1995 - PULSE [PINK FLOYD] [Album LIVE]

C'est avec cet album (du moins, la version Laser Disc à l'époque) que mon aventure Floydienne a commencée.

De suite, Shine On m'a transporté. Et les 2h30 ont été avalées sans aucun ennui. En tout et pour tout, je ne connaissais que deux titres : ABITW, et Money. Les jours suivants, l'album, la VHS et Division Bell étaient achetés. Puis, je suis remonté en arrière au fur et à mesure (pas forcément dans l'ordre).

J'écoute l'album assez souvent car ça reste un best Of assez sympa, même si pas mal de titres me manquent.

Quelques infos en vrac sur les différentes versions disponibles :
- la version audio est une sélection représentative des meilleures prises au cours de la deuxième partie de la tournée européenne (le groupe ne jouait pas DSOTM en intégralité pendant la première partie de la tournée)
- la version CD n'inclut pas One of These Days
- la version cassette audio inclut une demi-heure des sons d'ambiance diffusés avant le concert. Si vous êtes fan des bruits de tondeuse à gazon, n'hésitez pas !
- la version vidéo est une captation du concert à Earls Court le 20 octobre 1994. A l'origine, le concert avait été diffusé à la TV (Canal+) en France, mais la version commercialisée l'a été avec pas mal de montage supplémentaire (on trouve sur youtube des versions comparées), et quelques couacs édités sur la bande son...
- la version DVD a longtemps été une arlésienne...
- PULSE n'a pas de signification officielle, mais on peut en imaginer, au choix :
P.U.L.S.E. : Pretty Uninspired Light Show Essentially
P.U.L.S.E. : Pinkfloyd Ultimate Light and Sound Experience

et voici la liste des origines des morceaux de la version audio, telle que listée dans la FAQ Pink Floyd :
- "Shine On" Earls Court October 20
- "Astronomy Domine" Earls Court October 15
- "What Do You Want From Me" Rome September 21
- "Learning to Fly" Earls Court October 14
- "Keep Talking" Hannover August 17
- "Hey You" Earls Court October 13
  last verse: Earls Court October 15
- "A Great Day for Freedom" Earls Court October 19
- "Sorrow" Rome September 20
- "High Hopes" Earls Court October 20
- "Another Brick, pt.2" Earls Court October 21
- "One of These Days" Earls Court October 16
  end section Earls Court October 20
- "Speak to Me" Earls Court October 20
- "Breathe" Earls Court October 20
- "On the Run" Earls Court October 20
- "Time" Rome September 20
  intro Modena September 17
  explosion Earls Court October 15
- "Breathe (reprise)" Rome September 20
  last edit Earls Court October 20
- "The Great Gig in the Sky" Earls Court October 20
- "Money" Modena September 17
- "Us and Them" Earls Court October 20
  2nd and 3rd chorus Earls Court October 19
- "Any Colour You Like" Earls Court October 23
  end of song Earls Court October 19
- "Brain Damage"/"Eclipse" Earls Court October 19
- "Wish You Were Here" Rome September 20
- "Comfortably Numb" Earls Court October 20
- "Run Like Hell" Earls Court October 15

Et une petite interview de Gilmour à l'occasion de la sortie du disque :
GW: Did you expect to record a live album during the last tour?

DG: No, we didn't. We did one just a few years ago, for the "A Momentary Lapse of Reason" tour. We never thought we'd do one again this soon. But when we got out on the road and started thinking about what we could do differently this time, different tunes we hadn't played before and things like that, we said, 'Why don't we try putting The Dark Side of the Moon back together? It seemed like a pretty fair idea.

So we hunted down all the bits of old film and quadraphonic tape, and got some new bits of film together because some of that old stuff had gotten damaged or was out of date. Obviously, it took a while to get all that together while we were busy playing and touring. By the end of the American part of the tour, we'd just about gotten everything together. We played it two or three times in America, and that was such a good feeling. We decided that we'd like to have a copy of it live, and we thought other people would want to have a copy of it live, too. We started thinking about just putting out "The Dark Side of the Moon" live, then decided, screw it, we'll just give them the whole show again.

GW: Whose idea was it to put the flashing LED light on the spine of the CD box?

DG: That was Storm Thorgerson, from Hipgnosis; those are are old people who have designed most of our album covers. They've done a lot of the film stuff we've used onstage, too. In addition to the music it contained, he wanted the album package itself to have a live element. It's also, happily, a sort of visual reminder of the heartbeat at the beginning of "The Dark Side of the Moon."

GW: What made you decide to do Dark Side again?

DG: Really, just a desire to do something different; it wasn't an anniversary or anything like that. The fact is that we were doing half to two-thirds of the Dark Side tunes already - "Money," "The Great Gig in the Sky," "Breathe" - so that left us with only three or four pieces we weren't doing. We thought it would be quite a simple operation to get ready and do it, though it actually took months. Obviously, we wouldn't have done a live album of this tour had we not been doing Dark Side.

GW: When was the last time you performed the entire Dark Side?

DG: We hadn't played it since 1975. We were kind of sorry we never recorded it live, or filmed it. It was a great show back then. So we did discuss it with Roger [Waters], as we were getting more and more grumpy with each other. We said we should put together Dark Side just so we had it on film for posterity. As I said, on our last tour, we were already playing most of the album, so we just had to pick up the instrumental package, "Any Colour You Like," then "Brain Damage" and "Eclipse." They are the two songs which Roger sang the lead part on the original record, which is one of the reasons we avoided them before.

GW: How did you feel singing them?

DG: It was a little nerve-wracking doing Roger's vocal parts the first time. But it went down well. Detroit [where the revived Dark Side debuted] was a real high, emotional moment.

GW: "Pulse" seems to capture the band in a more relaxed state than you've been in the past. Was that the case?

DG: It was. It was much more relaxed. In '87, it was our first album without Roger, our first tour without Roger, our first tour with all these new musicians. We were kind of nervous, and up against it a little bit. This time it was totally relaxed. The musicians all knew how to be Pink Floyd, for starters. And we managed to get away from some of the computer stuff we used on the previous tour. Everything was more open to spontaneity. We had a system where we could change the set half an hour before we went on; we couldn't change it once we went on, but up to half an hour before, we could change the songs around, change the order. That made the whole thing more open to a looser, more spontaneous feel, which I feel comes out on the record.

gidehault a écrit:

Quelques infos en vrac sur les différentes versions disponibles :
- la version audio est une sélection représentative des meilleures prises au cours de la deuxième partie de la tournée européenne (le groupe ne jouait pas DSOTM en intégralité pendant la première partie de la tournée)
- la version CD n'inclut pas One of These Days
- la version cassette audio inclut une demi-heure des sons d'ambiance diffusés avant le concert. Si vous êtes fan des bruits de tondeuse à gazon, n'hésitez pas !
- la version vidéo est une captation du concert à Earls Court le 20 octobre 1994. A l'origine, le concert avait été diffusé à la TV (Canal+) en France, mais la version commercialisée l'a été avec pas mal de montage supplémentaire (on trouve sur youtube des versions comparées), et quelques couacs édités sur la bande son...
- la version DVD a longtemps été une arlésienne...
- PULSE n'a pas de signification officielle, mais on peut en imaginer, au choix :
P.U.L.S.E. : Pretty Uninspired Light Show Essentially
P.U.L.S.E. : Pinkfloyd Ultimate Light and Sound Experience

et voici la liste des origines des morceaux de la version audio, telle que listée dans la FAQ Pink Floyd :
- "Shine On" Earls Court October 20
- "Astronomy Domine" Earls Court October 15
- "What Do You Want From Me" Rome September 21
- "Learning to Fly" Earls Court October 14
- "Keep Talking" Hannover August 17
- "Hey You" Earls Court October 13
  last verse: Earls Court October 15
- "A Great Day for Freedom" Earls Court October 19
- "Sorrow" Rome September 20
- "High Hopes" Earls Court October 20
- "Another Brick, pt.2" Earls Court October 21
- "One of These Days" Earls Court October 16
  end section Earls Court October 20
- "Speak to Me" Earls Court October 20
- "Breathe" Earls Court October 20
- "On the Run" Earls Court October 20
- "Time" Rome September 20
  intro Modena September 17
  explosion Earls Court October 15
- "Breathe (reprise)" Rome September 20
  last edit Earls Court October 20
- "The Great Gig in the Sky" Earls Court October 20
- "Money" Modena September 17
- "Us and Them" Earls Court October 20
  2nd and 3rd chorus Earls Court October 19
- "Any Colour You Like" Earls Court October 23
  end of song Earls Court October 19
- "Brain Damage"/"Eclipse" Earls Court October 19
- "Wish You Were Here" Rome September 20
- "Comfortably Numb" Earls Court October 20
- "Run Like Hell" Earls Court October 15

Et une petite interview de Gilmour à l'occasion de la sortie du disque :
GW: Did you expect to record a live album during the last tour?

DG: No, we didn't. We did one just a few years ago, for the "A Momentary Lapse of Reason" tour. We never thought we'd do one again this soon. But when we got out on the road and started thinking about what we could do differently this time, different tunes we hadn't played before and things like that, we said, 'Why don't we try putting The Dark Side of the Moon back together? It seemed like a pretty fair idea.

So we hunted down all the bits of old film and quadraphonic tape, and got some new bits of film together because some of that old stuff had gotten damaged or was out of date. Obviously, it took a while to get all that together while we were busy playing and touring. By the end of the American part of the tour, we'd just about gotten everything together. We played it two or three times in America, and that was such a good feeling. We decided that we'd like to have a copy of it live, and we thought other people would want to have a copy of it live, too. We started thinking about just putting out "The Dark Side of the Moon" live, then decided, screw it, we'll just give them the whole show again.

GW: Whose idea was it to put the flashing LED light on the spine of the CD box?

DG: That was Storm Thorgerson, from Hipgnosis; those are are old people who have designed most of our album covers. They've done a lot of the film stuff we've used onstage, too. In addition to the music it contained, he wanted the album package itself to have a live element. It's also, happily, a sort of visual reminder of the heartbeat at the beginning of "The Dark Side of the Moon."

GW: What made you decide to do Dark Side again?

DG: Really, just a desire to do something different; it wasn't an anniversary or anything like that. The fact is that we were doing half to two-thirds of the Dark Side tunes already - "Money," "The Great Gig in the Sky," "Breathe" - so that left us with only three or four pieces we weren't doing. We thought it would be quite a simple operation to get ready and do it, though it actually took months. Obviously, we wouldn't have done a live album of this tour had we not been doing Dark Side.

GW: When was the last time you performed the entire Dark Side?

DG: We hadn't played it since 1975. We were kind of sorry we never recorded it live, or filmed it. It was a great show back then. So we did discuss it with Roger [Waters], as we were getting more and more grumpy with each other. We said we should put together Dark Side just so we had it on film for posterity. As I said, on our last tour, we were already playing most of the album, so we just had to pick up the instrumental package, "Any Colour You Like," then "Brain Damage" and "Eclipse." They are the two songs which Roger sang the lead part on the original record, which is one of the reasons we avoided them before.

GW: How did you feel singing them?

DG: It was a little nerve-wracking doing Roger's vocal parts the first time. But it went down well. Detroit [where the revived Dark Side debuted] was a real high, emotional moment.

GW: "Pulse" seems to capture the band in a more relaxed state than you've been in the past. Was that the case?

DG: It was. It was much more relaxed. In '87, it was our first album without Roger, our first tour without Roger, our first tour with all these new musicians. We were kind of nervous, and up against it a little bit. This time it was totally relaxed. The musicians all knew how to be Pink Floyd, for starters. And we managed to get away from some of the computer stuff we used on the previous tour. Everything was more open to spontaneity. We had a system where we could change the set half an hour before we went on; we couldn't change it once we went on, but up to half an hour before, we could change the songs around, change the order. That made the whole thing more open to a looser, more spontaneous feel, which I feel comes out on the record.

Merci Gidehault pour cette interview !

Bonjour,
j'ai une petite question: dans cette version live de "Shine On", il n'y aurait pas un passage qui aurait été sauté par rapport à la version studio?
J'ai bien l'impression que le solo de guitare entre 7:30 et 8:35 (version studio) n'a pas été joué. C'est bien dommage parce que je trouve que c'est le point culminant de la chanson et le passage qui me donne le plus de frisson.

Bonjour,

Shine On a rarement été joué en entier. Seulement lors de la tournée In The Flesh de Pink Floyd et 1977 et par Roger Waters en solo en 2002 (lors d'une tournée également intitulée In The Flesh)

Sinon, ce morceau a systématiquement été coupé, notamment le solo de guitare dont tu parles.

Et je te rejoints : c'est fort dommage.

kshamsss a écrit:

Bonjour,
j'ai une petite question: dans cette version live de "Shine On", il n'y aurait pas un passage qui aurait été sauté par rapport à la version studio?
J'ai bien l'impression que le solo de guitare entre 7:30 et 8:35 (version studio) n'a pas été joué. C'est bien dommage parce que je trouve que c'est le point culminant de la chanson et le passage qui me donne le plus de frisson.

Mase a écrit:

Bonjour,

Shine On a rarement été joué en entier. Seulement lors de la tournée In The Flesh de Pink Floyd et 1977 et par Roger Waters en solo en 2002 (lors d'une tournée également intitulée In The Flesh)

Sinon, ce morceau a systématiquement été coupé, notamment le solo de guitare dont tu parles.

Et je te rejoints : c'est fort dommage.

Oui, carrément très dommage, c'est le premier choc que j'avais eu en réécoutant le groupe après un break après 1983/85. J'ai un moment cherché à comprendre la raison de cette coupure mais j'ai fait chou blanc et abandonné. Je m'étais dit que comme c'était probablement Snowy White qui jouait le solo en live en 1977 et l'histoire du pont entre POTW I et POTW 2, Gilmour faisait l'impasse sur cette partie. Probablement aussi que comme ils ont rejoué ce morceau en ouverture de la tournée de "renaissance" de 1988 à la place d'Echoes ça a peut-être joué dans le timing?
N'oublions pas que les parts jouées par Rick étaient aussi tronquées par rapport à l'album et la tournée de 1977...

J'imagine que c'est surtout une question de timing. Mine de rien, c'est un très long morceau, et quand on voit la tracklist de Pulse et le nombre de titres à jouer, difficile de faire durer Shine On.
Je trouve la version de Pulse plutôt équilibrée, et son "remontage" efficace. Mais la version studio reste clairement inégalée.

Même problème avec Echoes dont les apparitions dans les compilations diverse (genre best of) sont souvent tronquées (instru avant la première partie de chant).

Le groupe a mis en ligne 1h30 de la version restorée du concert

Oui j'ai vu, merci. Peut-on rappeler ce qui a changé avec cette version restaurée ? nouveaux plans ? meilleure image ? merci

La version restaurée en bluray propose un montage différent (nouveaux plans, mais même tracklist et durée) avec une image améliorée (un master SD reste néanmoins un master SD, mais le gap est plus important que je ne l'aurais pensé).
Au niveau du son, c'est toujours le mixage de Guthrie, mais en lossless (et l'apport est loin d'être négligeable ! Ça fourmille de détail).

Ok merci pour les détails. Du coup, je vais peut être y jeter un oeil !