IN CONCERT - DELICATE SOUND OF THUNDER

This concert was filmed at Nassau Coliseum, New York , in August 1988, with some scenes filmed at the Palais Versailles, in Paris, in June 1988. It is a very good concert video with good sound and images.It is better than the live 2 CD set called "Delicate Sound of Thunder" which was released in 1988, because it is better to see the band playing in concert, not only listening to the audio. In comparison to the live TV broadcast "Pink Floyd in Venice", which was broadcasted by Eurovision and in my country (excerpts only broadcasted here) in July or August 1989, this VHS video is not only a "direct performance of every song" like the Venice concert. This "Delicate..." video has some "video effects", like "slow motion" added to several songs and also some "conceptual footage"" by Storm Thorgerson, which in some cases I don`t like, and in other cases, they really add "something extra" to the songs. But too many of these effects in some cases really made me feel like "drunk without using alcohol" in some moments while watching the video.I think that, IMO, it could have been better to leave the concert video without these effects. This video also has some differences in comparison to the live CD of the same name:"Shine on You Crazy Diamond" is a short instrumental version (similar to the Venice concert version);there are some songs which were not included in the CD, like:"Signs of Life", "On the Run", "The Great Gig in the Sky"and "One Slip"; other songs were omitted in the video, like "Yet Anothe Movie" adn "Round and Around". The performances of the songs in this concert video are very good. The additional musicians really added a lot of energy to the trio of Gilmour, Mason and Wright, particularly Gary Wallis´ and Scott Page`s playing are really very energetic. Page also played rhythm guitar (uncredited) in some songs.

The editing of this film is quite good, with many a video of the actual song being played spliced into the shot. The "Momentary Lapse of Reason" videos ADD to the film's songs, whereas the older videos, such as those from Time and Money, don't do too much for the viewer. Most of the footage comes from the 1988 Nassau Colliseum shows in New York.

High Point about this concert: Rachel Fury. She is nice to look at, but she can't sing. No wonder she didn't make it to The Division Bell tour a few years later. Also, Nick Mason's gimmicky glow-in-the-dark drumsticks are of fleeting interest. Although they must surely haved looked a lot 'cooler' if you were actually at the concert in 1988.

Low Point about this concert: Gary Wallis and Scott Page. Wallis (the backup percussionist) looks like a caged animal jumping around, whilst Scott Page and his overdramatic sax playing is extremely distracting. Page oftens "jams" with Mr. Gilmour, who has to be saying to himself "Why did I ever hire this moron?" And don't get me started on Page's three-foot long mullet! You actually see Scott Page MORE in this video than you do Richard Wright!?!

Many of the songs included on the VHS are similar to those offered on the Double-CD audio release, but many are definitely different (inferior?) takes. As well, although the song list states that 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond' is played at the beginning and end of the show, it is merely a 20-30 second intro and outro, so some may be disappointed at this.

Delicate Sound of Thunder makes for a decent concert film, but is far from essential. It is out-of-print, only available on VHS, and will not be re-released on DVD. If you want to see FLOYD at their finest, either take a time machine back to 1973-77 OR go buy "P*U*L*S*E" when it is re-released on DVD in a few months time. A generous 3/5 stars

After the "Momentary lapse of reason" album The Pink Floyd Theatre went on tour and they did it with an overwhelming visual show, including a sophisticated lighshow and spectacular scenes on a hugh round screen. But what about the music? Well, no complaints, the post-Waters trio Gilmour, Wright, Mason and a wide range of musicians did an excellent job, in my opinion. I've seen Pink Floyd two times during the "The Wall" tour, it's unfiar to compare it but I have to say that on this video you can conclude that there is plenty to enjoy, only some songs (like "Signs of life", "The dogs of war" and "One slip") from the post-Waters-era sound obvious less captivating, a bit predictable and without tension. But it doesn't matter because Pink Foyd Live always is a visual and musical progrock party. This is a good video (great renditions from "One of these days" and "Comfortably numb", what a killer guitar solo!) but I'm sure I will prefer the fouthcoming (x times postponed!) "Pulse" DVD, hopefully they don't decide to intefere the live footage with all kinds of 'creative' images as on this video.

My first version of this live concert video was a laser disc and it did help me to digest and appreciate more on the music of "A Momentary Lapse Of Reason" - the first album after the departure of the band's mastermind, Roger Waters. That's why, I love this one very much. I have now updated this live set video to a DVD format.

It opens wonderfully with an intro of a legendary track "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" through the work of David Gilmour's guitar overlaid on long sustain keyboard / synthesizer sounds. When the intro ends up the video turns into a scene of young man rowing a boat in a peaceful river with background music of "Signs of Life". It's very nice. At the end of the cast is the intro of "Learning To Fly" with David Gilmour's guitar work. Nick Mason is assisted by Garry Wallis on percussion that makes the percussion part of "Learning To Fly" much dynamic. On bass guitar is an energetic young lad by name of Guy Pratt who helps the band on concert / tour.

"Sorrow" is my favorite track and the band plays this track excellently. It kicks off with David Gilmour's guitar solo that rocks! The song moves in a natural way with tight bass lines and drums guide the music through smoothly from start to end. It's an accessible track that I'm sure most people would favor very much. The electric guitar work by Gilmour is top notch. Seeing Gilmour plays his guitar on stage is a good thread really. The other enjoyment is Nick's drum sets as well as Guy Pratt's stage act. Oh by the way, the stage lighting is also great! The crowd starts going crazy with this track.What follows is another good track "Dogs of War" performed excellently by the band. Gilmour pushes his envelope on singing style where he's kind like screaming at the opening part of the track. The Lapse thread ends with "On The Turning Away" and the band continues with classic songs.

From an atmospheric, spacey "One Of These Days" the band brings classic stuffs from "Dark Side of The Moon" album wonderfully with "Time", "On The Run", and "The Great Gig in The Sky". The band then moves into an acoustic outfit with classic "Wish You Were Here" track from the same album with very good acoustic guitar performed by Gilmour and Tim Renwick. Really a great one! It then moves back to DSOTM album with "Us and Them", The Wall's "Comfortably Numb", The Lapse "One Slip" and concluded with "Run Like Hell" from The Wall.

What do you expect from a hero of progressive rock? It's an excellent concert! Highly recommended. Keep on proggin' ..!

PEace on earth and mercy mild - GW

After Roger Waters left the band, Gilmour took the leadership of Pink Floyd, creating a controversial album named A Momentary Lapse of Reason, several people think of it as a work lack of creativity and give to it less credit as if Waters were with the band.

One year later, Pink Floyd were touring and introducing this album to their fans and people, the title of this tour/live album/DVD is The Delicate Sound of Thunder, luckily counting with the great Storm Thorgerson`s artwork, and with the support of the Floyd lovers who despite feel sad because of Waters exclusion, they were always with the band, assisting to their concerts and buying their later days albums.

This video containts 15 songs, with the great and beautiful Shine on You Crazy Diamond as an Intro and Outro of the video, i wouldd prefer to watch a complete performance of this song, but anyway i think if this works as an intro and outro, is because they decided to make it only as a representative song.

The first 5 songs of the concert, is what we are expecting of this precise tour, a batch of 5-A Momentary Lapse of Reason songs, an intrroduction to their newest album in that time, i think those moments were well accepted by the audience, me as a fan, expect another kind of songs, but knowing as the tour is made to promote an album, it`s ok for me, also i like Lapse of Reason, not my favorite at all, but i consider it as a good album, "Signs of Life","Learning to Fly","Sorrow", "Dogs of War" and "On the Turning Away" are the songs performanced here, i`ll take "Sorrow" as my favorite here, also Learning to Fly which is maybe the people`s favorite song of Lapse of Reason.

Back to the 70`s, and just what people asked for, Pink Floyd pleased them with some extraordinary tracks such as "One of These Days" excellent bass playing by Guy Pratt, "Time" which is a peak moment of the concert, because all the people loves it and because its very well played, "On the Run" where we can see images of a kind of movie of video clip, "The Great Gig in the Sky" as usual with Gilmour tours, here we find a trio of ladies as backing vocals, this time they show us their power and beuty of their voices,"Wish You Were Here", "Money", "Us and Them" and the always kick ass "Comfortably Numb" complete the beloved batch of Pink Floyd songs, i enjoy them all a lot, the version of Time is great also because of the guitar versus saxophone duel.

The final two songs are "One Slip" anopther Lapse of Reason song, which i like so much but i think is not what you wish to see, and the last song is "Run Like Hell" a crazy and awesome performance of that song, as i said above Shine On sounds again when the DVD finishes and the credits are on air.

I recommend this concert a lot, maybe the quality of the video is not th best, i think is a bit dark but the sound is pretty good, if you "accept" the post Waters albums, you should get this DVD and enjoy it, i personally give it 3 because is pretty good, but never essential.

This was such an invigorating release from Pink Floyd especially as the last real footage of the band live was in Pompeii dancing on volcanoes!! What a great release that was. Delicate Sound Of Thunder shows a live side of Floyd where visuals on film were more accutely spectacular. I think for grandiose large scale live shows you would have to say U2, The Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd are hard to beat. This is a great release especially seeing Wright, Mason and Gilmour together after the legal debacle with Waters. I stand corrected but for what it's worth this was played up in space ( the cd) on a shuttle. Can you imagine ' Shine on...' watching earth thru a portal in space. Lucky experience!!!

Scott Page on saxaphone is very entertaining, who later moved on to making PC games in Silicone Valley, very successfully too. Highlights would have to be ' Us and them' showing great footage of miners working in a South African goldmine, ' The Great Gig in the Sky' - watch those girls sing, ' On The Run' and last but not least my personal favourite ' Signs Of Life' as a character is portayed rowing down the Thames ( oddly similar looking to Syd Barrett). John Carin is excellent on keyboards also. In some ways this is better than PULSE that followed after Division Bell with DSOTM in it's entirety.

Gilmour, Mason and Wright, and......er... the others, put on a light show!

'Delicate Sound...' is one of those live albums that is best seen and not just heard. I believe this was my first foray into Floyd territory on the small screen, a worn out video sits forlornly in a cupboard now gathering dust, but at the time in 1989 it was a true joy to watch my heroes prog it out to some very colourful eyeball searing lighting. Of course they topped it with 'P-U-L-S-E', we all know that, but this was it as far as the new Pink Floyd goes, and it was not all that bad, though could have done with some editing and better shots of the band members, and a stronger set list. Filmed primarily at the Nassau Coliseum, New York in 1988, the video suffers purely from the set list which is missing so many definitive songs.

The band members seem to disappear behind the hyper light show and even seem to be oblivious that there is even an audience at times; completely lost in the music and why not, it is great music. All the classics are here that any Floyd fan would revel in; on demand you can indulge in the majesty of 'Shine on You Crazy Diamond', the chilling, top heavy droning 'One of These Days', the infamous 'Time', the acoustic classic 'Wish You Were Here', the lulling meandering 'Us and Them', the time sig bassline and sax of 'Money', the raucous Wall blaster 'Run Like Hell' and the showstopping Gilmour lead breaker 'Comfortably Numb'.

They are all played with well executed musicianship, as we have come to expect, and the singing is fine and dominated by Gilmour. The voluptuous, ever-grooving dancing girls get a chance to wail on the iconic 'The Great Gig In the Sky', especially eye candy songstress/diva Rachel Fury who overpowers the others for sheer beauty and vocal prowess.

There are many newer tracks (at the time) from 'Momentary Lapse of Reason' such as a favourite, the melodic soaring 'Learning to Fly' and 'Sorrow' with its long guitar intro, among others. Though tracks such as 'One Slip' we can well do without.

Overall, it is not an exceptional concert but not too bad as a record of how Floyd used to present themselves. It is definitely recommended over the lacklustre album as the visual feast is the key component that hold the interest on this particular set list.