were only four or five of us Heil roadies on the gig, so the idea of replacing an entire sound systems driver contingent was really really a tall hill to climb. We actually had to make TWO trips back and forth from Marissa to St Louis to get more speakers! My job was a little different from the others. Pink Floyd had decided to take the opportunity to either set up their first quadraphonic system for the rest of the tour, or to replace the one they had. That was my job. I had to run thousands of feet of speaker wire and set up a Heil Sound quad speakers that Pink Floyd used for the rest of the tour and assist some guy named Alan Parsons to set up and run a little TEAC 2340 quad tape machine. (Examples of the Heil speakers are coincidentally in the Rock Hall of Fame, but not because they were used on the Dark Side of the Moon tour, but just because Bob is Bob.) We went to work as quick as we could repairing and setting up the new systems and worked right on through the day without a break. No lunch, no nothing. Just get the job done. Five O'clock came and the band came out to do a sound check, except there was no functioning PA yet, so they just played with their amps on stage and maybe a little bit of monitor. Nothing out front. I had no idea who Pink Floyd was and from my perspective at the front of house console, I thought they sounded kind of like a sleepy blues band. Ha! Was I wrong. Showtime came and went and the PA wasn't ready. A half hour later and we still didn't have the system put together yet. Around an hour after showtime, someone made the call to open the doors and people streamed in, excited to hear some band I had never heard of. I still had no idea. Around 9:30PM the house lights went down and a few seconds later, the curtain started to climb up out of the darkness and the PA EXPLODED again, but this time with some of the wildest avant-garde music I had ever heard. That got my attention! After about a half hour the band took a break and we continued to work. When they came back just a few minutes later, the first strains of Dark Side of the Moon erupted from the most amazing sounding PA I had ever heard! OMG. All of the tweeters were not yet replaced and we still had a crew member standing on each stack, screwing the backs on cabinets, but the sound was literally breathtaking. The scene was epic. Like a scene from King Kong. Then it was time for my quad system to make itself known. I found myself standing next to Alan Parsons, while he smoothly swung back and forth between the FOH console and the little TEAC tape machine. He had gobs of white leader between each sound effect and in near total darkness, would fast forward the tape to the next SFX and cue it up. Then back to the console for a vocal ride or guitar ride and then back to the play button on the little tape machine. I say I found myself because at the first notes of the first song, I began to have an out of body experience like I had never experienced before. I had no idea who Pink Floyd was and was in no way expecting the sonic feast I was experiencing. I was an audio snob up to that point, and believed I knew how sound systems should sound. Oh no, I had no freakin' idea how sound systems should sound. That much was clear. The PA, with brand new JBL speakers and drivers, and The Dark Side of the Moon flowing from it, was unlike any I had ever heard or have heard since. I was standing right in Alan Parsons sweet spot and the balance of the quad system was unbelievable. There were voices in my head. There were bells sweeping through my body and out the other side. At one point, a combination of exhaustion and elation almost cause me to lose my balance and I had to lean on the table, still being careful not to get anywhere near that tiny little player. When the show was over, I gathered myself and we Heil crew loaded our truck with our tools. I shook Alan's hand, got a hug from a Floyd roadie as we all clapped each other on the backs backstage and almost without a word, we drove off into the night, only suspecting the profound musical event we had just witnessed and helped rescue. With every passing day, the events of March 6th, 1973 have become more profound to me. Kiehl Auditorium is long gone, Many of us on the two crews are also gone. But the memories are as vivid as last nights sunset. In 2015, I was working at Omega Recordings in Rockville MD, (I now work at Sheffield Recordings LTD in Baltimore County MD) when Roger came through to do a rehearsal for an upcoming Wounded Warriors concert. I only had a short time to talk to Roger, but we talked about the show and the rescue, all those years ago. He filled me in on some of the things I didn't know about the accident and the systems. They used our Heil quadraphonic system for the rest of the American tour. Bill Mueller
Was it definitely a ballast weight that set the explosion off? If so, then that's not the only time they'd had an explosion because I remember Roger Waters in an interview, talking about a gig where they'd had some metal bins made up to contain pyrotechnics. When the bins arrived, the bases were only half the thickness they were supposed to be, so they sent them back. The company should have replaced the bases but instead just added another layer to the base. This caused the powder to superheat resulting in a huge explosion. Roger said he just remembered seeing the back of the Hammond organ flying into the air and the front rows of the audience being showered with shrapnel.
@@nickhirst999 That sounds like the same event to me. At the time we on the Heil crew were told someone double loaded the canisters. I'm not sure they even knew what happened at the time. I wasn't there. I was in St Louis the next day.
The crazy old pro-communist JACKAL, READY TO hand over the WHOLE WORLD to the KNBs, but he earns money in the decaying West, and moving to live in Russia or North Korea is weak, there they will quickly close his mouth to Roger Waters ....
I tend to thing a lot of the bands & artists from that era influenced each other. Partly that being something that happens naturally but also as there was so much experimentation, pushing the boundaries of rock & technical evolution in ways of creating sound. The 60's & 70's was the golden era of rock where it felt like there was so much amazing stuff going on that they raised each others game.
I have my half-brother to thank for introducing me to Floyd when I was only 12 (he was 17 ) and I’ve been nuts about them ever since, I’m now 47 and even though my musical tastes have changed in a lot of ways elsewhere ,I can always stick Darkside or Animals on and they just never get old,Anything of theirs in fact.Just amazing music that I can’t find a rival for .
I’m 71 & I LOVE Dark Side.. every song is brilliant.. I can put this album on any time & love it, my daughter is 25 she loves it too. Clare Tory should have got more recognition she made Big Gig her own.
These vids of Pink Floyd are so good . The furniture , the suit , just so nostalgically perfect . The dialogue is perfectly neutral with no shuck and jive bullshit . Thank You , bloody well enjoyed all of these .
It is amazing how thoroughly you have analysed this milestone album, the first I have ever seen that truly acknowledges Alan Parsons...Your videos are amazing, keep it up! I wish you a great 2023 from Argentina!
Your Pink Floyd content is what got me into your channel and has helped me delve into their discography, as well as collecting records and making cocktails. Love the content as always!
Perfect record! I remember listening to this while watching "The wizard of Oz" and being mind blown at how many things actually sync up. An act of sheer genius. If it wasn't intentional then it's one hell of a cosmic coincidence!
Great video ! The voice saying "I don't know, I was really drunk at the time" at the beginning of the track"Us And Them" was spoken by Paul McCartney and Wings guitarist Henry McCullough.
I have been such a huge Floyd fan as early as I can be - 1979 at the age of 11. I actually mowed lawns to buy The Wall. And spent much moe on their back catalog from there. They are my #2 band behind The Beatles and I have to be honest here. I am sick up to here, hearing about Syd Barrett. I find his work good and I can see the legacy is deserved, but when it comes to Roger it's Syd this and Syd that. I love the firts two albums but Pink Floyd's sefinition comes from Clouds to The Wall and then Momentary to Division Bell and all of the solo work in between and beyond. But in no way is Syd so much of a driving force behind what PF became, outside of sinpiring the same theme over and over and over and over again. Momentary Lapse was breath of fresh air so much that I began resenting Roger's works (outside of Animals). So that little bit of time in there where it was all Roger's crazy this and that and missing Daddy issues, was the potential downfall and end of what is supposed to be the greatest band outside of The Beatles. David saved them from total destruction in 1987 and breathed new life in the core. Rant over. I will most likely get to many Floyd fans to disagree and wish me harm, but it is what it is with me. I own every single piece of anything Floyd and connected, to bootlegs I've spent small fortunes on, to box set after box set, remasters, original vinyls, tapes from 8's to reels to Japanese versions to name it, I own it. And I stil lstand tall behind my thoughts that Syd was overrated and Roger invested too much into Syd's memory onto wax and tapes to the point of being a broken record. But Floyd rock. They are my #2 and I love them. I could go on about The Beatles and John Lennon all the same, but that's another rant for another video at another time.
This doc is absolutely awesome! I wasn’t aware they played the album before its release! Please keep up the good work. Your persona, the feel, the look… all on point. Cheers!
It's remarkable how professional their operation was at a time when the industry was still in it's early development. It seems like their studio work and touring schedules were well thought out and productive throughout the whole period from the late 60's onward. Excellent production and use of cutting edge technology along with refined talent isn't usually associated with many of the other bands during that time. What an amazing story! Great job by you and your team!
Crazy amount of research from a plethora of sources. Bravo! I thought I had read and heard everything about this production but you doubled what I had known. [ BTW, "rows" 19:09 rhymes with "cows." 😉 ]
Wow!!!! Just making one of the greatest albums of all time would have been enough for me to believe that these guys were working very hard… to know that they had so many other things going on while recording the album just have me hella anxiety! Holy crap!
This video is brilliant. From someone who thought they were the biggest Pink Floyd nerd ever, I somehow learnt things in this video I never knew before. brilliant narration too!
Thank for providing me with the story of how it was born. Dark Side of the Moon was at the root of my awakening to become an audiophile when it was released almost 50 years ago. To this day I can very well remember how I was blown away by the track "MONEY" when I entered a HiFi store downtown. To celebrate the 50 anniversary I intend to invite my best friends to listen to this masterpiece on my high-end stereo.
I didn't know the order of the song recording. My favourite part of the video is the clip of Richard Wright playing the organ live and using a joy stick @ 24:50 to move the sound around quadraphonically with four mics on each rotating horn/drum so that the rotating speaker sounds like it's revolving around the entire stadium. I heard about it but I've never seen that until now. Thanks for posting!
The Joystick thing is known as the 'Azimuth Co-ordinator', first experienced by myself at a Floyd concert in June 1969 at the acoustically perfect Philharmonic Hall in Liverpool UK. Extraordinary sound effect.
@@standbytogo123 "Asimuth Coordinator" Love that terminology. Thank you! The fact that it was Rick wright using it proves my point all the more: he was the best musician in Pink Floyd.
My brother bought this album when it first came out and I listened to it when he played it. I was 11 at the time and it became an instant favorite. I've never tired of since, and I've owned it as vinyl, cassette and just about every other popular form throughout the years until now. Undoubtedly the best album ever made. If Floyd had accomplished nothing else with their lives, they could be be proud of having produced this work of art.
The only time I saw the band was in fall of 1972. They must have felt more confident about the new material because the concert opened with "Set Controls..." "Careful With That Ax..." and perhaps one other, ending with "Echoes." Then, after an intermission, the entirety of "Dark Side..." The visual effects and films were stunning and ahead of anything else at the time. Before the concert began I looked behind me and in one of the first rows was a grandmother, calmly knitting while waiting for the show to start.
Excellent video, I have always figured that I knew a fair amount about DSOTM but I found out some interesting things that I didn't know. That's what I like about this channel!!
Damn dude. Take a breath. Didn't learn anything new. I've read, heard and watched many pieces on the making of the album previously. The best is the one made by the band.
I am currently working on an album of my own and this video helped me immensely. Thank you for your videos & your channel! Your video on London Calling by The Clash was one of my early inspirations to get more into punk music. Your videos rock! Quite literally.
I didn't know that they all created a list of problems that weigh on their minds. That explains why people always talk about Richard Wright's fear of flying when talking about On the Run; that was his contribution to the themes of the album.
i think that's very interesting how david and roger wanted it to sound differently and had a mediator making compromises throughout the whole thing. i feel like that's actually a really unique and smart way to do it that's probably extremely rare in all music.
The same thing happened with the recording of "comfortably numb" from the Wall album. David wanted it to sound one way, and Roger the other (Don't remember which was which), and anyway they eventually compromised and we got the results of that, which of course is perfection!
I just want to say, you have a great story telling ability. You have an economy of words, never thick but full of thrill and surprise. we hang on your words. Love it. Subscribed.
Great video! I have to quibble with one detail. This album did NOT cement David Gilmour as the band’s lead singer. In fact, you could argue that this was the *last* album with him as the main singer. Roger really took over from here on out, though WYWH was really both (and neither) of them. David was DECIDEDLY the band’s main singer pre-Dark Side. Dude, he sang like 80% of all the pre-Dark Side material!
Setting aside all about "The Dark Side of the Moon". Absolutely the greatest album of all time. I just wanted to say that Vinyl Rewind absolutely nailed the early 70's for this video. The whole set, including the tiki bar theme, the dark wood wall paneling, the burnt orange couch, and the lamps. Totally nailed the early 70's decor. His polyester suit with the wide lapels and very wide tie, even his hair is totally in the style of that time. Even the harsh lights with the sharp shadows is very typical of the time. If you want to know what 1973 looked like. They nailed it here.
Yay you mentioned Portsmouth's Guildhall! My home town and the Guildhall is just round the corner from me. So many great bands have played there, Pink Floyd, The Who, The Mother's of Invention etc ...
Outstanding video. I was born on April 28th . So that tidbit of info had a huge impact on me. Love the band and play the song money 💰 every time i head to the casino.
Excellent. There wasn't anything I didn't know but I certainly couldn't organize and articulate it like you. I've been listening to those Rainbow bootlegs since high school in the early 80s. But it wasn't until several years ago that I finally heard the debut, trouble plagued show in Brighton which was a treat. I love all those old concerts when it was just the four of them.
Outstanding! Outstanding research, compiling, fact checking, vintage footage & presentation. An absolute go-to reference for anyone interested in this album. Terrifically well done & thank you for it.
I do think it's the greatest album of all time! There are many great albums by many great bands, but lot of the albums you just skip around listen to the best songs, but the Dark Side of the Moon is truly one album you can listen to front to end, and you don't want to skip anything... it's just absolutely brilliant everything about it and the most unique Rock album of all time!
Great job, Eric. I have seen/heard many documentaries, read plenty, but put together in this video I had stuff presented in a different way that made me appreciate the album even more.
in the late 70's my uncle had a reel-to-reel tape player. i played DSOFTM backwards, forwards, slower, faster and at normal speed so much the family thought i had an issue. no, the album was just THAT great. to this day it's in my top 5 albums.
Frightfully well done, and off the top of my head, what was new to me were Alan Parsons' lesser-known contributions and the Claire Torry settlement(which she richly deserved). Thanks!
I am 43, Pink Floyd has been a massive part of my life since a kid, and i don't think a week goes by where i am not playing a Floyd album. When it comes to Dark Side..... the album is amazing! But i do not get this almost arrogant view so many have about 'The Great Gig In The Sky'' and Claire's version being the best?..... Yes it was original, yes it is amazing! Don't get me wrong, i love the version myself. But the Delicate sounds of Thunder version, with Rachel, Durga and Margaret or (Machan) as some call her, is absolutely incredible. Even the version on Pulse, with Sam Brown taking the lead is just absolutely mind blowing. With Floyd, you get very anal people with very anal views..... Like people making Syd Barret out too be an absolute genius. I'm sorry, but i hate the childish, messy, experimental noise the band made when he was in it. In documentaries, Mason actually said, i quote ''Syd was a wonderful human being and a massive talent, but it never shined through, even before the drugs, a lot of the time, we just made noise''. That was the BBC documentary with Peter Genner and many more associated with Floyd in Syd's day, that all agree, their music until Dave, was crap.
Saw the group play a very small venue in Vancouver BC … the Agrodome in 1972. Dark Side songs in surround sound, 6 months before LP was released… i even got onstage taking photos. Though photos were poor, but when now compare favourably with any of their other period photos.
Just amazing that they churned out Obscured By Clouds, which is a good album, on the side while recording and touring Dark Side. Such a prolific period.
most underrated album
Obscured by clouds like meddle when the band was working well.
Obscured by clouds is a great album. Some of Gilmour’s best solos are on there. Love it
@@schoolmaster8038tbh
Yeah, I've always loved Obscured by Clouds. Which sometimes seems like an unpopular opinion.
Babe wake up, vinyl rewind is about to drop a banger
I can’t really say anything about this album that hasn’t already been said. It’s simply musical perfection.
You know it's good when it's timeless. People do reaction videos to the songs and they're blown away. Just a few years ago, a younger dude I was playing guitar with heard me talking about it, so he bought a CD and just let it play. He said I couldn't believe that someone was able to even DO that. I first had a tape cassette and later a CD of the album. The curious thing about Floyd is that when you discover them, you have this "why didn't I KNOW about this?" feeling as you listen to it.
Sometimes you see young kids with the T-shirt on and I always tell them to please listen to that album
I think it's great that you're revisiting this album to do it better justice
Well. thats true.
Every time I listen to Dark Side I’m still just blown away by the production and the overall sound, still one of my absolute favourite albums and undoubtedly one of the greatest rock (and generally overall) records of all time
I never get tired of learning new things about my favorite album.
Even though The Wall is the undisputed masterpiece from the Floyd, I still like darkside now and again, it has that wooly blanket vibe to it.
in my opinion, albums like wish you were here, the wall, and animals are better than dark side, but it is undeniable how replay able the album is
I always prefer Dark Side to The Wall. And I found that my favourite PF songs (e.g.Dark Side, Echoes, Crazy Diamonds) just happen to be group efforts, rather than "Roger's work with contributions from other members" like The Wall
Ha, hardly undisputed.
'Undisputed'? I think we have our own opinions in that regard, lol!
IMO The Wall doesn't play well as an album. Now some people may have experienced it first as a film and relate to it better that way. But for me it feels like some strong songs separated by weaker ones that I skip past.
Dark Side, however, flows very well. It's like a dream where the last thing you did leads to the next thing, even if the next thing is not necessarily predictable (which makes it even better).
Pink Floyd just released a lot of the dark side tour recordings from 72 on Spotify.
In one of these shows my dad was in the audience and I can' t tell why this is a special feeling for me to know that he was there in this venue before I was born.
Dark side always was one of my absolute favorite albums since my dad introduced it to me.
Now he' s gone and what a pity it is he couldn' t listen to this concert once again.
DSOTM is my favorite albem ever... I first listen to it when I discovered the original 33r from my father circa 1988... It became almost instantly my favorite one, partly because the 'almost' part was a period of being scared hearing the lady screaming at the start (I was 12), but the more I dug into the more I was seing "life" like never before... Since then I might have listen to this album at least once a day.
On March 5th 1973, Pink Floyd played Cobo Hall in Detroit, just five days after the release of Dark Side of the Moon. About half way into the show, with the PA at full volume and Alan Parsons at the FOH console, a ballast weight fell from the rafters into a flash pot (a canister filled with pyrotechnic chemicals) and caused a massive explosion on stage.
The weight itself was blasted into small chunks of flying shrapnel. According to what I was told by the crew at the time, the explosion ripped a hole in the stage and threw chunks of wood 30 rows into the audience. Roger and Alan Parsons told me separately, that one man was hit in the chest by a chunk of plywood and critically injured. It was a miracle that none of the band or crew were killed.
The force of the explosion blew every single driver in every single cabinet in the PA system! Let that sink in for a moment. This was one of the largest PA systems ever constructed to that time, and according to the crew, chunks of drivers showered down on the first ten rows of the audience. I can't imagine their shock.
Something that I didn't know until 2015 when I met Roger after all those years, was that immediately after the explosion, the PA crew scrounged together some spare cabinets and built a tiny system, one cabinet per band member, and they finished the freakin' show! That was the beginning of a heroic effort on the part of two sound crews.
I was a roadie for Heil Sound at the time. Heil Sound was one of the largest PA companies in the US with two large systems, one for Humble Pie and one for The Who along with lots of other gear to put together smaller one-off systems. We were also one of the only JBL speaker rebuilding companies in the mid west. It turned out that Bob had met Pink Floyd some months earlier when he flew to London to purchase a Mavis console for the two big systems. So Bob knew who Pink Floyd was, but most of us on the crew had no idea. At least I had no idea who they were.
The night of March 5th, someone from Pink Floyd, somehow got Bob's home phone number (communication was NOTHING like it is today!) and told him of their plight. Bob rallied a crew, me included, and the next morning at dawn we loaded up a straight bed truck with piles of 18" and 15" JBL speakers, boxes and boxes of mid range and tweeter drivers, hundreds of drivers in all and headed for Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis, Pink Floyds next stop on the tour.
We met the Floyd crew at the stage door and formed a plan. They would bring in the cabinets and begin constructing the system as planned and as they built the massive stacked system, we would remove the backs from the cabinets and replace the blown drivers with brand new JBLs. If I recall there were only four or five of us Heil roadies on the gig, so the idea of replacing an entire sound systems driver contingent was really really a tall hill to climb. We actually had to make TWO trips back and forth from Marissa to St Louis to get more speakers!
My job was a little different from the others. Pink Floyd had decided to take the opportunity to either set up their first quadraphonic system for the rest of the tour, or to replace the one they had. That was my job. I had to run thousands of feet of speaker wire and set up a Heil Sound quad speakers that Pink Floyd used for the rest of the tour and assist some guy named Alan Parsons to set up and run a little TEAC 2340 quad tape machine. (Examples of the Heil speakers are coincidentally in the Rock Hall of Fame, but not because they were used on the Dark Side of the Moon tour, but just because Bob is Bob.)
We went to work as quick as we could repairing and setting up the new systems and worked right on through the day without a break. No lunch, no nothing. Just get the job done. Five O'clock came and the band came out to do a sound check, except there was no functioning PA yet, so they just played with their amps on stage and maybe a little bit of monitor. Nothing out front.
I had no idea who Pink Floyd was and from my perspective at the front of house console, I thought they sounded kind of like a sleepy blues band. Ha! Was I wrong.
Showtime came and went and the PA wasn't ready. A half hour later and we still didn't have the system put together yet. Around an hour after showtime, someone made the call to open the doors and people streamed in, excited to hear some band I had never heard of. I still had no idea.
Around 9:30PM the house lights went down and a few seconds later, the curtain started to climb up out of the darkness and the PA EXPLODED again, but this time with some of the wildest avant-garde music I had ever heard. That got my attention! After about a half hour the band took a break and we continued to work. When they came back just a few minutes later, the first strains of Dark Side of the Moon erupted from the most amazing sounding PA I had ever heard! OMG. All of the tweeters were not yet replaced and we still had a crew member standing on each stack, screwing the backs on cabinets, but the sound was literally breathtaking. The scene was epic. Like a scene from King Kong.
Then it was time for my quad system to make itself known. I found myself standing next to Alan Parsons, while he smoothly swung back and forth between the FOH console and the little TEAC tape machine. He had gobs of white leader between each sound effect and in near total darkness, would fast forward the tape to the next SFX and cue it up. Then back to the console for a vocal ride or guitar ride and then back to the play button on the little tape machine.
I say I found myself because at the first notes of the first song, I began to have an out of body experience like I had never experienced before. I had no idea who Pink Floyd was and was in no way expecting the sonic feast I was experiencing. I was an audio snob up to that point, and believed I knew how sound systems should sound. Oh no, I had no freakin' idea how sound systems should sound. That much was clear.
The PA, with brand new JBL speakers and drivers, and The Dark Side of the Moon flowing from it, was unlike any I had ever heard or have heard since. I was standing right in Alan Parsons sweet spot and the balance of the quad system was unbelievable. There were voices in my head. There were bells sweeping through my body and out the other side. At one point, a combination of exhaustion and elation almost cause me to lose my balance and I had to lean on the table, still being careful not to get anywhere near that tiny little player.
When the show was over, I gathered myself and we Heil crew loaded our truck with our tools. I shook Alan's hand, got a hug from a Floyd roadie as we all clapped each other on the backs backstage and almost without a word, we drove off into the night, only suspecting the profound musical event we had just witnessed and helped rescue. With every passing day, the events of March 6th, 1973 have become more profound to me. Kiehl Auditorium is long gone, Many of us on the two crews are also gone. But the memories are as vivid as last nights sunset.
In 2015, I was working at Omega Recordings in Rockville MD, (I now work at Sheffield Recordings LTD in Baltimore County MD) when Roger came through to do a rehearsal for an upcoming Wounded Warriors concert. I only had a short time to talk to Roger, but we talked about the show and the rescue, all those years ago. He filled me in on some of the things I didn't know about the accident and the systems.
They used our Heil quadraphonic system for the rest of the American tour.
Bill Mueller
Was it definitely a ballast weight that set the explosion off? If so, then that's not the only time they'd had an explosion because I remember Roger Waters in an interview, talking about a gig where they'd had some metal bins made up to contain pyrotechnics. When the bins arrived, the bases were only half the thickness they were supposed to be, so they sent them back. The company should have replaced the bases but instead just added another layer to the base. This caused the powder to superheat resulting in a huge explosion. Roger said he just remembered seeing the back of the Hammond organ flying into the air and the front rows of the audience being showered with shrapnel.
@@nickhirst999 That sounds like the same event to me. At the time we on the Heil crew were told someone double loaded the canisters. I'm not sure they even knew what happened at the time. I wasn't there. I was in St Louis the next day.
Epic story! So cool
The crazy old pro-communist JACKAL, READY TO hand over the WHOLE WORLD to the KNBs, but he earns money in the decaying West, and moving to live in Russia or North Korea is weak, there they will quickly close his mouth to Roger Waters ....
Now that my friend, Is a story!!
I never knew that John Lennon's first solo album was an inspiration for Roger Waters. Very cool.
I didn't either and I'm a big Beatles/Lennon and PF fan... Suprised I haven't read/heard that before 👍🏻
I tend to thing a lot of the bands & artists from that era influenced each other. Partly that being something that happens naturally but also as there was so much experimentation, pushing the boundaries of rock & technical evolution in ways of creating sound. The 60's & 70's was the golden era of rock where it felt like there was so much amazing stuff going on that they raised each others game.
I've always thought that "I Found Out" had influence on Money
It’s interesting that the huge turn in Pink Floyd came when they decided to be more lyrically honest.
Isolation 😉
Two things. Goosebumps and tears. That's what this album is all about.
Every time David Gilmour plays his solos I feel like he's hitting me with some philosophical question and I just can't find the answer 🤘🏻
Sometimes I feel like Roger's lyrics are the question and David's solos are the answer.
@@ronnsnow2859 Absolutely, well said
@@ronnsnow2859 Jesus guys you must be high as kite while listening to that album :D
Well said! thank you!
I have my half-brother to thank for introducing me to Floyd when I was only 12 (he was 17 ) and I’ve been nuts about them ever since, I’m now 47 and even though my musical tastes have changed in a lot of ways elsewhere ,I can always stick Darkside or Animals on and they just never get old,Anything of theirs in fact.Just amazing music that I can’t find a rival for .
I’m 71 & I LOVE Dark Side.. every song is brilliant.. I can put this album on any time & love it, my daughter is 25 she loves it too. Clare Tory should have got more recognition she made Big Gig her own.
This is one of the best music channels on UA-cam. Nice work, brother.
These vids of Pink Floyd are so good . The furniture , the suit , just so nostalgically perfect .
The dialogue is perfectly neutral with no shuck and jive bullshit .
Thank You , bloody well enjoyed all of these .
It is amazing how thoroughly you have analysed this milestone album, the first I have ever seen that truly acknowledges Alan Parsons...Your videos are amazing, keep it up! I wish you a great 2023 from Argentina!
Alan Parsons is an albsolute legend!
This was the most concise and easy to understand breakdown of how this legendary album came to light. Such a great record! Thanks, Eric!
Excellent and concise episode on Pink Floyd. Only a fan could pull that off.
Your Pink Floyd content is what got me into your channel and has helped me delve into their discography, as well as collecting records and making cocktails. Love the content as always!
Perfect record! I remember listening to this while watching "The wizard of Oz" and being mind blown at how many things actually sync up. An act of sheer genius. If it wasn't intentional then it's one hell of a cosmic coincidence!
Great work. Excellent marshalling of info, and compelling insight into the album.
Thank you so much for these insights .
Your level of professionalism is incredible
This quality of content is absolutely insane. Bravo, and thank you!
Great video !
The voice saying "I don't know, I was really drunk at the time" at the beginning of the track"Us And Them" was spoken by Paul McCartney and Wings guitarist Henry McCullough.
I heard it wasnt McCartney
@@Watcher4111 You're correct, it wasn't McCartney, but his guitarist at the time, Henry McCullough
OMG Yes! so glad you're back with more Pink Floyd content. I am such a huge fan of your insight and knowledge of the bands history. Keep it up, man!
Great to hear an American loving our music from our rainy island.
Oh there's lots of us! Been a fan since high school!🎉
Thank you for your service Sir! This is the greatest dark side doc that I have ever watched.
I have been such a huge Floyd fan as early as I can be - 1979 at the age of 11. I actually mowed lawns to buy The Wall. And spent much moe on their back catalog from there. They are my #2 band behind The Beatles and I have to be honest here. I am sick up to here, hearing about Syd Barrett. I find his work good and I can see the legacy is deserved, but when it comes to Roger it's Syd this and Syd that. I love the firts two albums but Pink Floyd's sefinition comes from Clouds to The Wall and then Momentary to Division Bell and all of the solo work in between and beyond. But in no way is Syd so much of a driving force behind what PF became, outside of sinpiring the same theme over and over and over and over again. Momentary Lapse was breath of fresh air so much that I began resenting Roger's works (outside of Animals).
So that little bit of time in there where it was all Roger's crazy this and that and missing Daddy issues, was the potential downfall and end of what is supposed to be the greatest band outside of The Beatles. David saved them from total destruction in 1987 and breathed new life in the core.
Rant over. I will most likely get to many Floyd fans to disagree and wish me harm, but it is what it is with me. I own every single piece of anything Floyd and connected, to bootlegs I've spent small fortunes on, to box set after box set, remasters, original vinyls, tapes from 8's to reels to Japanese versions to name it, I own it. And I stil lstand tall behind my thoughts that Syd was overrated and Roger invested too much into Syd's memory onto wax and tapes to the point of being a broken record.
But Floyd rock. They are my #2 and I love them. I could go on about The Beatles and John Lennon all the same, but that's another rant for another video at another time.
Thank you Vinyl Rewind for these amazing videos.
This doc is absolutely awesome! I wasn’t aware they played the album before its release! Please keep up the good work. Your persona, the feel, the look… all on point. Cheers!
The work you put into these videos is amazing. Fantastic content. Merry Christmas 🎅 🎄 ❤
It's remarkable how professional their operation was at a time when the industry was still in it's early development.
It seems like their studio work and touring schedules were well thought out and productive throughout the whole period from the late 60's onward. Excellent production and use of cutting edge technology along with refined talent isn't usually associated with many of the other bands during that time. What an amazing story!
Great job by you and your team!
Impressive job laying out this information. Usually documentaries bore me after 5 minutes but you held my attention. Very well done
By far most comprehensive review on the subject! Congrats!
Crazy amount of research from a plethora of sources. Bravo! I thought I had read and heard everything about this production but you doubled what I had known.
[ BTW, "rows" 19:09 rhymes with "cows." 😉 ]
Wow!!!! Just making one of the greatest albums of all time would have been enough for me to believe that these guys were working very hard… to know that they had so many other things going on while recording the album just have me hella anxiety! Holy crap!
Man, happy to see you give this masterpiece it’s due, bud! 👍
Fantastic mini-documentary. Well researched, intelligently worded, and very informative. Kudos. Nice work
Fantastic video. Great job and thank you for your time. Merry Christmas
This video is brilliant. From someone who thought they were the biggest Pink Floyd nerd ever, I somehow learnt things in this video I never knew before. brilliant narration too!
Thank for providing me with the story of how it was born. Dark Side of the Moon was at the root of my awakening to become an audiophile when it was released almost 50 years ago. To this day I can very well remember how I was blown away by the track "MONEY" when I entered a HiFi store downtown. To celebrate the 50 anniversary I intend to invite my best friends to listen to this masterpiece on my high-end stereo.
The heart beat sound throughout the album. Love to hear who's idea it was and the significance.
First time viewer. I'm very impressed with the obviously huge amount of work which went into making this video. Great job people.
I didn't know the order of the song recording. My favourite part of the video is the clip of Richard Wright playing the organ live and using a joy stick @ 24:50 to move the sound around quadraphonically with four mics on each rotating horn/drum so that the rotating speaker sounds like it's revolving around the entire stadium. I heard about it but I've never seen that until now. Thanks for posting!
The Joystick thing is known as the 'Azimuth Co-ordinator', first experienced by myself at a Floyd concert in June 1969 at the acoustically perfect Philharmonic Hall in Liverpool UK. Extraordinary sound effect.
@@standbytogo123 "Asimuth Coordinator" Love that terminology. Thank you! The fact that it was Rick wright using it proves my point all the more: he was the best musician in Pink Floyd.
My brother bought this album when it first came out and I listened to it when he played it. I was 11 at the time and it became an instant favorite. I've never tired of since, and I've owned it as vinyl, cassette and just about every other popular form throughout the years until now. Undoubtedly the best album ever made. If Floyd had accomplished nothing else with their lives, they could be be proud of having produced this work of art.
The only time I saw the band was in fall of 1972. They must have felt more confident about the new material because the concert opened with "Set Controls..." "Careful With That Ax..." and perhaps one other, ending with "Echoes." Then, after an intermission, the entirety of "Dark Side..." The visual effects and films were stunning and ahead of anything else at the time. Before the concert began I looked behind me and in one of the first rows was a grandmother, calmly knitting while waiting for the show to start.
Tremendous presentation ! Thank you so much. Allen Parsons info is priceless.
So happy to see this video in my sub feed! Love your Pink Floyd vids!!
Excellent video, I have always figured that I knew a fair amount about DSOTM but I found out some interesting things that I didn't know. That's what I like about this channel!!
Damn dude. Take a breath.
Didn't learn anything new. I've read, heard and watched many pieces on the making of the album previously. The best is the one made by the band.
I am currently working on an album of my own and this video helped me immensely. Thank you for your videos & your channel! Your video on London Calling by The Clash was one of my early inspirations to get more into punk music. Your videos rock! Quite literally.
Best album ever
I didn't know that they all created a list of problems that weigh on their minds. That explains why people always talk about Richard Wright's fear of flying when talking about On the Run; that was his contribution to the themes of the album.
I think I used that semicolon correctly. I didn't know what else to put there.
Excellent work again. I love these videos!
Finally!!! Thanks for doing a review on Dark Side!!!
Amazing job on the best album ever recorded. 😍
i think that's very interesting how david and roger wanted it to sound differently and had a mediator making compromises throughout the whole thing. i feel like that's actually a really unique and smart way to do it that's probably extremely rare in all music.
The same thing happened with the recording of "comfortably numb" from the Wall album. David wanted it to sound one way, and Roger the other (Don't remember which was which), and anyway they eventually compromised and we got the results of that, which of course is perfection!
This is a really good report on the creation of the Dark Side of the Moon. I love your music history posts.
Love the album, I've listened to this artwork more than 1,000 times! Thanks for the video. Love the set, suit, and hair!
Very nice presentation with a number of facts revealed that I wasn't even aware of! Thanks!
I just want to say, you have a great story telling ability. You have an economy of words, never thick but full of thrill and surprise. we hang on your words. Love it. Subscribed.
This channel deserves WAY MORE subs than just 238K
Awesome stuff, most outstanding & very informative... KYLESTYL approved.
Bravo! Great topic and this was WONDERFUL!
Great video! I have to quibble with one detail. This album did NOT cement David Gilmour as the band’s lead singer. In fact, you could argue that this was the *last* album with him as the main singer. Roger really took over from here on out, though WYWH was really both (and neither) of them. David was DECIDEDLY the band’s main singer pre-Dark Side. Dude, he sang like 80% of all the pre-Dark Side material!
This album was the record every older person I knew who didn't like rock music said they respected when I was growing up. It broke every barrier.
Setting aside all about "The Dark Side of the Moon". Absolutely the greatest album of all time. I just wanted to say that Vinyl Rewind absolutely nailed the early 70's for this video. The whole set, including the tiki bar theme, the dark wood wall paneling, the burnt orange couch, and the lamps. Totally nailed the early 70's decor. His polyester suit with the wide lapels and very wide tie, even his hair is totally in the style of that time. Even the harsh lights with the sharp shadows is very typical of the time. If you want to know what 1973 looked like. They nailed it here.
Such a great review of a classic and beautiful album.
Yay you mentioned Portsmouth's Guildhall! My home town and the Guildhall is just round the corner from me. So many great bands have played there, Pink Floyd, The Who, The Mother's of Invention etc ...
I can tell you have a passion for this record! Awesome video
Just two days ago I found my original vinyl copy that my babysitter gave me back in the mid 70’s. Woot!
Pure Masterpiece!! Dark Side must be PLAYED LOUD!!
Dark Side was the first album I bought on CD back in the late 90s. A timeless classic.
Outstanding video. I was born on April 28th . So that tidbit of info had a huge impact on me. Love the band and play the song money 💰 every time i head to the casino.
So far it's great!
that's really cool Alan Parsons was so important to the album, that's something I didn't know
This a very entertaining and informative documentary, had my attention throughout the video. Thank you.
Excellent. There wasn't anything I didn't know but I certainly couldn't organize and articulate it like you.
I've been listening to those Rainbow bootlegs since high school in the early 80s. But it wasn't until several years ago that I finally heard the debut, trouble plagued show in Brighton which was a treat. I love all those old concerts when it was just the four of them.
Outstanding!
Outstanding research, compiling, fact checking, vintage footage & presentation.
An absolute go-to reference for anyone interested in this album.
Terrifically well done & thank you for it.
For some reason I always thought Obscured By Clouds was released before Meddle. Great video as always and looking forward to next years content!
This was great. Thanks and Happy Holidays.
Awesome video! Learned a couple of new things. Thanks again for the spectacular content.
I do think it's the greatest album of all time! There are many great albums by many great bands, but lot of the albums you just skip around listen to the best songs, but the Dark Side of the Moon is truly one album you can listen to front to end, and you don't want to skip anything... it's just absolutely brilliant everything about it and the most unique Rock album of all time!
That was immense. Didn’t know about the Crappy Premiere that they didn’t turn up to. Great work Geek !
Great video, Dark side of the Moon's sales in America should be updated.
It is currently certified at 15 million but should be 20m.
Great job, Eric. I have seen/heard many documentaries, read plenty, but put together in this video I had stuff presented in a different way that made me appreciate the album even more.
in the late 70's my uncle had a reel-to-reel tape player. i played DSOFTM backwards, forwards, slower, faster and at normal speed so much the family thought i had an issue. no, the album was just THAT great. to this day it's in my top 5 albums.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!🔥this should be EPIC.. THNX!
there's something about this album that blows me away every time
Frightfully well done, and off the top of my head, what was new to me were Alan Parsons' lesser-known contributions and the Claire Torry settlement(which she richly deserved). Thanks!
Wow great work man! So much new information about the making dsotm
YESSSSSSS NEW PINK FLOYD
DOC
been waiting on this for months. thank you.
I am 43, Pink Floyd has been a massive part of my life since a kid, and i don't think a week goes by where i am not playing a Floyd album.
When it comes to Dark Side..... the album is amazing! But i do not get this almost arrogant view so many have about 'The Great Gig In The Sky'' and Claire's version being the best?..... Yes it was original, yes it is amazing! Don't get me wrong, i love the version myself.
But the Delicate sounds of Thunder version, with Rachel, Durga and Margaret or (Machan) as some call her, is absolutely incredible.
Even the version on Pulse, with Sam Brown taking the lead is just absolutely mind blowing.
With Floyd, you get very anal people with very anal views..... Like people making Syd Barret out too be an absolute genius.
I'm sorry, but i hate the childish, messy, experimental noise the band made when he was in it.
In documentaries, Mason actually said, i quote
''Syd was a wonderful human being and a massive talent, but it never shined through, even before the drugs, a lot of the time, we just made noise''.
That was the BBC documentary with Peter Genner and many more associated with Floyd in Syd's day, that all agree, their music until Dave, was crap.
When I saw this pop up I was 'ohh Lord this gonna be good'
Saw the group play a very small venue in Vancouver BC … the Agrodome in 1972. Dark Side songs in surround sound, 6 months before LP was released… i even got onstage taking photos. Though photos were poor, but when now compare favourably with any of their other period photos.
Such a great video! Hope to see more videos like this on other albums.