Mademoiselle Pink (Highland HL671/672)
Boston Music Hall, Boston, MA – May 4, 1972
Disc 1: Speak To Me, Breathe, On The Run, Time, The Great Gig In The Sky, Money, Us And Them, Any Colour You Like, Brain Damage, Eclipse
Disc 2: One Of These Days, Careful With That Axe Eugene, Echoes, Mademoiselle Nobs
1972 was an important transition in Pink Floyd’s music. The bands songwriting was maturing and as usual they were previewing there new material live. In these very essential recordings, we would see the evolution of the Dark Side Of The Moon album with some of the songs undergoing various changes throughout the year, i.e. “On The Run” and “The Great Gig In The Sky”.
The webmaster has provided us with an excellent review of this show with Sirene’s Boston 1972, so I will concentrate more on comparison with that title. Firstly, Mademoiselle Pink runs about 2.5% slow where Sirene’s title is much closer to actual speed. Sirene chose to cut the highs to lessen tape hiss and cut out some of the background noise leaving it sounding a little dull. This Highland title sounds much brighter and their mastering of this tape seems to allow for a fuller range of frequencies to be heard. The downfall, background noise is louder on Mademoiselle Pink so distortions and imperfections in the original tape source are more evident on this one.
“Mademoiselle Nobs” is their typical blues jam that has the band getting lost and even taking a moment to find themselves. This track probably takes the place of “Set The Controls” or “Saucerful” tonight as their encore and has the band members leaving the stage one by one, with Nick being the last. Overall, a nice performance by the band and a good sounding recording. Recommended.
