THE BEST OF TOUR 72

Date : 20/02/1972
Lieu : Rainbow Theatre, Finsbury Park, London, England

Commentaire : Il s’agit certainement de l’un des trois ou quatre bootlegs les plus célèbres de Pink Floyd. Ce fut la première version concert de The Dark Side of the Moon à circuler. Sa qualité sonore est stupéfiante pour un bootleg sorti sur vinyle en 1973. Il a depuis été copié sur CD, notamment par le label The Swingin’ Pig en 1990 (version n°1 chroniquée ci-dessous), puis il a subi une série de restauration / améliorations qui ont très légèrement amélioré la qualité sonore (version 2 ci-dessous) et, surtout, complété les parties manquantes (version 3), c’est-à-dire « Speak to me », « Time », « Us and Them » et « Eclipse », qui étaient amputées sur la version originale.

Version 1

Label : KDBO 1034 [version vinyle] / The Swingin’ Pig (Réf. : TSP-CD 049) [version CD]
Support : 1 lp ou 1 cd (original silver)
Durée : 40:57 mn
Source : Audience
Qualité sonore : 9/10

Liste des titres :

01. Speak to me / Breathe (2:55)
02. On the run (6:10)
03. Time (6:33)
04. Breathe (reprise) (1:03)
05. The great gig in the sky (4:23)
06. Money (7:52)
07. Us and them (2:18)
08. Any colour you like (4:37)
09. Brain damage (3:52)
10. Eclipse (1:14)

Version 1 disponible en format flac* : sur demande / on request

Version 2

Re-Mastered @ the Soundhouse by Prof. Stoned, February 2006
Support : 1 cd
Durée : 41:03 mn
Source : Audience
Qualité sonore : 9/10

Liste des titres :

1. Fade in – Speak To Me (0:08)
2. Breathe (In The Air) (2:46)
3. On The Run (6:08)
4. Time (6:31)
5. Breathe (Reprise) (1:02)
6. The Great Gig In The Sky (4:23)
7. Money (7:50)
8. Us And Them – Cut inside (2:18)
9. Any Colour You Like (4:36)
10. Brain Damage (3:51)
11. Eclipse – Fade out (1:16)

Version 2 disponible en format flac* : http://100greatestbootlegs.blogspot.fr/2015/03/pink-floyd-best-of-tour-72.html

Version 3

Conceived, produced and released by WRomanus & }{eywood (Réf. : HWRW 002)
Support : 1 cd
Durée : 49:59 mn
Source : Audience
Qualité sonore : 9/10

Liste des titres :

101. Heart Beat Intro (2:50)
102. Breathe (2:46)
103. The Travel Section (6:07)
104. Time (6:51)
105. Home Again (1:02)
106. The Mortality Sequence (4:23)
107. Money (7:45)
108. Us And Them (6:51)
109. Dave’s Scat Section (4:36)
110. The Lunatic Song (3:51)
111. Eclipsed (2:57)

Titres 1/4/8/11 : version complétée
Titres 7/8 : vitesse corrigée

Commentaire relatif à cette version :

We released this about 4 years ago.
We renew the share in the 40th Anniversary of Dark Side of the Moon album.

This release goes even further and upgrades, restores and completes the content of the original LP version of The Best of Tour 72 only, primarily for those older collectors who have had it for many years. A sort of emotional commemoration of a famous and time honored bootleg LP.
The first edition was released on black vinyl in 1972 in Europe by the Tour 72 label.
Pink Floyd were excited to be able to develop new material on the road but were horrified to learn of a bootleg album that was released containing a complete performance of the piece recorded in February of 1972 at the Rainbow Theatre.
The bootleg was issued a mere six weeks after the concert, about a full year prior to an official release. Professionally packaged, the unit reportedly sold in excess of 100,000 copies, many thinking it was the real thing.
Trivia note: few weeks before the Omayyad LP was released in USA.
The Best of Tour 72 had large success and was reissued and re-bootlegged many, many times due to the stunning sound quality and the full presence of unissued songs.
Four songs were shorted: Heart Beat Intro, Time, Us and Them and Eclipsed.
We don’t know why. May be the reason was the tape length or some problems on it or the capability of the LP to support the whole suite.
Here you can AT LAST listen to the whole Dark Side suite in the best Sound Quality ever, without having to be « traumatized » as we were for more than 30 years by the cuts.
The Rainbow Theatre was booked for three shows for press introduction to Dark Side of the Moon but soon a fourth show was set due to the big response. This extra show was to be played on Sunday 20th February 1972 at 8:00 p.m. For the first time the title Dark Side of the Moon was used. In « The Free Program of Rainbow Theatre, n.13 » we can read: « The Dark Side of the Moon – A Piece for Assorted Lunatics ». A month before they were in this theatre to rehearse for three days, to try the new suite together with the new mixer, the new quadrophonic system and the new light show. The suite was performed ten times around England before the Rainbow’ nights. It already changed a little from first couple of nights in Brighton and Portsmouth.
Eclipsed was added. More changes would occur before the end of the year. A generation and more of fans thought this album was recorded on the 17th of February, but many years later we all learned that it was the 20th, the fourth Rainbow show.

– Titles and Songs –
The title of the boot refers to the whole small British tour of January and February 1972.
The names of the songs reflect the names used on the studio track sheets early in the recording of the DSotM album.
We didn’t dare to be totally philologic so we didn’t call The Mortality Sequence …Religious Section (!) and Eclipsed simply End.
For the Intro we used « Heart Beat » to tribute the first time that it was used by Pink Floyd, during the Zabriskie Point Sessions.
For what its worth, we didn’t like the simple « Scat » title for Any Colour You Like, so we mixed together all those we saw around in more than 30 years.

– Artwork – by WRomanus
I have derived the artwork from the first release with an eye to the one of « In Rainbow Light ». The first LP release artwork was clearly derived from Atom Heart Mother, pigs instead cows both in the grass, with nothing else than the title and the venues of the tour. I took some parts of the original artwork and the « rainbow light » from IRL. The title writing comes from the original as well.
The front has the big sow only. Note what a « human face she has » ! The back is made by four(!) little pigs. The one on the left comes for another part of the original artwork. The CD label comes from the original first LP release. The picture of the « inside back » is really the dark side of the moon. Inside the booklet you can see pictures of the original parts of the first release and some orphants of those days. A not common pic of Rick is under the first page of notes. You can see croppings of the studio sheets with the basic titles as well. As you can see you have many possibilities to make your favourite artwork.

-Sources and Assembling- by }{eywood
I assembled this with multiple master tapes provided to me by WRomanus. I’ve seen versions of the first set fixed (Best And The Rest Of Tour 72) but I was never happy with the segues.
As far as it goes this is the most complete this album is going to get.

The abbreviations for the master tapes are as follows:
BOT72 = Best Of Tour 72. 1st pressing pristine vinyl.
MC = Master Clone – A Copy of the Master (?) of what I believe to be taper 2. Not that tonally brilliant, but a good clean recording.
JB = 1st gen incomplete source of 20th Feb recorded by John Baxter, provided to us by LordSnooty.

The only thing I didn’t include was the first 20 seconds of the beginning, as this is just mic noise as the taper sets up his gear. These tapes are of varying qualities and generations, but I’ve done my best to make the transitions painless. I used NR and hiss reduction sparingly, mostly to get the patches to sound as clean as the main album material. I stereo spatialized everything not from Best Of Tour 72 so it would sound more like that does. The BOT72 (and all subsequent versions) slows down gradually during the second half of Money and continues until the break in Us and Them where the piece is missing. I speed corrected this. Heart Beat Intro, the bulk of Us And Them and the ending of Eclipse are from JB. I filled the missing portion in Time with MC.
We hope this pleases everyone out there.

Thanks to:
– Lord Snooty for the new source
– The 2 or 3 tapers and Prof. Stoned that made it possible
– Floyder with his big LP bootlegs collection
– The Pink Floyd Vinyl Bootleg Guide – http://floydboots.com/index.html
– Hubble Space Telescope Project.

Conceived, produced and released by WRomanus & }{eywood
WRomanus & }{eywood – Roma and Lockport, 16 April 2009

Version 3 disponible ici* : http://www.guitars101.com/forums/f145/pink-floyd-1972-02-20-london-uk-aud-flac-153661.html

*Assurez-vous que le téléchargement de ces fichiers ne contrevienne pas à la législation en vigueur.

17/02/1972 :

18/02/1972 :