The Piper at the Gates of Dawn and Syd Barrett’s Magic Powers
By the time they signed with EMI on February 28, 1967, Syd Barrett, Roger Waters, Rick Wright, and Nick Mason had already recorded several songs in the studio, including, at Sound Techniques, their first single, “Arnold Layne” and “Candy and a Currant Bun,” which would be released on March 11. They nevertheless remained a live band at heart whose performances in the clubs and other venues were based on lengthy psychedelic improvisations and elaborate lighting effects.
Between January 5 and February 20, 1967, for example (the eve of the first Piper at the Gates of Dawn session), Pink Floyd played some twenty gigs, notably at the Marquee, the UFO Club, and the Commonwealth Institute. Gigs that, moreover, could be described as “multimedia” and that closely resembled the “acid tests” that were taking place at the same time in California under the aegis of the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. Furthermore, after the concert given on October 15, 1966, at the Roundhouse in Chalk Farm for the launch of the underground magazine International Times (it), Roger Waters revealed: “It’s definitely a complete realisation of the aims of psychedelia. But if you take LSD, what you experience depends entirely on who you are. Our music may give you the screaming horror or throw you into screaming ecstasy. Mostly it’s the latter. We find our audiences stop dancing now. We tend to get them standing there totally grooved with their mouths open.”
%20-01.jpg)
%20-02.jpg)
%20-03.JPG)
%20-04.jpg)
%20-05.jpg)
%20-08B.png)
By Jean-Michel Guesdon and Philippe Margotin.
ResponderEliminarThe Piper at the Gates of Dawn and Syd
Barrett’s Magic Powers
By the time they signed with EMI on February 28, 1967, Syd Barrett, Roger Waters, Rick Wright, and Nick Mason had already recorded several songs in the studio, including, at Sound Techniques, their first single, “Arnold Layne” and “Candy and a Currant Bun,” which would be released on March 11. They nevertheless remained a live band at heart whose performances in the clubs and other venues were based on lengthy psychedelic improvisations and elaborate lighting effects.
Between January 5 and February 20, 1967, for example (the eve of the first Piper at the Gates of Dawn session), Pink Floyd played some twenty gigs, notably at the Marquee, the UFO Club, and the Commonwealth Institute. Gigs that, moreover, could be described as “multimedia” and that closely resembled the “acid tests” that were taking place at the same time in California under the aegis of the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. Furthermore, after the concert given on October 15, 1966, at the Roundhouse in Chalk Farm for the launch of the underground magazine International Times (it), Roger Waters revealed: “It’s definitely a complete realisation of the aims of psychedelia. But if you take LSD, what you experience depends entirely on who you are. Our music may give you the screaming horror or throw you into screaming ecstasy. Mostly it’s the latter. We find our audiences stop dancing now. We tend to get them standing there totally grooved with their mouths open.”