On this Day March 15, 1973:
by Charlie Crane, Thorofare, NJ
Pink Floyd, Spectrum, March 15, 1973
Pink Floyd had been touring for over a year doing the Dark Side of the Moon line-up of songs — although they hadn’t released the album yet. Everywhere they played, it seemed a bootleg of the concert was released. The album would be released on March, 24th 1973 — but at that time it was still somewhat of an unknown for many. The program called the concert “Eclipse - a Piece for Assorted Lunatics,” as it had been called for about a year of live shows. But it was song-for-song and word-for-word Dark Side of the Moon.
PF came out without much fanfare and proceeded to perform the entire album uninterrupted by breaks for applause. It was awesome. They just played it straight through. Back then they hadn’t developed the elaborate special effects such as remote-control planes, flying brass beds, mirror balls, laser-beams, larger-than-life projections and red eyed floating pigs. The effects were limited to carbon dioxide “smoke” illuminated by mostly pink and green floodlights. There was a large gong that they used for their
encore numbers, but it broke loose from its mountings when struck and the roadies had to do a quick repair. It was worth the wait, as they played “Set the Controls for the Center of the Sun” and set fire to the kerosene-soaked rim of the gong. The flickering flames dwindling down as the long epoch song slowly ended seemed to weave a magic spell and draw everyone into the gong — as if it had become the sun.Before the show, almost everyone made paper airplanes out of their program and sailed them around the Spectrum waiting for the concert to begin. I kept mine as a souvenir and still have it — a testament to this piece of music history. http://xponentialmusic.org/blogs/885mmmm/2007/09/06/pink-floyd-spectrum-march-15-1973-dark-side-of-the-moon/
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