Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii

Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii is a 1971 film featuring Pink Floyd performing six songs in the ancient Roman amphitheatre in Pompeii, Italy. It was directed by Adrian Maben and recorded in the month of October with 24 tracks studio quality without a live audience.^[1]

The performances of "Echoes", "A Saucerful of Secrets", and "One of These Days" were filmed from October 4, 1971 to October 7, 1971. The remaining songs were filmed in a Paris studio, along with additional front projection footage for insertion into the Pompeii performances.^[2] The sequences in Paris were filmed in late 1971/early 1972, and can be distinguished by the absence of Richard Wright's beard. This version was released in theaters in September 1972 and is also included on the DVD edition as an extra feature. In August 1974, another version was released combining the original film with supposed recording sessions of The Dark Side of the Moon at Abbey Road Studios. These sessions were actually staged for the film^{[citation needed]}, as the recording of the album had been completed when these sessions were filmed in January 1973 and the band was mixing the album at the time.

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Directed by	Adrian Maben
Produced by	Steve O'Rourke Michele Arnaud Reiner Moritz
Starring	Pink Floyd
Music by	Pink Floyd
Cinematography	Willy Kurant Gabor Pogany
Editing by	Jose Pinheiro
Distributed by	Universal Home Video
Release date(s)	September 1972
Running time	60 min. (1972) 80 min. (1974) 92 min. (director's cut)

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Release history

The original release, running for one hour, only featured the live footage. A second version had additional footage of the band as they recorded or pretended to record their album The Dark Side of the Moon, as well as interviews conducted off-camera by Maben. This version ran for 80 minutes. The Director's Cut is a 2003 DVD re-release running 92 minutes. In addition to the concert and interview footage, it includes computer-generated images of outer space and of Pompeii as well as then-recent footage of Abbey Road and the Apollo missions. The original "full screen" image has been chopped up in this version and is presented in "fake widescreen", although the original cut is presented on the DVD as an "added bonus".

Track listing

1972 original film

1. "Intro Song"
2. "Echoes, Part 1" (from Meddle, 1971)
3. "Careful with That Axe, Eugene" (b-side of "Point Me At The Sky" single, 1968)
4. "A Saucerful of Secrets" (from A Saucerful of Secrets, 1968)
5. "One of These Days" (from Meddle, 1971)
6. "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" (from A Saucerful of Secrets, 1968)
7. "Mademoiselle Nobs" (from Meddle, 1971 previously known as "Seamus")
8. "Echoes, Part 2" (from Meddle, 1971)

1974 theatrical version, VHS and LaserDisc release

1. "Intro Song"
2. "Echoes, Part I" (from Meddle, 1971)
3. "On the Run" (Studio Footage) (from Dark Side of the Moon, 1973)
4. "Careful with That Axe, Eugene" (b-side of "Point Me At The Sky" single, 1968)
5. "A Saucerful of Secrets" (from A Saucerful of Secrets, 1968)
6. "Us and Them" (Studio Footage) (from Dark Side of the Moon, 1973)
7. "One of These Days" (from Meddle, 1971)
8. "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" (from A Saucerful of Secrets, 1968)
9. "Brain Damage" (Studio Footage) (from Dark Side of the Moon, 1973)
10. "Mademoiselle Nobs" (from Meddle, 1971 previously known as "Seamus")
11. "Echoes, Part II" (from Meddle, 1971)

2003 Director's cut

1. "Echoes, Part 1"/"On the Run" (Studio Footage) (Uncredited) (from Meddle/Dark Side of the Moon, 1971/1973)
2. "Careful with That Axe, Eugene" (b-side of "Point Me At The Sky" single, 1968)
3. "A Saucerful of Secrets" (from A Saucerful of Secrets, 1968)
4. "Us and Them" (Studio Footage) (from Dark Side of the Moon, 1973)
5. "One of These Days" (from Meddle, 1971)
6. "Mademoiselle Nobs" (from Meddle, 1971 previously known as "Seamus")
7. "Brain Damage" (Studio Footage) (from Dark Side of the Moon, 1973)
8. "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" (from A Saucerful of Secrets, 1968)
9. "Echoes, Part 2" (from Meddle, 1971)

A remastered version of the album also exists, which is almost exactly the same as the Original Film but also has three "Interview" parts mixed in. The track list is as follows:

1. Intro Pompeii
2. Echoes, Part I
3. Interview, Part 1
4. Careful With That Axe, Eugene
5. A Saucerful Of Secrets
6. Interview, Part II
7. One Of These Days
8. Madamoiselle Knobs
9. Interview, Part III
10. Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun
11. Echoes, Part II

Also Known as:

• Echoes: Pink Floyd (USA)
• Pink Floyd in Pompeii (Belgium)

Additional Information

• The rap group The Beastie Boys made a music video for their song "Gratitude" that appears to be a homage to the film. In addition to copying its directorial style of slow horizontal tracking shots, the video shows the band's amplifiers labeled "Pink Floyd London" - just as Pink Floyd's amplifiers are labeled in the film. The video ends with a message that reads, "THIS VIDEO IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF ALL THE PEOPLE WHO DIED AT POMPEII".
• The video for the 2003 song "Minerva" by American rock band Deftones is similarly an homage to the Pompeii performances in the film.
• During the song One of These Days, Nick Mason lost a drumstick but quickly retrieved another without missing a beat. During the outro of Echoes part 2 Nick can be seen breaking a stick, throwing it away and again retrieving a new one without missing a beat.
• The Pompeii Stadium where the video was recorded can be clearly seen from above in aerial images of coordinates 40°45′04″N 14°29′41″E / 40.751166°N 14.494700°E

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The Film