Pink Floyd – Sapporo 1972 (Sigma 82)

Sapporo 1972 (Sigma 82)

Nakajima Sports Center, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan – March 13th, 1972

Disc 1 (48:08) source #1:  Speak To Me, Breathe (In The Air), On The Run,Time, Breathe (Reprise), The Mortality Sequence, Money, Us And Them, Any Colour You Like, Brain Damage, Eclipse

Disc 2 (69:59):  tuning, One Of These Days, tuning, Careful With That Axe Eugene, Echoes.  source #3 Atom Heart Mother

Disc 3 (72:29) source #2:  Speak To Me, Breathe (In The Air), On The Run,Time, Breathe (Reprise), The Mortality Sequence, Money, Us And Them, Any Colour You Like, Brain Damage, Eclipse, tuning, One Of These Days, tuning, Careful With That Axe Eugene

Pink Floyd’s March 13th, 1972 show in Sapporo is one of the most popular with several different recordings and many titles in circulation.  It was the final Highland silver pressed release on Dark Side Of The Ice (Highland HL-679) and Sigma have visited the show two times before on Memories Of The East (Sigma 24) and “Atom Heart Mother” on Missing Pieces: Japan Tour 1972 (Sigma 34).

Sapporo 1972 is a three disc set with three unique tape sources.  The first two discs cover the old audience tape utilized on The Cold Side of the Bow (Time Machine TM-2-1/2).  It is good but dull, lacking in significant dynamics in the higher frequencies.  The encore “Atom Heart Mother” on disc three is taken from the Sigma 34 tape but in upgraded sound quality.

Disc three covers the familiar tape used on Highland and Sigma 24.  Like the other, this is very good to excellent but incomplete.  It’s a shame particularly because this is the best show from their first visit to Japan. There are no instrumental breakdowns and the audience is very respectful  Pink Floyd deliver one of the best early versions of their Dark Side Of The Moon suite.

“On The Run”, although a far cry from the synthesized chaos of later versions, sounds very appealing with Gilmour’s staccato rhythms meshing nicely with Wright’s cocktail piano. The tempo for “Time” is a bit slower than the released version. “The Great Gig In The Sky” is still ”The Mortality Sequence” with the Ephesians 5 reading and Malcolm Muggeridge’s speech.

“One Of These Days” sounds especially heavy in this recording with some very loud explosion sounds. Some collectors have commented that Sapporo’s “Careful With That Axe Eugene” is one of the very best ever recorded. Waters lets out a very blood thirsty scream that has the audience (and me) on edge.

Pink Floyd’s gig in Sapporo 1972 ranks among their best performances of the year.  It is certainly one of the best from the short tour of Japan.  Sigma 82 is a very nice collation of the sources into one definitive package and is worth having.