Snapshot in the family album

July 16, 2013 12:39 PM

Pink Floyd's The Division Bell tour in 1994 was the highest-grossing tour in rock music history to that date, and featured spectacular special effects. For the first time since 1975, the band played the entirety of The Dark Side of the Moon in many of the tour's shows. On October 20, 1994 the concert at the Earls Court Exhibition Centre in London was filmed, and the subsequent documentary P•U•L•S•E: Live at Earls Court was released in 1995. Fullscreen. Widescreen.

Alternate fullscreen link.

Wikipedia has the set (track) list and background on the tour.

"If I were you, I’d sue somebody. Er, not me, though..."
The band played Earls Court for 14 nights, starting October 12th. During their first concert at the venue, less than a minute into Shine On You Crazy Diamond, a scaffolding stand (block 9) holding 1200 fans, collapsed, throwing hundreds of people 20 feet to the ground. Ninety-six people were injured. 36 hospitalized. All made a full recovery. The show was immediately cancelled and re-scheduled for October 17th, one of the band's rest days. Here's a review of the latter show.

posted by zarq (40 comments total)

I had this on VHS and still have the blinking-light CD. Maybe when/if it hits Blu-ray I'll get it again.
posted by popaopee at 12:53 PM on July 16, 2013 [2 favorites]

Your CD light still blinks??? Mine hasn't blinked in about 17 years.
posted by Elly Vortex at 12:56 PM on July 16, 2013

Your CD light still blinks??? Mine hasn't blinked in about 17 years.

CAROUSEL! CAROUSEL!
posted by Atom Eyes at 12:59 PM on July 16, 2013 [15 favorites]

Your CD light still blinks??? Mine hasn't blinked in about 17 years.

Sure, the batteries can be replaced.
posted by popaopee at 1:06 PM on July 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

"Widescreen"

Featuring their famous giant ovoid screen.
posted by anazgnos at 1:10 PM on July 16, 2013 [3 favorites]

How refreshing to see a stage without fifty fucking thousand cellphone screens glaring back at me.
posted by Purposeful Grimace at 1:13 PM on July 16, 2013 [16 favorites]

I got this when it came out on DVD. Even without Bluray the picture is stunning, light show is the stuff of legends, and despite having way too many players and missing one crucial one, the band is pretty damn good. Gilmour, of course, is A GOD.
posted by Ber at 1:31 PM on July 16, 2013 [2 favorites]

If you like your pictures undistorted, don't bother with those stretch-o-vision "widescreen" links.
posted by Mothlight at 1:33 PM on July 16, 2013 [2 favorites]

The PULSE tour provided an honest to goodness epiphany for me about doing the things you want to do when you have the chance.

I have been a Pink Floyd fan since I was 12, when Dark Side of the Moon was released. My brother bought it and I was hooked. I bought everything they put out as I could afford it. But I had never seen them live. When I heard they were touring again in 1994, the closest venue to my little city in Montana was Denver. A local company put together a round trip bus trip + concert ticket package. Not wanting to go alone (and my then-wife having no interest in going), I asked a friend to go with me. He said that sounded like a great idea. But then...

He dragged his feet so long, and I wasn't proactive enough, and the concert sold out. I wasn't savvy (or brave) enough to try to get tickets another way. And this was pre-StubHub, etc. So, I didn't go, knowing that they would likely never tour again.

Fast forward a bit. My C-Band (big dish) provider announced that the PULSE concert would be available via pay-per-view. I ordered it ($25 if I recall) and invited some friends (including the foot-dragger) to watch with me. I was blown away by the visuals, the effects, the sound, the music! It was fantastic. And I just about kicked myself for not being more persistent about seeing it in person. "We could have been there!" I said to my friend.

But I don't blame him. It was my thing, and I should have done what I had to do to make it happen. I was just lazy, and to this day I regret it. But it taught me a lesson, and now when I want to see or do something I put my best effort into making it happen.

I recorded the pay-per-view version to VHS and watched it regularly. When the official VHS came out, I played it so often I was wearing it out. I bought the pulsing-light CD set. After a long wait, the DVD version was released, which I purchased on release day. There has probably not been much more than a 2 month gap between viewing that concert in my home. Sometimes as background during other things, and other times with intense focus. Parts of it almost always give me chills. But I really wish I would have gone!
posted by The Deej at 1:39 PM on July 16, 2013 [6 favorites]

I saw this at the Rose Bowl when I was a sophomore in High School. The seating was madness, so we kept moving, culminating with jumping a gate and running down the very center of the floor area to the front row for the last 3 songs of the encore. That was right before a really creepy guy in a Lakers jacket gave us a joint he pulled out of his cowboy boots, where apparently he had "a few dozen to give out to cool young dudes". After (pre cell phone days) we wandered the parking lots for hours looking for our car. What a night.
posted by cell divide at 1:47 PM on July 16, 2013

Great, something to do tonight. But now what am I supposed to do with this half page of scribbled lines?
posted by thelonius at 2:01 PM on July 16, 2013 [2 favorites]

So, in my high school we all had to do science experiments. My friend's dad was a ENT doctor, and my friend decided to use his equipment to test the effects of music on temporary hearing loss. He had me (and a couple of other guys) listen to Learning to Fly from the Division Bell at full volume with our head against the speakers and then tested our hearing.

The start of the guitar solo here still makes me viscerally cringe. It was all okay until that guitar started screaming... must go into fetal... position...
posted by blahblahblah at 2:10 PM on July 16, 2013

My only memory of the Pulse album was during Frosh Week at university. After a particularly drunken night, I somehow wound up crashing on a sofa of a frat house (I didn't even know frats existed in that town before that). The room was pitch black except for this stupid Pulse CD flashing a red light all damned night. Also when I woke up there was this dude sleeping on the floor whose name was Rat Boy.
posted by Hoopo at 2:19 PM on July 16, 2013 [4 favorites]

I generally don't like concerts (I know, I know), but I saw the Division Bell tour live in Texas Stadium, and it's was far and away one of the best-produced concerts I've ever seen. The vibe was more 'slow and majestic' than the 'fast and furious' you typically get. Towards the end, when the giant slow-turning disco ball came out, it was very special.

Echoing cell divide's experience, this concert also far and away holds the 'most joints attempted to pass to me' record at something like 'I totally lost count'.
posted by grajohnt at 2:35 PM on July 16, 2013

I had this on Laser Disc, it was amazing. I regret getting rid of the player and all my movies but didn't want to lug it with us on the last move.
posted by Mick at 2:36 PM on July 16, 2013

I waited in line, overnight at the Warehouse, for tickets to this show at the Coliseum in Oakland.

By far the most boring show I've ever been too. Not because it wasn't musically excellent but because it felt like a recital more than a performance. The band couldn't even be bother to give out a cliche "Hello [City on the tour], how are you out there? Let me here you [generic audience callback]."

It was a major Broadway production acted by understudies to a once great cast.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 2:42 PM on July 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

I was at the October 12 concert when the stand collapsed; although in one of the side sections well away from the collapse. It was a weird experience because it happened so early in the show, during the opening of Shine On You Crazy Diamond, when the arena and stage were mostly in darkness. Mostly I was aware of a low rumbling and a vague sensation of some unexpected movement at the back of the hall; then as the article says the house lights came up and the band petered out and it was obvious that something wrong had happened.

I do not remember "pandemonium"; if anything the aftermath was handled very professionally. More of a stunned "oh God I hope they're all OK" reaction. The crowd were asked to, and did, remain in their seats while the situation was evaluated and then some time later we were evacuated, again in a very orderly (almost very quiet-desperation English) way.

The rescheduled show was excellent; although very slightly disappointing that it was the regular show and not the Dark Side Of The Moon run-through. (As zarq noted in the post, they played DSOTM on only some of the shows of that tour. I don't remember them being announced ahead of time, so it was largely a matter of luck which show you got to see.)

The scale of it doesn't come across particularly well on video; the mirror-ball during Comfortably Numb looks insignificant on-screen. In person it was an astonishing effect because the lights on it were so powerful: the whole arena full of shafts and shards of light.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 2:42 PM on July 16, 2013 [4 favorites]

To follow up and make this even clearer - I've been to two Jean-Michel Jarre concerts, including the overnight one on the millenium new year in Cairo. The Division Bell tour made him look like a rank amateur.
posted by grajohnt at 2:45 PM on July 16, 2013

understudies to a once great cast

Hey: Rick Wright was always great.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 2:48 PM on July 16, 2013

Hey: Rick Wright was always great.

I'm not saying they didn't play well, what I'm saying is they could have been replaced with animatronic robots and a studio recording and no one would have known the difference.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 3:22 PM on July 16, 2013

"...they could have been replaced with animatronic robots and a studio recording and no one would have known the difference."

I saw them on the Momentary Lapse of Reason tour, and yeah, between the laser-show, movies, flying inflatable pig, flying hospital bed, smoke machines, etc. I am still not sure if there was an actual human band. And they were playing everything from the albums note-for-note, which did not help. Also, they did not acknowledge the audience or have any between-song banter.

It was quite a spectacle, but I could never think of it as a concert.

Still, I do love about seven of their albums so much!
posted by Cookiebastard at 3:54 PM on July 16, 2013

I don't think "howyadoin' Oak-TOWN" has been their style since the In The Flesh tour, which led directly to Roger Waters' "how about we put a big wall between us and the audience" idea.

everything from the albums note-for-note

Except for the little joke of dropping a few bars of the Doctor Who theme into One Of These Days. But yeah, it's choreographed spectacle, not improv jamming.

they could have been replaced with animatronic robots and a studio recording

See also: Kraftwerk.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 4:03 PM on July 16, 2013

I saw this concert in Winnipeg on July 1 (Canada Day). It's one of my best memories.
posted by SpecialSpaghettiBowl at 4:03 PM on July 16, 2013

they could have been replaced with animatronic robots and a studio recording

This has long been a criticism of Pink Floyd live. In drummer Nick Mason's excellent book Inside Out, he mentions that critics have said they could be replaced on stage by computers. He totally denies this because "computers move around too much."
posted by The Deej at 4:43 PM on July 16, 2013 [3 favorites]

I LIVED on usenet, trying to dissect every Publius Enigma clue. What a magical time, even though I pretty much knew we were being screwed with. Then, when the "proof" of it's legitimacy showed up during a concert, my mind was blown.

Such a great use of the emerging instant feedback afforded by the Internet. It still feel magical.
posted by The Deej at 6:10 PM on July 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

I was at the May 8th, 1994 show of The Division Bell tour at Vanderbilt Stadium in Nashville. They played:

Set I:
Astronomy Domine,
Learning To Fly,
What Do You Want From Me?,
On The Turning Away,
Take It Back,
A Great Day For Freedom,
Sorrow,
Keep Talking,
One Of These Days

Set II:
Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts 1-5),
Breathe,
Time,
Breathe (Reprise),
High Hopes,
Wish You Were Here,
The Great Gig In The Sky,
Us And Them,
Money,
Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2),
Comfortably Numb

Encore:
Hey You,
Run Like Hell

To this day a friend and fellow concert goer talk about the "Angry Pigs" ballons that towered over the speaker banks.

Not that I'm a fanatic or anything.
posted by grimjeer at 6:13 PM on July 16, 2013

Previously, the 1994 North American Tour Production Manual. Site is dead, but the PDF of the images I created is still alive (to my astonishment).
posted by bruzie at 6:13 PM on July 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

I found my original download of the production manual images so with better technology available to me, I've created a Google+ album.
posted by bruzie at 6:31 PM on July 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

He dragged his feet so long, and I wasn't proactive enough, and the concert sold out.

Dude, they sold out 18 people in front of me while i was in line the only time they ever played in Austin. I'm pretty tired of Pink Floyd after the 30-year-barrage, (except for Animals) but that will go down as one of the greatest regrets of my life, other than the time I blew off Bob Marley in '79 because "he comes around all the time."

I do still love me a David Gilmour solo, though. He's got such an incredibly strong sense of melody. Picked up his first solo album in the used bin a couple years ago and was pleasantly surprised by how well it's held up, and it didn't just get beaten into the ground by radio, so it sounds fresher than most Floyd these days.
posted by Devils Rancher at 7:50 PM on July 16, 2013 [2 favorites]

I was there for the opening show in Miami. It was awesome.

I'm not sure why they started in Miami (especially considering the next tour dates were in Texas), but I'm glad they did.
posted by oddman at 7:52 PM on July 16, 2013

I saw them on the Momentary Lapse of Reason tour, and yeah, between the laser-show, movies, flying inflatable pig, flying hospital bed, smoke machines, etc. I am still not sure if there was an actual human band. And they were playing everything from the albums note-for-note, which did not help. Also, they did not acknowledge the audience or have any between-song banter.

On that tour a hilarious parody of Grantchester Meadows played on the PA system before they started, which was probably a dig at Waters. They mostly played everything note-for-note, except for modifying the vocals on Great Gig in The Sky, adding a rhythm on the jam in Echoes, and going into a reggae beat on Money.
posted by ovvl at 8:58 PM on July 16, 2013

That production manual is incredible. How much does it cost to stage this kind of thing? Imagine the kind of psychopaths you'd have to hire to run it.
posted by thelonius at 9:44 PM on July 16, 2013

I remember Roger Water's lawsuit for the name Pink Floyd... I wish the judge had declared that no one could use it (not the rest of the band, nor Waters)...

I mean I liked Momentary Lapse of Reason okay, but as it's own album, not as a Pink Floyd album.

So when they came out with an album that was just them re-doing their material without Waters, I was less than pleased.

So I guess I'm saying your favorite band sucks (if Waters is no longer in it).

(also, listen to 'Amused to Death', a great solo Waters album, the best IMHO, but still no Pink Floyd).
posted by el io at 11:09 PM on July 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

This video contains content from Music Video Distributors, PEDL, BMG_Rights_Management and Warner Chappell, one or more of whom have blocked it in your country on copyright grounds.

Sigh. They still don't get it, do they?
posted by DreamerFi at 5:06 AM on July 17, 2013

hippybear - I take your contrast to be, for example, madness as a theme in Dark Side Of THe Moon, vs. the more fully realized narrative in The Wall?

Is that what you're getting at?
posted by thelonius at 7:03 AM on July 17, 2013

I had this on VHS and still have the blinking-light CD. Maybe when/if it hits Blu-ray I'll get it again.

Don't hold your breath: The concert was shot on mid-90s-era video, and the DVD is about as good as it's possible to make it look. Per Wikipedia: "There was considerable delay in the release of the DVD edition of Pulse, with new features announced with each setback. The cause of the delays was reputed to be the continued modifications and additions in order to produce a high-quality release."

I was lucky enough to see this tour (June 16, in Ames), and count myself lucky to have seen the band. While not in their prime, they were still a sight to behold, and a memorable experience for a hardcore Floyd devotee like myself. My friends and I went, and ended up in two groups of about four. My group's seats were about halfway back, on the grass, next to the sound booth. However, the other set of friends' seats were (somewhat hilariously) about three feet behind the sound booth, meaning they would have an unobstructed view of a giant black blob for the concert, and nothing else. They were generously offered upgrades, which put them considerably closer to the stage than I was. One of my friends swapped with me at intermission, which put me within spitting distance (ha!) of the band.

At that point in the tour, the setlist was pretty much static, except for one slot where they rotated in one of three or four songs from the Division Bell. Unfortunately, they chose the leaden and dreadfully on-the-nose A Great Day for Freedom, instead of far better songs like Poles Apart or Lost for Words. But it was still a damn fine concert. The extended ("alien") video intro for Money was a hoot, the light show amazing, and Comfortably Numb was orgasmic. (But then you'd expect it to be.)

In the intervening years, some lovely DB tour artifacts have surfaced, including a crystal clear soundcheck from the tour rehearsals, a soundboard recording or two, and even a handful of album outtakes. There were even not one but two separate recordings from the night I saw. (The list of jaw dropping Pink Floyd-related recordings that have cropped up in recent years that aren't Division Bell-related is even more amazing. If you'd have told me of some of the things that we've been able to hear in recent years, I would have called you a damn dirty liar and laughed at you.) It's a shame that the Immersion box sets weren't robust enough sellers to justify more of them for other albums.

That said, I'm still kicking myself for not having made the trek to see Gilmour's last solo tour, with Rick Wright, who sadly passed away not long after that tour wrapped. They played Echoes. Echoes!
posted by gern at 12:02 PM on July 17, 2013 [2 favorites]

That said, I'm still kicking myself for not having made the trek to see Gilmour's last solo tour, with Rick Wright, who sadly passed away not long after that tour wrapped. They played Echoes. Echoes!

Nothing is better than being there, but the DVD release from that tour is pretty great as well.
posted by The Deej at 12:09 PM on July 17, 2013 [1 favorite]

Yep. Bought it. Also bought the deeeeluxe five-CD version of Live at Gdansk, which was also pretty spiffy.

One of the easter eggs on Remember That Night, if memory serves, is an "acoustic" runthrough of Echoes by Wright & Gilmour. Ah yes, here it is...
posted by gern at 4:07 PM on July 17, 2013 [1 favorite]

I was at the Earls Court concert when the stand collapsed - it was during the opening bars of the concert, Shine On You Crazy Diamond. There was this deep rumble, and we could see the stands at the back moving. For a moment, we thought it was part of the show - "Awesome - did you see that?"....and then...."wait, that's not right". The music stopped, the house lights came up.

It took a while before they announced the show would not go on. The stand at the rear was a mess, the left hand side had partially collapsed, and some folks on the edge must have had quite a fall. I believe the band went to visit the injured in hospital the next day, which was a nice touch.

Still, we had travelled a long way and were not going to miss out - we paid through the nose for tickets from a tout and saw them the next night.

But it was so worth it. I can close my eyes and hear Run Like Hell and feel the heat from flames on the stage, the roar as Comfortably Numb reached it glitterball unfurling climax...
posted by lordelphin at 4:37 PM on July 17, 2013 [1 favorite]

Thanks for this. I was in my senior year of high school in 1994, and Pink Floyd was far and away my favorite band, so I emptied my bank account so I could go see two two of the three Division Bell shows in Philly. I'd never seen them in concert, and I figured I'd never have a chance to see them again. Loved both shows, and still love listening to P.U.L.S.E.

On the "animatronic robots" criticism (which isn't entirely without merit) one funny unscripted moment I remember from a bootleg of the first show in Miami is Gilmour forgetting a line in one of the songs (Wish You Were Here, maybe?) before recovering with "so sue me!", which was kind of funny given the epic legal battles between he and Roger Waters.

But, yeah, PF were always a better band in the studio than in the flesh. Still worth seeing live for the theatrics and musicianship, but if you went in expecting improvisation and cheerful audience banner, you went to the wrong show.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:46 PM on July 17, 2013