Visual Intensity 5/Visual Intensity - Issue 5 (1994)(Dual 4Mat)(Disk 2 of 3).adf/Music/173/173

Text File | 1994-10-04 | 10.5 KB | 333 lines

{ta{M{6
                  T H E   D I V I S I O N   B E L L   T O U R
{C{9
                                 By SABLE/INDY
{E{7
Having  seen  the  Paris  leg  of  the
current  Pink  Floyd  tour I figured I
might as well type a little review.  A
word  of warning though if you haven't
seen  the  concert  yet but plan to, I
suggest  you don't bother reading this
article.   I wouldn't want to ruin the
surprise(s).

Having  arrived  at the field almost 5
hours  before  the  concert  started I
figured  instead  of  wasting time I'd
make  sure  I got a good spot to watch
from  so  I  sort  of rushed round the
field  bought  a  few  T-shirts  and a
programme  and  then  went over to the
stage  to  see  how close I could get.





{E{7After climbing over a few guys I ended
up  about  20-30  heads  back from the
front of the crowd and fairly near the
centre and of course being about 6 1/2
foot  tall I had the most amazing view
going.

Before   the   concert   started  such
musical  gems  as "I shot the sheriff"
and  that  one that goes "I don't like
reggae, I love it" was playing perhaps
to   make   the  Floyd's  music  sound
better.   Anyway half past nine rolled
around,  the  sun  went  down  and the
intro  started.   This  had presumably
been  specifically  created  for  this
tour as I'd never heard it before.  It
{ta{E{7was a sort of mix of noises out of the
countryside  making  full  use  of the
amazing surround sound that Pink Floyd
claim  to  have invented.  Anyway this
countryside  thing  went  on for about
quarter   of   an  hour  with  a  full
complement   of   cows  mooing,  birds
tweeting,  crashing aeroplanes, rivers
and  tanks.   Afterwards  most  people
seemed  to  think  it was bollocks but
personally  I  thought  it  was really
smart.

Finally  the  first track made a start
obviously  this was gonna be Shine On.
My first impression was "Fuck me, this
is  loud",  my second thought was "Wow
this  is  fucking  excellent",  to  my
surprise  the  quality  of  music  was
almost  perfect,  I expected that Pink
Floyd playing live wouldn't be half as
good  as  anything  they produced in a
studio  but  to  be  honest  with  the
hundreds  of speakers and the complete
surround  sound it was better.  True I
did  have  a bit of a feeling that the
music  was all coming through my right
ear  as I was a bit closer to one side
of  the  stage than the other but most
of  the  time the music was so fucking
loud  you couldn't tell where the hell
it  was  coming  from.   Anyone who is
going  to  see them at Earl's Court or
where  ever  make  sure  you  are dead
centre  for absolutely perfect balance
as   other  people  I  talked  to  who
weren't  quite  as close to the centre
of  the stage said it was a lot worse.
Like  I said the first track was Shine
On  and  this  is where the Pink Floyd
flying   screen  made  an  appearance.
Imagine this 40ft high circular screen
with,  at  a  guess, about 36 spinning
lights  around the edge rising up from
{ta{E{7under the band reaching a point in the
centre  of  the  domed  stage and then
using  the  most powerful projector in
the   whole   world   a  massive  film
depicting  scenes  from  Syd Barrett's
life  is  beamed onto it.  In case you
didn't know Shine On You Crazy Diamond
is about Syd Barrett's journey through
life  and  so no matter how much Tummo
complains  they  are  gonna  obviously
show a film with him in.

Because  the stage is a huge dome they
managed   to   fit  hundreds  (if  not
thousands)  of  lights,  lasers, smoke
makers  and more lights into the roof.
So  imagine a huge semi circle that is
completely   filled   with   different
coloured  smoke  and  laser  beams and
basically this huge mass of colour.


Right, I can't really remember exactly
which  order  the  songs went in as a)
I've  got  a crap memory and b) it was
all  too  mindblowing  for  me to take
much  notice  so  I'll just go through
the interesting ones.  For example the
track "One Of These Days (I'm going to
cut  you  into little pieces)" lead up
to   the  half  time  interval.   Dave
Gilmour's   slide   guitar  makes  its
appearance and bloody excellent it was
too.   But  the  one thing we were all
waiting   for  was  the  famous  pigs.
These    have    taken    a   complete
redesigning and now have massive horns
and  this  really evil look about 'em.
The search light eyes were still there
but instead of flying across the crowd
they  sort of popped up out of the top
of  the  speaker  towers  and  sort of
wobbled around throughout the song and
then  right  at  the  end they sort of
{ta{E{7dumped  'em  off  the top of the tower
onto  the  floor,  not  so much flying
pigs  as plummeting pigs, not quite so
effective but more realistic I s'pose.

Some  time in the middle of the second
half  they  played  Astronomy  Domine.
The  huge flying screen floats back up
again  and  the  projector  comes back
into   play   putting   these  massive
pictures of planets and moons wooshing
across the back of the stage.  Despite
Pink   Floyd   saying  that  they  are
getting  back  to their roots (usually
this  is  code for "we haven't written
any new songs" but not this time) this
was  the  only  really  old track they
played,  I  was  hoping to hear things
like  Interstellar  Overdrive  and See
Emily  Play  but  instead they more or
less  played  the  same  tracks as the
last  tour.   One  thing  they  did do
which harked back to the good old days
was  the  crap projections of bubbling
water  and  a  marker pen being pushed
about  a  piece of plastic on the back
of  the stage during a few tracks.  Oh
and  of  course  the  flying screen is
from  pretty far back but then they've
always used that.

The  video  to "Time" has been done up
quite  a  bit.   Instead of the crummy
old  Monty  Python style animations of
clocks  spinning  around  and wooshing
all  over the place they've created an
amazing  computer  generated  sequence
with,  you guessed it, clocks spinning
around   and  wooshing  all  over  the
place.  Despite the fact that it's the
same  idea  it  definitely looks a lot
better.


{ta{E{7The  video  to  "Money" has also taken
some changes, imagine aliens coming to
Earth  with a magic stick that creates
huge  piles  of money, great eh?  Well
no  not  really or so says Pink Floyd.
You  really have to have been there to
understand  how stunning it is to hear
all  those cash register noises at the
start   of   the   track  coming  from
completely  different  points  in  the
field,   pretty   bloody  mindblowing,
that's how stunning it was.

Hang  on,  I've missed out the lasers,
let me tell you about the lasers, they
are  the  most powerful ones ever used
in  the  entertainment  business, they
got  the  design  off  of  NASA and in
America  they  had  to  get  their own
airslot so that no aeroplanes would be
hit  by  them.   They  turned on these
lasers  and they were so powerful that
when  you  turned round to see if they
were pointing at anything you couldn't
tell  where  they  ended, I mean these
lasers  simply  vanished  off into the
distance.

Umm,  I've  missed  the  explosions as
well,  during  some  track  or another
there were these massive balls of fire
rising  up  out  of  the  stage, I was
standing fairly far back and I thought
"bloody  hell,  that's  hot" so christ
knows what it was like up the front.

I   can't  remember  what  track  they
played  at  the  end but I do remember
that I was standing there watching the
stage  when  I  noticed  that everyone
else was looking backwards so I turned
around   and   there's   this  fucking
massive  glitter  ball, probably about
40-50ft  high  rising up out of what I
{ta{E{7thought  was  the  projection room and
spinning  around.   Imagine  these two
massive  spotlights  trained  onto the
ball and thousands of little specks of
light  wizzing  around  and around the
whole fucking field, I don't know what
it looked like from the sky but I'd've
payed  good  money to see it.  Anyway,
this  ball  spins  round for a bit and
then  it  sort  of  opens up like some
sort of massive flower, inside there's
this  huge  light and so patterns were
still being projected onto the back of
the stage.

I'm told that a lot of the French guys
actually  left when Dave said "This is
our  last  song"  (well obviously they
said it in French), talk about stupid,
the  more  intelligent amongst us hung
around  waiting  for  the fake encore,
and  sure  enough  it  was there.  I'm
can't  quite remember which two tracks
they  played,  it  was  definitely Run
Like Hell and I think Comfortably Numb
as  well.  Interestingly enough two of
the three tracks that Gilmour co-wrote
on  The  Wall  (they'd  already played
"Young  Lust"  earlier  in  the  set).
Anyway,  luckily  the  end to Run Like
Hell  is  pretty  long and so they had
plenty  of  time  to introduce a whole
bunch  of  new  lights  and  spin  the
flying  screen  round  so  that it was
aiming  at the crowd and obviously all
the  lights on it are changing colours
and  wooshing  around  then it sort of
kept spinning until it's aiming at the
band  and  it  was  about now that the
fireworks  start.   We are talking BIG
fireworks here, not your piddly little
Guy   Fawke's  night  crap  but  major
league    multiple    loud   explosion
fireworks.   If  I remember rightly it
{ta{E{7was at this time that we cue shouting,
cue cheering and cue leaving.

Right  I'll  leave  you with a list of
the   tracks   that  I  remember  them
playing,  although  don't  forget that
the whole thing was about 3 hours long
so I've probably missed a few out.

{C{6In no particular order.

{F{5     Shine  On You Crazy Diamond
     (the first couple of parts),
             High Hopes,
          One of These Days,
          Astronomy Domine,
             Us and Them,
            Run Like Hell,
         Wish You Were Here,
                Time,
                Money,
  Another Brick In The Wall Part 2,
          Comfortably Numb,
      What Do You Want From Me,
             Poles Apart,
            Take It Back,
            Keep Talking,
               Sorrow,
             Young Lust.

{E{7I  accept  no  responsibility  for the
accuracy of this list or the fact that
everything  is  probably  in the wrong
order,  if  you  want  a more accurate
report  you  can bloody well wait till
after  I've  been  to the Earl's Court
gig or go yourself.







{ta



{E{6Last   note   by  TUMMO/Dual  Frormat,
personally  I think what they did with
Shine   On  was  a  complete  load  of
pretentious  arse,  what  the fuck are
they  hoping  to achieve by exploiting
the  man that they owe their existance
to,  I  mean  having  a  kid  on stage
pretending    to   be   Barret?!?!?!!?
WANKERS!!!!
{A{:
                                  End.









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