Thanks for another one. The show is one I already had a copy of, but the weed has much better volume. The weed is from the infamous 4-14-69 show at the Royal Festival Hall. Infamous for not only the fact that this was the first The Man/The Journey set ever, This also was the debut of the Azimuth Co-ordinator (you know, that set of RoIO's from the WYWH, Animals, and Wall tours). The show was billed, "The Massed Gadgets Of Auximenes- More Furious Madness From Pink Floyd". ...And Furious and Mad it was. Much discussion has been made to the historic nature of this show and also to the poor sound Quality. I say Mooselips. The recording is fine.Yes the show is low and at time sounds distant. But the clarity at other parts is astounding. The recording is virtually distortion free. To me distortion is the key to poor SQ. If the recording is distant or has Audience noise, then it makes it more like being there (don't know 'bout the rest of you all, but my RoIO's are my time machine back to the shows I couldn't be at). The show starts low but picks up a short way in ( I think it took a few minutes to get the mic adjusted and in a good spot, Having done this I know your kind of edging trying to record and not get caught IMHO:) The recording is complete, this makes all the difference. With no bad dropouts to speak of. As far as the show goes, its Astounding. Invention, Improvisation, Spectacle, all rolled into a Psychedelic ride through the day of The Man. It's amazing to compare this version of the show with say 9-17. The Amsterdam show has more polish, I prefer the April show thought for its rough edges. I won't go into describing the songs, I feel the show should be listen to, not described. Word can't describe it anyway. ________________________________________________________________ First of all, let me start by saying I am not a creative writer. This review will not be the best you have read for this Harvested release. The artwork for HRV CDR 009 is of the usual high standard we've come to expect from the Harvested team, and while the recording is not of their usual standard, this is one of the most sought after Pink Floyd performances. This show marks the debut of The Man & The Journey Suites in London's Royal Festival Hall on 14th April 1969 - "More Furious Madness From the Massed Gadgets of Auximenes" as Vernon Fitch's excellent Pink Floyd Archives web site titles the gig. This gig was recorded about a fortnight before the live parts of Ummagumma were recorded in Birmingham and the band are in excellent form. I have a copy of The Man & The Journey In London (recorded on 26th June at The Royal Albert Hall, London), and, although on balance I'd say that that show is better quality, I have come to prefer this recording. TM&TJiL is not a complete performance (Daybreak and Work are missing), although it does have Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun as its encore rather than Interstellar Overdrive which we get here. This must have been a great time for London music lovers as Deep Purple recorded their `Concerto For Group & Orchestra` at the RAH in September 1969. One person I have spoken to says he'd rather have the whole Suites on one disc and the encore seperately if it will not fit with the Suites. I think I prefer this format though. One word of warning - if you are someone who does not trade for RoIO CD's which are a lot less than studio quality this is definitely not for you, if however, you can ignore the poor quality of a near 31 year old recording and pick out the excellent and historic performance then you will definitely not be disappointed. _______________________________________________________________________ First of all...it's the first Man & the Journey show (geez i dont have the date on hand...April 69 i think). Quite a bit different from the more polished version on the Vpro cd. Yet some of the ideas are closer to being part of the whole piece than later in vpro. The sound quality...very distant vocals. To my ears "Green is the colour of her kind" sounded like "Eeen..ihhuhuhuh..uwahaaeaea". The instruments are distant usually but at times are somewhat clearer. It is good listening for the instruments at least (and you can always sing the lyrics along like i did :) :) On to the show... The Man suite...much different than what I'm used to. The notable difference is that "Work" is included. Lots of hammering, stuff like that, all in rhythmic form, along with what sounds like train sounds (why trains?). This is also much longer than the version of Work from the 1/70 Paris show I own. This version is about 8 minutes. Another good thing was the Labyrinth sequence--it seemed a bit more experimental than later - no doubt due to (3?) months of playing it. The Journey suite was a nice treat. One thing I have always liked is the Green Is/Careful with that axe segue that was used alot in the '70 shows. Pink Jungle seems to be a bit less like Pow R Toc H on this one...and more like an actual composition of its own..still has Roger doing his monkey noises though :) And Behold the Temples of light really stood out as a highlight on this one. But one of the major highlights is the encore - Interstellar Overdrive. For some reason I prefer the dave versions to the earlier ones, simply because they tried new stuff with it-especially the frenzied fast-picked guitar part in the middle (that sounds like a clock in super-fast motion or something). All in all a good set. This show makes a good point to show what they started with on this concept show and then vpro shows what it turned into. The sound quality isn't really great, but the show itself is, and well..dammit it's historical :) __________________________________________________________________________ Well, I've heard it called scary but it didn't scare me. Pink Floyd deals with sanity for me and this weed adds to my arsenal of sanity. It's a little crazy, crazy can be fun. The Floyd went through this era and learned to create the glory days that lied ahead for them. I hear the roots of the Pompeii video, which led to the roots of DSotM.For me it's also part of a simpler day, the brothers may have gotten along better and were in good spirits. I like the history part of Floyd. Remembering where they and I came from. Is that Gilmour playing Interstellar Overdrive? The transition from the Syd era. When I say crazy can be fun I mean life can be fun. I am crazy and 99% of my life is fun these days. Shows and weeds like this help me."Wasteing my time." Not my favorite."Resting my mind." A classic. It brings up the old days and the term wasted. I've heard the Floyd indulged in reefer a bit.But not alot.More power to them and us for not totally giving in to these poisons. It is close to the More era. Folks were ODing left and right. Perhaps the scary part comes to mind. I never ODed and feel comfortably about my past addictions. I lost some friends and it was sad. I am more sad than frightened. Also the happiness of having a good career ahead of you. I wonder if they had a hint of what was to come. The crowd in this show says it all, a calm and enjoyable aplause.A day when truth had shown.I enjoy this show and recommend it. _______________________________________________________________________________ Here's my review of The Millenium weed. since most people will probably focus on the songs and performance, I thought I'd focus a bit more on the significance on this show. Here it comes: ------ The Massed Gadgets Of Auximenes - Pink Floyd 14apr69, Royal Festival Hall, South Bank, London, England. If there has been one Floyd title raising lots of discussion as to it's meaning, it's probably "The Massed Gadgets Of Auximenes" Even after long discussion on Echoes (and probably other forums as well) it remains a mystery. Not only as to the meaning of this title, but even as to the pronounciation of 'Auximenes'. The mystery for this recording not only aflicts the title, but also the show. For long, people have searched this particular show. It has been around in smaller circles but always a hard find. Some people even doubted this show was recorded at all. For long, it was also confused with another show in London: 26jun69 but the significant difference is that the 26jun69 had 'Set The Controls' as an encore and the 14apr69 had 'Interstellar Overdrive' as an encore. Regarding all these mysteries, the people from HARVESTED couldn't have thought of a better introduction of this weed by naming it the 'Mystery Millenium Weed'. The show is (most likely) the premier performance of 'The Man And The Journey'. The Man And Journey was Floyd first serious attempt to put on a concept on stage. The complete piece consisted of two parts: The first telling about a days life of a man: Daybreak, Work, Afternoon, Doing It ('The Deed'), Sleeping, Nightmare. The second part tells about a journey the man takes. The Man consists of a few familiar songs: 'Grandchester's Meadows' was renamed as 'Daybreak' and 'Binding My Time' as 'Afternoon'. The Journey also contained a few familiar ones: 'Careful With That axe, Eugene' was christianed 'Beset By Creatures Of The Dark', 'The Narrow Way' holds it's original title and 'The Pink Jungle' became the new name for 'Pow Toc H.'. The journey ended with the last sequence of 'Saucerful Of Secrets (celestial voices)' given the appropiate title 'The End Of The Beginning'. These performances are awesome! The band were really into their peek concerning the psychedelic mark they had been put on to them. Though the band may hate it, these Man And Journey shows just made that mark all the more significant. Musically this is the post-Barret, pre-DarkSide Floyd at their peek. Besides the already named songs, many parts were not actual songs but rather sound-collages and effects. You may hear heavy breathing, clock ticking, birds singing, woodchopping-sounds and more. In some of the Man And Journey shows, the band acutally held a tea-party on stage, chatting and drinking tea. The Man And Journey was an intersting concept (which certainly paved the way for 'Dark Side Of The Moon' and 'The Wall', years later) but somehow the band wasn't all that pleased with it. Dave Gilmour later remarked that it was 'an experiment that didn't quite work out'. The fact that the band played the entire piece on only a handfull occasion adds to the thought they themselves didn't think it was all that great. but boy, were they wrong! The Man And Journey shows hold just about everything one could expect from a Floyd show: Easy layed back tunes ('Daybreak', 'The Beginning'), soundeffects ('Work'), early experimental Barret-era tune ('The Pink Jungle'), soundcollages (the second part of The Journey), a haunting frenzy ('Beset By Creatures Of The Night') and a grand finale ('The End Of The Beginning'). And if anyone thinks Nick Mason is a poor drummer, just listen to 'Doing It' where he's heavily banging away! As a concept, it may not have worked out quite as good. The Man is pretty easy to grab, but the Journey is less coherent in structere and story line and rather hard to track. The strange titles didn't really help, either. As mentioned, the 'Auximenes' has raised many discussions (without a conclusive result), but also a title as 'Behold The Temple Of Light' doesn't really reveil the thought behind it. Since the piece was a mixture of existing songs, packed together with some new bits and pieces, it seems like the band just threw it all together and forced the concept a bit to strong. Later albums as 'Dark Side Of The Moon' and especially "The Wall' were much more accesible when it comes to the thoughts and ideas the band tried to express. ____________________________________________________________________________ I'm listening to it right now, so here's my review of it as well. the sound quality is not brilliant, as has been previously advised. but it's not that bad either. frankly, i think we've all been a bit spoiled of late, and if i'd received a tape of this quality a couple of years ago i'd have been thrilled. the biggest thing with the sound is that the vocals tend to be a bit distant, but hey we can always rename it the Massed Gadgets of Karaoke if we have to. this review focuses a bit more on the second half of the show. that's mainly because while the first half was playing i was busy reading email and cooking my dinner, so i wasn't listening as attentively! this is a vital document of the era. many of the songs are quite different to what they became by the time of the VPRO broadcast. i'm listening now to what i assume is the Pink Jungle, and i only know that becasue Roger is making silly noises, not because it sounds anything like Pow R Toc H. there's also the bits here that VPRO didn't include (and i can see why they didn't, from a radio broadcast point of view. without the visuals to go with it - or at least some idea of what is going on - stuff like 'work' can be a bit tedious to sit through). "Doing It" sounds like "Up The Khyber" from More (not really surprising given the timing of the performance) - i'd always been of the belief that it was jst a drum solo, but there is quite a bit of keyboard in there too. i think i'm nearly at the end of the Journey, which is good because my legs are getting a bit tired. at least, there's a bit of water bubbling and stuff going on, with a keyboard track going on, which i'd guess is the labyrinth of auxmenies bit. i could just check what track the cd is up to, and look at the cover, but that would mean getting up. there's also a sound effect track going on here of footsteps and doors opening, which i think is the exact same track they later used during the middle of Cymbaline. did they have the Azimuth Coordinator to show off with at this time? i can't remember. but it is definitely the same footsteps soundtrack. that's just led into Behold the Temple of Light. i'm going to take a break now and listen to the next bit because (a) i like it and (b) i don't want this to turn into a running commentary of what is going on. i'll be back after the encore, don't go away... ... ... ... ... well, that was pretty bloody good! i even turned the lights off for that bit. i think i want to take back the bit about the sound quality. it's fine, don't worry about it. the show itself makes up for any sound quality deficiencies. one other thing worthy of note is the crowd. in "the man and the journey", this crowd was presented with almost ninety minutes of material which they hadn't heard before (apart from the odd bit here and there). yet at the end they applaud long and loud (maybe they were just glad it was finally over? ;-)). they continue to applaud enthusiastically as the band returns for the encore, then they shut up before the band begins to play and listen, remaining perfectly silent right until the end of the song. imagine getting that respect from an audience these days! no wonder Rog gets pissed off!! Interstellar Overdrive is excellent too. we hear Rog developing the "tick-tock" sound on his bass that would later introduce "time". but the drum/guitar interplay! i've never heard anything like it from Floyd! it sounds more like Page and Bonham than Gilmour and Mason. in all, a fitting encore performance at a show worthy of the reputation it later gained. ______________________________________________________________________________ To my knowledge, there are only 5 performances of "The Man & The Journey" in circulation; 4 more or less complete ones from Royal Festival Hall 14/4/69, Manchester 22/6/69, Royal Albert Hall 26/6/69 and Amsterdam 17/9/69 (my all time favourite RoIO is the VPRO rebroadcast, btw). In addition, there exist tapes from Plumpton 8/8/69 where they only played "The Journey" (+ tree individual tracks), and from Paris 23/1/70 where they played "The Man". The latter is extremely interesting, since it is a soundboard recording which was broadcasted by the French radio station Europe 1 (despite this, the SQ on the circulating tape is pretty poor), and since the set list also included "The Violent Sequence", "The Amazing Pudding" and "Main Theme". About 20 minutes of this concert was re-broadcasted on AM in 1996, which suggests that the mastertape (or a low gen clone of it) has not been lost. If Europe 1 could be persuaded to "do a VPRO" and rebroadcast this gem in FM stereo, one of the "holy grails" of PF RoIO collecting would have been found. Enough speculation/daydreaming, and on with the present review: SQ: Despite the undoubtably heroic efforts of the Harvested team to clean it up, the sound of this audience recording is not particularly impressive, even when you take the age into account. It is worse than 'Beset by Creatures of the Deep' from Southampton, 9 May, and even 'The Journey Trough the Past' from Plumpton, 8 August (both Highland releases), but at least significantly better than "Violence In Birmingham" from 11 February 1970. Sometimes everything gets quite strong and clear, but at other times the sound (especially the vocals) is distant and muffled, for instance during 'Daybreak'. In the RoIO database rating system (which is pretty misleading), it is mostly VG, with occasional drops down to G+. For me at least, it is never unlistenable, and the unique, historic performance makes it a must-have for the serious collector. PERFORMANCE, GENERAL: If the band has a soundboard recording of this show (or any other performance of TM & TJ, for that matter) in their posession, and if they decide to make an official release of it (maybe the biggest if!), it will arguably be their finest release ever. The band and the critics may say whatever they like, but for me, the post-Barrett, pre-DSOTM, "psychedelic spacerock" era from 1968-1973 (which includes the non-DSOTM part of the 1972-1973 shows) represent the highlight in Floyd's history. True, their studio output is undeniably uneven, but this is a common characteristic of all interesting, experimental bands, and does also reflect the fact that they released 1-2 LP's every year (instead of 1-2 CD's every decade). Live they were simply unmatched; only the first incarnation of King Crimson comes close to heights reached by the early Floyd, IMO. Many people, and especially those who think Roger Waters is the most profound social thinker on earth, may be inclined to regard "The Man & The Journey" as merely an embryonic, immature effort; the first, fumbling step in the Direction which eventually led to the masterpieces from DSOTM to The Wall. I disagree. These two concepts don't make any bombastic statements about the miseries of war, insanity or capitalism (well, 'The Man' is about the repetitivness of ordinary life, but 'The Journey' is just about....some kind of journey!), but the music is so fresh, inspired and adventerous that the preaching is not missed. Pink Floyd is in any case 95% about music, IMHO, and while concepts are nice, they're mostly so because they can give a sequence of mood pieces a certain shape and coherence. What is so special about this performance, and all other great performances from the same period? First, while Waters was the band's main songwriter and chief ideologue even in those days, there was room for other voices as well, and the band really JAMMED TOGETHER as a unit. The rythm section was much more dynamic, and Nick Mason played with a sensitive, jazzy touch not totally unlike Cream's Ginger Baker. Neither Waters nor Gilmour have any particular great sense of rythm, and after Mason lost the touch around 1974 (compare his ferocious performance at Earls Court, 19 May 1973, with the slack, uninspired almost-falling-asleep performance at Wembley Empire Pool, 15 November 1974, to see what I mean), the music got much more rigid. Second, Rick Wright was a completely different musician from the one we know today. He has fortunately never been a Keith Emerson, but did instead, in his best moments, concentrate his talent on melody and atmosphere. In the early days, he was the band's principal soloist, and his organ and piano work is much more enjoyable than the dull, modern synths he has come to prefer nowadays. What about Gilmour? I shall not argue with his solos in 'Comfortably Numb' or 'Dogs', because they're brilliant, but it must also be said that many of his newer solos sound rather similiar, and in his less inspired moments, he often indulges in straightforward bluesrock. In the early days, he had more variety, IMHO, with a lot of slide guitar and strange, psychedelic effects. PERFORMANCE, TRACK BY TRACK: 'Daybreak' (6.16) is another name for 'Grantchester Meadows', and features beautiful piano solos from Wright and high harmony vocals from Gilmour on the chorus, similar to the shortened version they played for BBC's "Nightride" program a month later. 'Work' (8.39) is an experimental piece made up of percussion and sound effects of trains or machines or something. It runs a bit long, perhaps. 'Afternoon' (5.25) is a version of 'Biding My Time', and a very cool and different one too, with a nice piano intro by Wright and great jamming at the end. 'Doing It' (5.18): This was a pleasant surprise, with very agressive drumming by Mason, and organ added on the top. It is similiar in style to 'Up The Khyber', the only PF song written by Mason/Wright. 'Sleep & Nightmare' (10.55): The first minutes of this piece are similiar to Amsterdam 17/9/69, with heavy breathing and strange psychedelic noises, but instead of 'Cymbaline', we then just get more instrumental ambience, dominated by Wright's spacey organ. Daybreak 2 (2.08): This is just a collage of soundeffects; birds, ticking clocks and the other usual suspects. 'The Beginning' (4.35) is another name for 'Green is the Colour', and is similiar to the studio version with aucustic guitar and piano. You can hear sound effects of seagulls and splashing waves, and the whole thing gives heavy associations to a lazy beach idyll. As we get 'Beset by Creatures of the Deep' (8.25), there seems to be storm coming up; we hear strong wind, and the splashing waves becomes more menacing. This version of 'Careful With That Axe, Eugene' is an unusual one, with piano during the first two minutes. The Narrow Way (4.45) features a cool, psychedelic guitar lead from Gilmour, but the vocals are almost inaudible during the chorus part. The Pink Jungle (4.17) is different from the Amsterdam show, since they don't play 'Pow R. Toc H.', but instead a drum beat with animal noises (part Waters, part pre-recorded) added on the top. 'The Labyinths of Auximenes' (8.30) has more weird improvisation. It is different from the Amsterdam 17/9/69 show, but has a footstep sequence. 'Behold the Temple Of Light' (6.41) This instrumental has sometimes been described as an intrumental version of 'The Nile Song', but that is just plain false. This version is quite similar to Amsterdam 17/9/69, and while it isn't terribly interesting on it's own, it works well within the context. 'The End of the Beginning' (4.53): The last half of ASOS (which includes Storm Signal and not only Celestial Voices) provides a majestic finale to a truly magnificent journey. Interstellar Overdrive (10.30): I have never liked the studio version on 'Piper', which has too much anarchistic guitar for my taste (but TLAMLIL is great, with more Wright). The post-Barrett versions, on the other hand, are just wonderful, with the right balance between structure and spacy melodicism on the one hand, and unpredictability and improvised weirdness on the other.