Watch David Gilmour wail on the Black Strat in 1975 in newly unearthed 8mm Pink Floyd live footage
Featuring The Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety – and a number of songs from the then-yet-to-be-released Wish You Were Here and Animals – the footage (complete with killer audio) captures Floyd at a fascinating stage in their evolution
Pink Floyd's two surviving creative leaders – electric guitar hero David Gilmour and bass guitar player Roger Waters – are currently embroiled in a nasty war of words with one another.
Their feud makes the 4K, 8mm footage of the band performing at Ivor Wynne Stadium in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada on June 28, 1975 that recently surfaced on YouTube – incredibly cool anyway – all the sweeter to take in.
Though not complete – it contains bits and pieces of each song in the band's set – the 28-minute long film is nonetheless a crystalline portrait of the band in a fascinating stage of their artistic evolution that has remarkably clear audio, to boot.
Though Wish You Were Here was still two months away from being released at the time of the show (not to mention Animals, which wouldn't come out for another year and a half) the band confidently opened their set with five tracks that would later be released on the two albums – Raving and Drooling (which would later become Animals' Sheep), You've Got to Be Crazy (subsequently released on Animals as Dogs), Have a Cigar, and both parts of Shine on You Crazy Diamond (all three from Wish You Were Here).
From there, the band moved on to The Dark Side of the Moon, which they played in its entirety, before a majestic encore performance of Echoes.
You can see the amazing footage – which was shot by Jim "Speedy" Kelly – below.
Even though it's incomplete, the film features a number of stunning Gilmour (who used his none-more-iconic black Stratocaster for most of the show) guitar moments.
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The overwhelming majority of the crowd had likely never heard Shine on You Crazy Diamond before, and one could only imagine what it must have been like to hear Gilmour's still-breathtaking opening solo (captured in part from around 2:55 through 3:25) for the first time.
His aching, snarling lead break in Time can also be heard in stunning fidelity (from 13:25 to around 14:05), as can his jaw-dropping solo during Money (from 18:20 to around 19:30).
Whether he's focusing more on rhythm, or dazzling the stadium crowd with a solo, Gilmour's tone in the video is unmistakable, and stunning to behold.
The 4k reel conversion of Kelly's footage was done by The Genesis Museum, with audio syncing done by by Ikhnaton and The Pink Floyd Research Group.
For more of Kelly's films – one of which captures a very young Van Halen, and an early version of Eddie Van Halen's legendary Frankenstein guitar, in action – visit his YouTube channel.
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Jackson is an Associate Editor at GuitarWorld.com. He’s been writing and editing stories about new gear, technique and guitar-driven music both old and new since 2014, and has also written extensively on the same topics for Guitar Player. Elsewhere, his album reviews and essays have appeared in Louder and Unrecorded. Though open to music of all kinds, his greatest love has always been indie, and everything that falls under its massive umbrella. To that end, you can find him on Twitter crowing about whatever great new guitar band you need to drop everything to hear right now.
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