Pink Millard (Sigma 31)
Los Angeles Sports Arena, Los Angeles, CA – April 26th. 1975
Disc 1: Intro., Raving And Drooling, You Gotta Be Crazy, Shine On You Crazy Diamond Part 1-5, Have A Cigar, Shine On You Crazy Diamond Part 6-9
Disc 2: Speak To Me, Breathe, On The Run, Time, Breathe (Reprise), The Great Gig In The Sky, Money, Us And Them, Any Colour You Like, Brain Damage, Eclipse, Echoes
The April 26th. 1975 Pink Floyd concert from L.A. is one of the most famous nights ever captured on tape. From reasons to the taper, the late great Mike Millard and the quality and performance that he captured that night, but also because these dates in LA. were the spark for Roger Waters to write “The Wall”. Apparently, in 1975, Pink Floyd fans posed a major threat to the quality of life in Hollywood, and the L.A.P.D. could not let that stand and took it upon themselves to physically straighten out those long haired freaks. The scene of police beating up the kids at Pinks concert came from these L.A. shows.
Pink Millard is a complete show on two CDs that does run at the correct speed. It is evenly balanced throughout with a little surge in the volume at the beginning of Raving and Drooling. At the beginning of disc 1, there is no mike check as found on some other CDs. There are fireworks, which are also found at the start of disc 2, as well as someone laughing into the microphone. There are no fireworks or any real crowd noise at any time during the music. Most if not all of the crowd is hearing Raving and Drooling, You Gotta Be Crazy, Shine on You Crazy Diamond Pts 1-5, Have a Cigar and Shine on You Crazy Diamond Pts 6-9 for the first time. The Shine On.. section is played almost as it is on the album. SOYCD Pts 6-9 does stretch out into a nice almost jazzy jam session, Gilmour’s slide work and Wrights interplay really do smoke. The vocals on Have A Cigar are shared by Roger and Gilmore. Of course, at the end of SOYCD Pts 6-9, there is the infamous outburst made by Roger at the “people in the yellow shirts” to stop wandering around and bothering people. Most likely security guards/police wannabes maintaining law and order.
Disc 2 starts out with crowd noise and someone laughs into the microphone, and that’s it as far as crowd interference. The DSOTM suite has all of the great jams associated with the time and the band is just fantastic. During “Any Color You Like”, Gilmore starts to go into his solo and a great one at that, there does seem to be a micro-second of a cut, and I had to have this brought to my attention to even notice. It’s a seamless cut and if one second of Gilmore hitting the power chord on his black Strat is missed, it’s a lot, but you really need to be listening for a cut to notice it. About two minuets on, still in the same solo, there is a full second of tape wobble. Again, hardly noticeable. One minor performance issue I do have comes with Rogers vocals during Brain Damage/Eclipse. His voice really doesn’t stand out. His signing is almost timid. Echoes is the encore, and between Eclipse and Echoes there is a noticeable cut in the crowd noise. Most likely done to keep this on two Cds, which keeps costs down as well! But this entire set does run at perfect speed, so the cut doesn’t bother me.
I did make comment about this release being equal to any commercial release, and I stand by that. We will most likely never get one from the real Pink Floyd, so this is it for the ’75 tour. There are some collectors who feel this is the best live Floyd show ever taped, quality and performance wise. The Oakland show from May of ’77 could argue that point. The 4/26/75 concert is also one of the widest booted shows ever. I personally don’t own a copy of Highlands Late Great Millard Tapes set, so I can’t rightfully say that this is now the master version. But this will be released again, that’s a guarantee. I for one won’t buy it because I now have a copy that doesn’t need to be replaced and I’ll spend my money n another show, or a concert ticket.
Pink Floyd did play five shows at the Sports Arena that week and there are tapes of the 27th., but the quality isn’t that good. There are no known tapes for the 23rd., 24th. and 25th. It’s time for those hoarders to step up. If Sigma can work it’s magic or find better copies for the 27th., then by all means do so.
18 Comments
I just received this release a few weeks ago. Wow! Great sound quality. The only blemish is the minor tape warble described in the review. I’m glad I obtained it for my collection. Thanks Mike the Mike RIP!
Some info on Mike Millard
http://www.uuweb.led-zeppelin.us/tapers.html
I think the wheel chair section was right behind the soundboard, but my memories of the Sports Arena are a bit hazy.
From what I can remember, Mike Millard had a specially converted wheelchair, with a Nakamichi tape recorder hidden underneath and a microphone in each arm-rest (to capture stereo sound). Presumably, disabled spectators were given a priority space at the very front, and I’m guessing he was ideally placed at the front/centre to capture such three-dimensional sound. (His tapes never sound distant… is what I’m trying to say). I’m sure some other folks can fill-in the details.
This is my first copy of this show and am blown away by the quality of the sound and performance. Does anyone know of any information about where in the venue Millard recorded from ?
I also had no idea that ‘Money’ was from another source. I’m going to have to dig out my STTP copy and give it a close listen. As for ‘Pink Millard’, it sounds great. It still amazes me the quality of this recording. And if you’re listening Sigma…I would love get rid of some of my Blue Cafe titles. Perhaps a Sigma-style upgrade of Buffalo 6.22.73 and Stafford 3.31.77 would be welcomed. I think these would be silver debuts as well.
Thanks DLee… This info helps alot. I didn’t realize that ‘Money’ was from an entirely different show on Hog’s.
I wish I could swap all of my STTP/Highland releases for their counterparts on Sirene/Sigma… 1:1 that is… like a trade-in at the expense of the manufacturers.
The ‘Money’ that’s on STTP’s “Hog’s (sic) in Smog ’75” comes from another show – the Boston ’75 show, I seem to remember. Overall, its sound quality was considered pretty good at the time it was released, but ever since then, eventually just about all newer versions, especially the latest one by Sigma, have much better sound quality. That is, “Pink Millard”, “The Late Great Millard Tapes”, “Master Stroke”, “Cruel But Fair”, etc. are way better than the old STTP “Hogs”.
Hogs in Smog ’75 does have Money and unless there’s a major sound improvement, I don’t see the point in upgrading. Although I agree that the STTP/Highland releases are, for the most part, a bit shrill/compressed (not unlike some of The Godfatherecords titles).
I believe Hogs in Smog is the one that’s missing Money. They all originate from the same source, but are eq’d by whatever maker along the way.
$20 saved. but what’s the big difference between this and “hogs in smog”? i’d rather save $60…
That one disc saves us about $20.00.
Unfortunately my ears probably aren’t as good as those of GSparaco, Plomerus (whom I’m guessing should be back soon any day now), or WGPSEC, as I can’t seem to discern the rather subtle differences in sound qualities that they tend to detect & describe, but I think the sound quality of Sigma 31 is similar to that of the Highland version. I’m fairly sure that it’s not any worse, and is probably slightly or a tiny bit superior. Furthermore, as you may already realize, the Sigma 31 apparently doesn’t have the little cut or edit late in ‘Any Colour You Like’ that “The Late Great Millard Tapes” has, and it’s only 2 discs whereas the Highland is 3 discs.
Glad you liked the review DLee. Interesting POV about the source also. I didn’t notice myself, but it could be. Sigma 30 is on the way for me!
Strangely enough, this version appears to have come from a vinyl source! Listen carefully and you can hear small amounts of surface noise. At least Sigma didn’t try and remove the hiss like Highland.
Hey DLee, how would you compare the sound quality of Pink Millard to The late great millard tapes? Thanks!
Thanks for this helpful review. I had already decided to order it right before, but now I’m more confident that I made the right decision. It’ll be my 4th factory-pressed silver original of this outstanding recording.
This is the only release I have for this show and couldn’t find one flaw to complain about.