Hacker Cinema
Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii
1972 · Film · documentary · 84 min
Directed by Adrian Maben
British progressive rock band Pink Floyd perform at the ancient Roman Amphitheatre in the ruins of Pompeii, Italy in 1971. Although the band perform a typical live set from the era, there is no audience beyond the basic film crew.
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4 comments on Hacker News
Also "Live At Pompeii"[0] (although to my disappointment, it's the cinema version with the DSOTM studio clips - my original experience was the Laserdisc and VHS versions which omitted those because IMO they're not interesting and just get in the way. I'd probably watch "Pink Floyd: DSOTM: BTS" as a standalone thing but it has no place, for me, in "Live At Pompeii".)
[0] https://superdeluxeedition.com/news/pink-floyd-at-pompeii-mcmlxxii/
> I also can’t imagine the film masters were trashed, or that the show was composited to video tape.
Happens more than you'd think (in the past, at least - it's obviously much easier now with digital storage.) Couple of examples I remember off the top of my head:
re: Adrian Maben making a Director's Cut DVD of "Live In Pompeii"[0]
"While searching in the French and English film laboratories for the unused negative we learnt of a disaster. On the initiative of the French Production Company, MHF Productions, the 548 cans of 35mm negative and prints of the rushes had been stored at the Archives du Film du Bois d’Arcy outside Paris. One of the employees, a certain Monsieur Schmidt, "le Conservateur," unfortunately decided that he wanted to make extra storage space on his shelves for more recent films and that the Floyd footage was without interest or value. The 548 cans of negative and the prints of the Pink Floyd unused rushes and outtakes were incinerated."
re: Dr Who missing episodes[1]
"Further erasing of Doctor Who master videotapes by the Engineering Department continued into the 1970s. Eventually, every master videotape of the programme's first 253 episodes (1963–69) was destroyed or wiped. The final 1960s master tapes to be erased were those for the 1968 serial Fury from the Deep, in August 1974."
[0] https://www.brain-damage.co.uk/other-related-interviews/adrian-maben-live-at-pompeii-2003-with-brain-d.html
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who_missing_episodes
If we’re making recommendations of non-obvious Pink Floyd things to recommend we have to include Live At Pompeii, a feature length live concert movie.
I must have watched the version of Echoes a thousand times it’s utterly mesmerizing.
The first thing to realize is that there are 4 main phases of Pink Floyd, and can be considered different bands:
1) the Syd Barrett era. They were a psychedelic pop / experimental band, led by charismatic singer / songwriter / guitarist Syd Barrett. They had 1 album (Piper at the Gates of Dawn), and several singles. I like this era a lot. Try listening to Arnold Layne, Lucifer Sam, See Emily Play...
2) Middle period - after Syd went nuts, they brought in Dave Gilmour to replace him. Everyone tried their hand at writing songs, and it took some time to get their footing. This is a more introspective, laid back period, and when they did those sound track albums people are talking about. They were in the top 40, but not really stars yet. The culmination of this era was the movie Live at Pompeii.
3) Roger Waters era - bass player Waters wrote an entire album of songs about madness and alienation, this was Dark Side of the Moon, their most popular album, which propelled Pink Floyd to the top of the charts. Waters had developed into a genius song writer, but with each successive album, became more domineering and difficult to work with. These albums tended to be ambitious concept albums, dark and disturbing, in contrast to the laid back vibe of the previous era. The last 2 Waters albums, The Wall and Final Cut were essentially Waters solo albums, and at the end, half the band had departed.
3) Dave Gilmour era - Waters went solo, and expected the band to end, but Gilmour decided to bring back the 2 ousted members of the band, and continue as Pink Floyd. This period isn't very interesting IMO.
So my personal tastes: I find The Wall and most of the Waters-era albums kind of overpowering and negative. I prefer the Barrett stuff, as well as Live at Pompeii. YMMV...