Pink Floyd – Zürich 1972 (Siréne-170)

Zürich 1972 (Siréne-170)

Hallenstadion, Zürich, Switzerland – December 9th, 1972

Disc 1: Speak To Me, Breathe, On The Run, Time, Breathe (reprise), The Great Gig In The Sky, Money, Us & Them, Any Colour You Like, Brain Damage, Eclipse

Disc 2: One Of These Days, Careful With That Axe Eugene, Echoes, Childhood’s End

Bonus cdr, Live In Zurich 1972, disc 1: Speak To Me, Breathe, On The Run, Time, Breathe (reprise), The Great Gig In The Sky, Money, Us & Them, Any Colour You Like, Brain Damage, Eclipse

Disc 2: One Of These Days, Careful With That Axe Eugene, Echoes

Pink Floyd’s show at the Hallenstadion in Zürich was the penultimate gig from their winter tour and exists in two audience sources. The first was released on vinyl in the seventies and is fair to good but incomplete and rather flat sounding. Several years ago a second source surfaced and was released by Ayanami on Zurich 1972 (Ayanami-228). This tape is much better sounding and revealed the previously unknown encore “Childhood’s End”.

Zürich 1972 on Siréne utilizes the same tape source as the Ayanami release. They applied mastering work to bring out the lower frequencies and enhance the full aural range to make this sound much more full and dynamic. However, what really works against this tape is the condition of the PA system at the venue. The engineers struggle all night to find the proper balance and the lead guitar is buried beneath the keyboards for most of the show, only occasionally coming to the forefront like on “Us & Them” and the final number.

Further there are some loud bangs on stage during “Us & Them” and “Brain Damage”. What is occurring isn’t very clear. Regardless this is a great concert at the end of a very successful tour for Pink Floyd. As for most of the shows in 1972 the first half is filled with the Dark Side Of The Moon suite. This performance contains the guitar/keyboard jam for “On The Run” and “The Religious Sequence” for “Great Gig In The Sky” for one of the last times. “Careful With That Axe Eugene” is augmented by additional “pictish” rants on some of the dates on this tour and on this recording Roger Waters recites a long poem with “dark as night…speak to me, speak to me” being the more audible lines.

“Childhood’s End” is performed for the second recorded time on this tour (its first appearance is on December 1st in Saint Ouen, France) and is one of the very best live recordings of the piece. The packaging is great with Sirene using the glossy paper with several “desert” photos and the picture of the Iowa fan’s Dark Side van on the back. It is limited to three hundred copies and is highly recommended.

As a bonus Siréne issued a two cdr set called Live In Zurich 1972 archiving the first tape source used for the vinyl releases on Frog Records, Wind Records, etc. They duplicated the Frog Records artwork but the lack of surface noise indicates Sirene may have used the actual tape source. If not then a pristine vinyl copy. “Money”, which on vinyl was placed after “Eclipse”, is restored to its proper position although it is still only the first half of the song.

In the past Siréne would have issued this as a four disc set, but thankfully released this source as a bonus cutting down on the price. This comes packaged in a double slimline jewel case and is a nice addition because it gives another statement of this show. The narrower aural spectrum offers a better mix of the instruments and is very enjoyable. Overall Siréne have put a lot of work into producing the definitive versions of the tapes from this tour and Zürich 1972 stands out as one of the very best.