Wik's Pink Floyd Media Archive

A collection of shots from the Pink Floyd's show at the Freedom Hall in Louisville. Kentucky, June 17th, 1977, which is exactly 49 years ago at time of writing. The band performed this show in front of a 19-thousand people crowd.

Unfortunately, the only audience tape from this night suffers from extreme distortion in the loud parts due to the recorder using low impedance, high sensitivity microphones. The fact that our taper was seated right at the foot of the stage, right in front of the massive array of 80 400-watt amplifiers. The tape is also missing the entirety of the first set, only capturing the second set, and the encore. That second set is absolutely incredible, even giving Cleveland a run for its money, so let's take a closer look at it.

Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts 1-5) is the absolute definitive version, featuring some of the strongest playing David ever pulled off on this track. The Part 1 solo follows the studio version but very much expands upon the actual solo. Parts 2 and 3 both contain excellent solos. Part 4, which the one with vocals, is nothing to write home about, but is quite a strong performance nonetheless. Dick's saxophone solo on Part 5 is also very nice and nearly completely improvised. In my opinion, this performance is a lot better than the studio version. Welcome To The Machine features extremely powerful synth solos from Rick and excellent vocals from both David and Roger. Roger plays acoustic guitar here, as per usual, but this time he changes up the strumming patterns, adding some more life into the track. Have A Cigar is pretty much perfect as well. Roger's vocal performance is extremely unique, with him trying to go higher than usual, and trying to pull off Roy Harper's voice crack on the "Everybody's just green" line. Snowy's solo is also outstanding, only rivaled by the likes of Baton Rouge, which is my personal favourite performance of the track. Wish You Were Here is also very strong tonight. David's vocals are some of the best I've heard, and Roger actually harmonizes well, when he usually had problems with it. Rick's piano solo at the end is also sublime, though a bit too short for my liking. The second half of Shine On You Crazy Diamond, which bookends this set is also stellar. The slide solo on Part 6 is my favourite ever performed. Unfortunately, Part 7 is quite weak vocally, mainly because of Roger. But, the band very quickly bounced back from that failure by delivering one of the most stunning renditions of the Part 8 jams they ever played. David and Snowy are in absolute top form, and it shows. They actively challenge eachother by playing licks in a call-and-return style of playing. This little "conversation" absolutely overflows with chemistry, which is not that rare in the grand scheme of things, but is still really nice to see. Of course, both of them have their own guitar solo, both of which are stellar, but especially Snowy's, which is extremely aggressive and intense. Unfortunately, this is where the tape's heavy distortion comes into play. The loudest parts of the solo are not a very pleasant listen due to everything merging into one, absolutely dreadful sounding mess. From what can be made out, Snowy is playing extremely fast and precise, and David is helping out with rhythm guitar. The transition into Part 9 closes this absolute epic 8-minute long jam, and moves the track into its climax. Part 9 kicks off with the standard piano solo from Rick, but then it goes into a soft guitar solo by David instead of Dick Parry's Moog solo that we've grown accustomed over the last few monts of the tour. This is the earliest recording of this guitar solo, but we can presume Milwaukee had it too, but we just didn't hear it due to the tape cutting out during Part 8. The first part of the solo is stunning, but when the drums come in, David seems to forget what he was going to do, causing Snowy to pick up the solo and carry the band into the guitar duet. This duet lasts 2 bars less than it usually does, but it's still an absolutely stunning one. Snowy plays an octave higher than he usually does here, making this duet quite unique. The ending Moog solo is good, but nothing special.

After a short break, the band performed Money as the encore, to the enthusiasm of the crowd whose cheers are so loud, they distort the recording to the point of it becoming painful to listen to. When the crowd settle down a bit, what is left is an incredible performance of Money. David's vocals and gutiar playing are amazing, and the band's playing is very tight. Despite all that, this is still not the best I heard this track get on this tour. A superior performance can be found on the Tampa show from April 24th, and the feral final night of the tour in Montreal.

Here I present a Youtube upload of the show for you to listen. It's defintively worth it.

Most of the photographs used in this review were taken by Michael Conen.

P.S. On the 19th, I'll publish my full length matrix of the Chicago night from this tour, and write a full-length review of the night. I know I've already covered Chicago on this blog, but I'd like to write a more detailed report/review, and I want an excuse to post the matrix since I've worked quite hard on it.

A collection of shots from the band's show at the County Stadium in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, June 15th, 1977, which is exactly 49 years ago at time of writing.

The setlist was the standard two sets and Money as the encore for the night.

The show is absolutely stellar, featuring the second best performance of Pigs (Three Different Ones), and excellent renditions of most other tracks. Unfortunately, the only circulating tape for this show is quite poor quality-wise, and cuts out completely during Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts 6-9), specifically 2 minutes into Part 8. Money is absent from the recording. This is because the irresponsible taper ran out of tape. Despite the issues, this is my 5th favourite night of the tour, and an energetic performance, but it didn't go off without issues.

As this was the start of a brand new, and final leg of the tour, the effects director had the brilliant idea of changing the mixture of gasses in the pig inflatable used on the song Pigs (Three Different Ones). This pig would be exploded at the end of the track for dramatic effect.

The new mixture of gasses used more significantly more hydrogen. Hydrogen is highly explosive. I think you know where this is heading...

In contrary to the planned, controlled and slow burn-up of the pig, its inside instantly flashed over and the pig was ripped to shreds mid-air in a massive fireball. The explosion was so violent, the shockwave damaged a light rig (the one seen in the photo), shattered all glass in two stadium entrances, deafened all the people who were unfortunate enough to stand under it when it exploded and sent flaming bits of rubber that once used to be the inflatable pig all around the stadium. The crowd placed further away from the explosion, including the only known taper, cheered and clapped, thinking this was planned.

Here is a snippet of the audience tape, capturing the exact moment of the explosion.

Today, on the morning of May 22nd, 2026, Long-time Pink Floyd saxophonist and keyboardist Richard "Dick" Parry has passed away at the age of 83. His passing was announced by David Gilmour.

Dick was present during the 1972 Dark Side of The Moon studio sessions, and joined the band on stage for the first time on October 21st, 1972 during the Dark Side Of The Moon development tour, but he wouldn't become a constant presence on stage until the May 18th, 1973 show at Earls Court. He toured with the band from that point up until July 6th, 1977, providing not only saxophone, but also helping out Rick Wright on the keyboards. He then returned on the 1994 Division Bell tour, being present on the final regularly scheduled Pink Floyd show on October 29th, 1994, also at Earls Court. He then went on to play in Gilmour's solo backing band during the 2002 Tale Of Two Cities tour and 2006 On An Island tour. He also appeared on stage with the 68-81 lineup of Pink Floyd during the brief 2005 Live 8 reunion.

His playing made the Dark Side of The Moon and Wish You Were Here albums what they are, and they definitively wouldn't have been the same without his input.

A collection of shots from Pink Floyd's concert at the Soldier Field in Chicago, Illinois, June 19th, 1977.

This is a very special show, as it is the most attended of the tour, and broke the attendance record for the venue at that time, but there is a funny story behind this. The band supposedly sold 85 thousand tickets, but the venue wasn't so sure so they flew a helicopter over the stadium when the crowd set in to do an approximate head count. They approximated 120 thousand attendees. The band was fined 7 thousand dollars for this.

The performance that night was absolutely stellar, but not the best of the tour. Their peak came just a few days later at the Municipal Stadium in Cleveland in front of 80 thousand attendees. This concert is still the second best of the entire tour and is an incredible performance. David's guitar tone is savage, almost comparable to Cleveland, Roger is in his element on vocals, Snowy plays amazing solos on HAC and SOYCD Part 8, Rick plays virtous piano solos on WYWH and SOYCD Part 9 in addition to his other keyboards and Nick's drumming is incredibly tight.

Unfortunately, the tapes for this show aren't ideal. The first recording, taped by Jeff J. is incredibly hissy and distant, mostly capturing crowd noise, but it's decently balanced and well listenable. Recorder 2 is the polar opposite. It's extremely close to the stage, and is incredibly clear, but the problem is the taper's inability to operate his equipment. He fiddles around with the record level knob all the time, so the recording varies between moments of clarity where the tape is a contender for Top 5 best recordings of the tour, to painfully loud distorted earrape.

A matrix of both recorders would be ideal. I've already made it a few months ago for personal use, but will be publishing it soon, probably whenever I'm done with a matrix of Dortmund 23rd (despite of how terrible the show itself is) and potentially with a matrix for MSG 1st. The other matrixes I've made this year for my full show-by-show re-listen of the tour are already done and tested. Those are Vienna, Paris 24th (patchwork) and Wembley 15th.

I prefer the On Location/Love Over Gold tours arrangement over the 1978/79 one, but the 1980-83 performances are quite similar to eachother. If I were to chose the ones I listen to the most, then Torino and Werchter 1981, Sheffield, Leicester and Brighton 1982 and Vienna 1983.

Extra shoutout to London July 23rd, 1983 (the one used for Alchemy) for being a damn good final performance of the track. It was never performed again after that show.

A collection of random shots from the band's show at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh, Scotland, on November 4th, 1974. This show is a real historical moment, as this is the exact show where You've Got To Be Crazy was first publically shown off, as well as the opening night of the British Winter tour. YGBC would eventually evolve into the track Dogs on the Animals album nearly three years later.

A collection of photos from the band's concert at the Armory Fieldhouse in Cincinnati, Ohio, March 8th, 1973.

Full band photos

Closeups

Stage setup before the show at Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena, CA, April 16, 1994.

Poles Apart, Same night

High Hopes

One Of These Days

Pink Floyd performing the second out of a three show run at the Brendan Byrne Arena / Meadowlands Arena, East Rutherford, NJ, USA, October 11th, 1987.