The Warm Thrill Of Confusion (Siréne-063)
Earl’s Court, London, England – August 6th, 1980
Disc 1 (55:08): MC: Atmos, In The Flesh?, The Thin Ice, Another Brick In The Wall – Part 1, The Happiest Days Of Our Lives, Another Brick In The Wall – Part 2, Mother, Goodbye Blue Sky, Empty Spaces, What Shall We Do Now?, Young Lust, One Of My Turns, Don’t Leave Me Now, Another Brick In The Wall – Part 3, The Last Few Bricks, Goodbye Cruel World
Disc 2 (52:43): Hey You, Is There Anybody Out There?, Nobody Home, Vera, Bring The Boys Back Home, Comfortably Numb, The Show Must Go On, MC: Atmos, In The Flesh, Run Like Hell, Waiting For The Worms, Stop, The Trial, Outside The Wall
Pink Floyd’s The Wall tour covered only four cities and totals about thirty shows. There are many tapes circulating, but the three superb sources are the final show in New York on February 28th, 1980, the Earl’s Court show from August 6th, 1980 and Pink Floyd’s last ever show with the classic line up in Earl’s Court on June 17th, 1981. All of these are amazing tape sources and have been released many times both on silver discs and traded in the roio community.
Siréne chose the August 6th tape for their new release The Warm Thrill Of Confusion. It was the third of six shows that summer and was the basis for a scathing attack by journalist Nick Kent in August 16th New Musical Express. He called it a “wretchedly lackadaisical performance” and that “Waters should deflate the farce, debunk all myths, strip the Floyd of all their pathetic theatrical devices, inform the audience that the game is over, and offer them refunds for their tickets”. (Yea, but did he like it?). The show isn’t that bad at all. There are some technical problems in “Mother” detracting Roger for a bit, making him flub a line. But otherwise the show pretty much flawless with even a hint of improvisation thrown in “Another Brick In The Wall – part 2”. As with all of the shows “Comfortably Numb” receives the biggest reaction especially when Gilmour appears on top of the wall. “Run Like Hell” is dedicated to all disco lovers in the audience.
This is only the fourth release from Japan in the past seven years documenting a tape from this era. Before this we have only The Wall Of The Court on Shout To The Top (a horrible sounding release as are most Floyd releases on that label) and Tear Down The Wall on Zeus (excellent release). The Ayanami label released the June 17th, 1981 show as Roger At Last. Siréne have chosen to use the first Earls’ Court tape. It first surfaced on vinyl as The Wall Live, Wall, and The Wall Performed Live (E.M.K.A. PROD) and on CD as Live Wall (Satisfaction Guaranteed SG 054/55 ), Live Wall (Part 1+2) on Silver Rarities (SIRA 47/48), The Show Must Go On and the fan based Digital Floyd Project roio The Wall Earl’s Court 6/8/80 Performed Live. The taper mastered his cassette (according to his website), but it sounds like Siréne used the “raw” master and applied their own work to it and the results are phenomenal. The only flaw in the tape is the first minute of Gary Yudman’s into at the beginning is muffled. It has depth, power and dynamics and is another essential release on the Siréne label.
