1974 November (14)-15-16-17: Black Holes in the Pool

updated August 2009

1974 November 14

setlist: Shine On You Crazy Diamond / Raving And Drooling / You Gotta Be Crazy / The Dark Side Of The Moon / Echoes

no recordings are in general circulation for this gig.

here's a review from NME taken from "In The Flesh":

After approximately five minutes of slightly laboured tuning up, the band start their first number of the set - a new composition entitled "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", it is very slow, rather low on melodic inventiveness, each note hanging in that archetypally ominous stunted fashion that tends to typify the Floyd at their most uninspired. This thoroughly unimpressive beginning is duly followed by the second of the three new numbers to be showcased in the section. "Raving and Drooling" is motivated by a rhythm somewhat akin to that of the human heart-beat with further references gathered from numerous Floyd stylised devices. So then there was "Gotta Be Crazy", the magnum opusof this dubious triumvirate, which features a fairly decent melody; a fetching minor chord strummed out by Gilmour who also sings over it. Unfortunately, the Floyd as always, let the song sprawl out to last twice as long as it should. The second half is, of course, taken by the whole "Dark Side Of The Moon" presentation, to be graced by the projection of a special film made as a visual complement to the music. Finally the set is completed and the band walk off to ecstatic applause. They eventually return for an encore - no "thank-yous" or anything. And the band do "Echoes". Visuals are now relegated to luminous green orbs of circular light projected on the big screen.

1974 November 15

setlist: Shine On You Crazy Diamond / Raving And Drooling / You Gotta Be Crazy / The Dark Side Of The Moon / Echoes

5 different recordings are known for this gig so far + a "strange" SBD source (incomplete); here are some of the versions I checked of the recorders in general circulation:

recorder 1 is the one used for "Black Holes In The Sky" (Harvested); "Black Holes In The Sky" (Great Dane); "Prototype Wish You Are Animals" ;"You've Gotta Be Crazy at Wembley" ... etc...etc... it's also around on fantapes, but mosly coming from the boots.

recorder 2 is the one used for the RoIO "Electric Magic", and is obviously around from fantapes too as this 4ThGen (pretty nice) or this version from the master reels. Very straanger SQ between the 1st and the 2nd set is on this master, set2 is much more hissy for some resons, anybody knows the reason of it?

recorder 3: Missing Echoes

recorder 4 is the one recently surfaced on the boot. "How Time Flies (Rover Records 3/4), complete recording in an excellent sound quality

recorder 5: this is missing Echoes and the end of Dark Side (fades out on the end of BD), it's recently surfaced from a backup of the masters into Reel n a fair quality.

SBD source: drums and bass tracks, other instruments are in the back, this showed up from a fan tape supposed to be 2nd gen that was transferred into CD and called "Strange One"; it's incomplete (from the end of YGBC to half of Money) and has Echoes from 74-11-16 (BBC) filled in, I do ignore if there's more from this source.

here are a couple of distinctive points to recognize these tapers:

SOYCD:

recorder 1: starts from the Waters' intro and the taper moves the mic when Waters finishes talking

recorder 2: there is a lot of tunings before the Waters' intro; you can hear guys laughing at about m 0:45 from the beginning of the recording. A guy yells "hey" when the song finishes (near to the taper)

recorder 4: long tuneups when the song starts, when the tune-ups start you can hear the taper cleaning up his voice and moving a mic + a girl laughing near to him .. later someone blows his nose near to the recorder too.

ecorder 5: includes a piece of intro to the show and long audience and tune-ups before the song starts

STM:

recorder 1: you can hear a lady and a man (maybe the taper) chatting (the taper moves a lot too).

recorder 2: distinctly longer, here there are guys chatting near to the taper.

recorder 4: at the very end before the "screams" soueone near to the mic. sniffs with his nose.

ecorder 5: no STM seems to have been recorded by this taper, the recording starts from Breathe

Brain Damage:

recorder 1: a guy very near to the taper whistles at the begining

recorder 2: the taper moves the recorder at the beginning of the song

recorder 4: someone's at the taper's back yealls "wow" when the song starts

ecorder 5: fades out at the very end (missing Eclipse) you can hear someone near to the taper saying "shut up) before Waters starts singing the song

1974 November 16

setlist: Shine On You Crazy Diamond / Raving And Drooling / You Gotta Be Crazy / The Dark Side Of The Moon / Echoes

this is the famous show at the Empire Pool broadcasted by the BBC (and then from other radio stations as well)

it was probably entirely recorded by the BBC but it does exist only a partial SBD recording of that so far (the Dark Side set, as commonly broadcasted + Echoes that's included in some once-rare versions from the pre-FM master of the BBC broadcast)

the fact it does exist this SUP recording from the soundboard (and PF genuine SBD recordings are very rare!) put in a second plan the as much excellent complete audience recording for long, this has circulated among fanatics only for years essentially. What's amazing anyway is that there's not only one EX audience recording there are 2 and if the first recorder was snobbed, the second was totally ignored for long. They are the ones in general circulation now.

both the audience recordings have long chats by the relative tapers and their friend between the songs, during the tunings, below are some of the versions I checked for the 3 sources for this show:

SBD/radio source: (Dark Side set + Echoes) there are A LOT of titles available, here are some:

"Strange One" ; "Wembley 1974 Pre FM Master (sirene)" [these two are the only including Echoes] ; "pre-FM Master" ; all the "Brain Damage" (Men At Work / TSP / Capricorn ) ; "Brain Damaged" (PF 2001); "Dark Night In London" ; "The Great Gig In The Sky" (CL) ; "In The Sky" ; "She Kisses Like A Machine" ... etc... etc ... etc ... included all the FAKE RoIOs mislabeles as 1973-03-15 Philadelphia (mostly taken from the WNEW, NY radio rebroadcast): "Dark Soundboard Of Philadelphia" ; "Dark Side Of Philly" ; "Pink Zoning"  ... etc ... etc ... (mind that no genuine recording of Philly 73-3-15 really surfaced); it was also mislabeled as Atlanta 73, see RoIO "Dark Night In Atlanta" ; there are versions from a recent rebroadcast of BBC6 too for the series "DreamTicket"

audience recorder 1: (complete set 1+2, no Echoes) "Black Holes In The Sky" (no label ; around also "untitled" and indexed differently); there are around versions from DAT clones of the Master too, mind that there are copies with weird static noise in the back unfortunately.

audience recorder 2: (complete) "Completely Brain Damaged Volume 3" (DR); the MoLM's "No Room Upon The Hill" (remastered by the taper and released by MoLM); unprocessed version from the master (2004 transfer); unprocessed version @48K included in the "Reeling In Pink Floyd" series

very easy to distinguish the different recorders, it's obviously more than easy to distinguish the SBD source from the audience ones, although some RoIOs have the SBD source in a non-excellent sound quality (especially the one sourced from the non-BBC broadcast or masters);

the two audience recordings are extremely easy to recognize too: first of all both the tapers talk a lot; the speed is also different (rec. 1 is a bit slow, rec 2 is a bit fast); last but not least the second taper was a bit more far from the stage than the first so the recording sounds indeed a bit more distant than the first.

here are few points where to distinguish the 2 audience reordings:

SOYCD:

- on recorder 1 there's a long Waters' intro starting with "Welcome to day 3 of the big Pink Floyd show at Wembley ..." then Waters requests the photographers to avoid to walk here and there during the show not to obstruct the vision of the show, this is followed by tune-ups, during the tune-ups the taper talks saying more or less: " if you can do me a favor, if anybody comes to show ....” ... then Waters announces the song; at the end of the song (before the "Thank You") a guy laughs... after the tunings preceding R&D, as soon as the Jimmy Young intro starts guys near to the taper yell "hehehe".

- on recorder 2 the recording starts from the Taper talking, he talks a lot and also he greets Robert Wyatt, then there are the tunings + the Waters' announcement of the song, during the tunings you can hear here the taper talking for long to his friend and then a lady and a guy talk near (behind) the taper, after the Waters' announcement of the song the lady talks again; a the end (before the "Thank You") guys near to the taper yells "woee".

during the tunings preceding R&D the taper says: "fantastic..." and then moves the mic. and talks again... soon before the Jimmy Young intro the taper coughs and talk about the taping.

YGBC:

- on recorder 1 during the tunings soon before the song starts there's a chat between the taper and his friend

- on recorder 2 the taper and his friend has a long chat as well during the tunings before the song, the taper talks citing Tangerine Dream, Robert Wyatt, Roger Waters etc...

ECLIPSE:

on recorder 1 stops more or less on the applauses after Eclipse whereas on recorder 2 there's an almost integral fragment between the end of the Dark Side set and the Echoes

ECHOES:

this song was not recorded by the first taper, the Echoes present on recorder 1 is indeed partched from recorder 2 (quite evident, tha taper says something after some seconds the song is started)

1974 November 17

setlist: Shine On You Crazy Diamond / Raving And Drooling / You Gotta Be Crazy / The Dark Side Of The Moon / Echoes

Only 1 recorder is in the general circulation so far, complete and with a nice SQ, this is known as being from the "it's getting better all the time" taper, here are some of the versions I chcked of it:

3rdGen, nice SQ but hissy with some edits in the audience parts ; the FRP release "Getting Better All The Time" having as bonus tracks from the LP 'Britain 1974' Volume III, from the same taper, this was remastered and hissreduced ; "Completely Brain Damaged Volume 4" (DR) with edits on the audience parts; a said RtR 1stGen copy of the masters, almost uncut and totally raw; a version from a DAT clone of the masters, totally uncut and raw but having some DAT static.