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Pink
Floyd’s legendary
film, Live at Pompeii, makes its DVD debut on 20 Oct 2003.
The Director's Cut of Live at Pompeii by director Adrian
Maben contains additional new and archive footage that has
never been seen before.
Live at Pompeii was filmed in October
1971 at the ancient Roman amphitheatre, amid the ruins
of Pompeii, which lies
in the shadow of the still-active volcano of Mount Vesuvius.
It catches Pink Floyd at a pivotal moment in their career,
just before the release of their ‘Meddle’ album
that broke them from an underground cult band to a major
rock group, hitting Number 3 in the UK charts.
The band – bassist Roger Waters, guitarist David Gilmour,
keyboard player Richard Wright and drummer Nick Mason – are
seen performing ‘One Of The Days’ and ‘Echoes’ from
the ‘Meddle’ album, songs that would form the
cornerstone of their impressive live shows over the next
few years. They also play classic songs from their earlier,
psychedelic past including ‘’A Saucerful Of Secrets’, ‘Set
The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun’ and ‘Careful
With That Axe Eugene’.
Director Adrian Maben chose to film
Pink Floyd in the deserted amphitheatre as a deliberate
contrast to the traditional
in-concert rock movie. The walls of the amphitheatre give
the sound a special resonance while the volcanic antics of
Mount Vesuvius provided an awesome backdrop for the band’s
experimental, progressive music. The film also includes a
never-released Pink Floyd song, ‘Mademoiselle Nobs’,
featuring an Afghan hound on vocals.
Live at Pompeii also includes rare
and historic footage of Pink Floyd at work in London’s Abbey Road Studio
early in 1972, recording tracks for ‘Dark Side Of The
Moon’ which would become one of the most successful
rock albums ever released. It remained in the American Billboard
Top 200 continuously from March 1973 to October 1988. To
date the album has sold over 30 million copies worldwide
with the total rising by around 200,000 a year.
When Live at Pompeii was premiered
at the Edinburgh Festival in September 1972, ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’ was
still six months away from being released. By the time the
film went on general release in 1974, however, Pink Floyd
were superstars. They followed the phenomenal success of ‘Dark
Side Of The Moon’ with ‘Wish You Were Here’ (1975), ‘Animals’ (1977)
and ‘The Wall’ (1979) that spent an extraordinary
15 weeks at the top of the American charts. Their spectacular
concerts now featured crashing airplanes, flying pigs and
giant inflatables, not to mention a 30-foot wall that divided
the band from the audience.
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