Darkest Moon (Siréne-007)
Festival Hall, Osaka, Japan – March 8th, 1972
Disc 1 (52:37): Speak To Me, Breathe, On The Run, Time, Breathe (reprise), The Great Gig In The Sky, Money, Us & Them, Any Colour You Like, Brain Damage, Eclipse
Disc 2 (73:43): One Of These Days, Careful With That Axe Eugene, Echoes, Atom Heart Mother
It is interesting to note how often Pink Floyd toured during the first couple of years in the 1970’s. They had just finished a tour of the US at the end of November 1971, spend a month or so working on Dark Side Of the Moon, then returned to a heavy touring schedule at the end of January.
Throughout 1972 they did two tours of the UK, two of the United States, one of Europe and a tour of Japan and Australia plus filming commitments for their movie Pink Floyd at Pompei. All this activity and the only new release from them in this time is the soundtrack Obscured By Clouds.
The March 8th, 1972 is the second of six shows in Japan that year and has been released many times before. The first appearance was on the LP Pink Floyd (KP339-KP344). Silver cd releases include Osaka 1972 on Lizard (WLZCD 025/026). This release used the first tape source that is good but very thin sounding.
Sirene’s Darkest Moon uses the newly found very good sounding second tape source for a majority of this release. This source is more bass heavy and contains slight distortion as is the norm for such tapes. It’s most noticable in the Dr. Who interlude in “One Of These Days” and the final verse of “Echoes”. But this source sounds much more dynamic and enjoyable than the first source. The first tape source is used for about a minute in the middle of “Brain Damage” to fix a gap.
Pink Floyd’s performance itself is very good. The Dark Side portion of the show is in an early stage of development. “On The Run” is the Gilmour/Wright jam, and “The Great Gig In The Sky” is really “The Mortality Sequence” complete with the ominous organ, the reading of Ephesians 5, and Malcom Muggeridge.
There are no saxophones nor female backup singers to be heard anywhere. The set begins well with a great version of “Breathe” and an energetic delivery of “Money”. But there are some weak spots like the lackluster version of “Time”. The weight of the show rests upon the better known numbers in the second set with two epics, “Echoes” and “Atom Heart Mother” played back-to-back. This is a nice sounding release by Sirene and is worth having.
