The Amazing Yorkshire Pudding (Gold Standard AP 101071A/B)
Bradford University, Great Hall, Bradford, Yorkshire, England – October 10, 1971
Disc 1: Careful With That Axe Eugene, Fat Old Sun, Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun, Atom Heart Mother
Disc 2: Echoes, Cymbaline, One Of These Days, A Saucerful Of Secrets, blues
The Amazing Yorkshire Pudding documents the first of two shows Pink Floyd played between filming their movie in Pompeii in Italy and their month long tour of North America. The concert in Bradford occurred three days after their return and has circulated before and was used for the Ayanami release Bradford 1971 (Ayanami 194). Gold Standard utilize the master clone that surfaced late last year that is better sounding and much more complete. There is a small venue feel to the sound and there is some hiss present and distortion during loud parts. It is also cut during the introduction of “Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun”, during the “footsteps” section of “Cymbaline”, and an unfortunate cut in “Celestial Voices” that omits the end of “A Saucerful Of Secrets” right when things are getting interesting. But the tape is clear and perfectly captures the atmosphere of the event and is very listenable.
The recording includes all tune-ups and band talk between tracks. Roger’s scream in “Careful With That Axe, Eugene” is so intense it reaches almost twenty full seconds. There are some interesting guitar tune-ups and Waters cracking jokes before “Fat Old Sun” which has a very sweet delivery by Gilmour. The first set ends with a band version of “Atom Heart Mother”. The second epic of the night, “Echoes”, begins the second half of the show and is very lyrical in parts. “One Of These Days” was performed in front of an audience for the second time, the first occurring for the “Sounds Of The Seventies” BBC session on September 30th and Gilmour introduces the song with its full title (which also correspond to the full lyrics of the piece). “A Saucerful Of Secrets” is very tight and the cut by the end is most unfortunate. Roger introduces the encore by saying “that was psychedelic so we’ll do something that isn’t” before the band play the untitled blues piece they played for years onstage.
The manufacturers use the old American label Gold Standard for this release. This has been a trend of late with several titles coming out on this and the old Scorpio label. The artwork also has the minimalist aesthetic common for many of the protection gap era labels. They use the old publicity photos with headshots introducing the band. The discs have a tied-dyed design with the legend “whatever happened to cosmic dream” on each of the discs. This is a reference to the title of an old vinyl release Whatever Happened To The Cosmic Dream? (Blanch Records BR900201 – SYD A/B) containing early Pink Floyd tapes from Rotterdam and Copenhagen in 1967 with a picture of (the late) Syd Barrett on the cover. What that has to do with the Bradford tape isn’t clear. The Amazing Yorkshire Pudding is an interesting release that is appealing to Pink Floyd completist since it is a clear tape from an important time.
