EXHIBITION CELEBRATES
Piper At The Gates Of Dawn A Saucer Full Of Secrets More Ummagumma Atom Heart Mother Meddle Obscured By Clouds LONDON’S 60s underground music scene was bursting with flower power, anti-war demos and new attitudes to sex and drugs.
Four students emerged with a sound and light show that summed up the mood of the time with their psychedelic music.
And by 1967 Syd Barrett, Nick Mason, Roger Waters and Richard Wright’s Pink Floyd had signed with EMI’S Harvest label. They released their first single, Arnold Layne, and first album, Piper At The Gates Of Dawn.
David Gilmour joined and Syd dropped out, and the band grew In 1967, the band was due to appear on BBC Radio’s Light Programme – which supported upcoming bands - but Syd Barrett took fright at the recording studio, “freaked out” and legged it through the first number. The Beeb wrote to Pink Floyd’s booking agent demanding an explanation. into a rock behemoth with album sales topping 250million.
They are celebrated in Pink Floyd: Their Mortal Remains at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. The exhibition spans their first album in 1967 to their final performance at Live 8 in 2005. Here we take a look at some of the exhibits. The exhibition runs until October 1. See Inspired by the surreal images of Salvador Dali, the sleeve of Pink Floyd’s live album Delicate Sound of Thunder features a man wearing a suit covered in lightbulbs.
Designed by Storm Thorgerson, he said the image “also comes from being at a gig and thinking how can I sum up Floyd live – Mr Light meets Mr Sound”.
Released in 1988 as a double LP, double cassette and double CD, each format had a slightly different track listing. David Gilmour said the album contained no studio overdubbing but engineer Buford Jones claimed he put some extra acoustic guitar on Comfortably Numb. The final part of the exhibition is a totally immersive audio-visual experience. Sennheiser’s AMBEO 3D ground-breaking audio technology brings a projected performance of Comfortably Numb from 2005’s Live 8 to life. Almost as good as seeing the band live.