Pink Floyd at the Rainbow: ‘many of the audience left in tears’ – archive, 1972

This was one of the finest rock concerts I have heard. Ever since their days as house band at UFO – the first “underground” club – the Pink Floyd have been in the experimental vanguard, but have never before progressed quite this far. Their dabbling in electronic games (which marred the first part of their latest, disappointingly pedestrian album) has been transformed into the most complicated, yet, integrated use of electronics and sound systems that any band has devised. The new work on which this is all used, The Dark Side of the Moon, will stand beside Sergeant Pepper and Tommy as one of the rock classics.

These days they don’t just use a quadraphonic system, but fill the hall with speakers, so the sound comes literally from all sides. The new work – which deals with madness and is their first in which the lyrics are important – is almost an hour long and includes taped noises of everything from manic electronic groaning, to a church service that slowly becomes a cacophony of cash registers. In bald print that may sound like gimmickry, but when such effects were used as balance to main theme or improvisation, the effect was startling and exhilarating. In the past, they have concentrated on soaring, ethereal organ for grand, optimistic works like Atom Heart Mother. Dark Side of the Moon is conceived on the same bold scale, but is tougher and more varied. It has slow, lyrical passages (reminiscent of Echoes) and choppy riffs coupled with almost free form improvisation. The result was sad, magnificent, and exquisite. Little wonder that many of the audience left in tears.