Pink Floyd – Delicate Sound Of Thunder (Blu-Ray, DVD, 3-LP, 2-CD & Deluxe Editions)

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Arguably, 1975’s Wish You Were Here was the last Pink Floyd album. On 1977’s Animals and 1979’s The Wall, David Gilmour would be the only other member to provide material, his musical contributions totalling four out of the 31 songs on those albums, the remainder, all bar one (‘The Trial’), being written solely by Roger Waters. 1983’s The Final Cut is, for all intents and purposes, a Waters solo album (described by Gilmour as ‘cheap filler’ and ‘meandering rubbish’). Following Waters’ departure in 1985 and his insistence that the band was a ‘spent force creatively’, Gilmour took over and, while legal battles over the name threatened to end the band once and for all, worked on material that would become 1987’s A Momentary Lapse of Reason, an album that, for most, is a Gilmour solo album. Mason and Wright may well play on the record but it was more their presence than their musicianship that enabled this to be marketed as a Pink Floyd album.

It’s of little surprise that Waters would dismiss it as ‘a pretty fair forgery,’ but the two albums he released around the same time, 1984’s The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking and 1987’s Radio Kaos, aren’t exactly great. And neither was The Final Cut. Though the album had no concept or theme binding it together, much to Gilmour’s credit, A Momentary Lapse of Reason had more than a few good songs – ‘Learning To Fly’, ‘One Slip’ and ‘On The Turning Away’ for instance – and a great one: ‘Sorrow’. With a very successful world tour to follow and a live album, 1988’s Delicate Sound of Thunder, appearing soon after, what Gilmour succeeded in making clear was that not only was Waters not Pink Floyd, but that the Pink Floyd name retained as much creative as it did commercial power.

Re-released last year as part of the Later Years boxset, Delicate Sound of Thunder is to be released on Blu-ray, DVD, 2-CD, 3-disc vinyl and deluxe 4-disc edition with bonus tracks, on 20 November 2020. Filmed at Long Island’s Nassau Coliseum in August 1988, this release is, according to the PR material, ‘sourced directly from over 100 cans of original 35mm negatives, painstakingly restored and transferred to 4K, and completely re-edited by Benny Trickett from the restored and upgraded footage’. The setlist is more like a ‘Best of’, the chosen tracks being more of the ‘radio friendly’ variety that allowed audiences to sing and dance along without having to know much about the concepts behind the albums they are taken from. The visuals are stunning and they very much benefit from the restoration and re-editing.

I’ve got my VHS copy of this somewhere. It’s not been played for a while, but that’s because I don’t have a video recorder (does anybody?). It’s because of YouTube that I’ve been able to re-view it in recent years and other than (or maybe because of) the questionable fashions, saxophonist Scott Page’s curiously coiffured mullet, and the band dancing – yes, dancing – during the jam section of ‘Money’, it’s still an entertaining experience. Delicate Sound of Thunder documents a band making a significant shift in their careers. Whereas Gilmour never seemed to lack confidence in either his playing, his singing, his writing, or his ability to lead, it’s good to see both Wright and Mason enjoying playing. With Waters releasing his recent performances of The Wall and his Us + Them tour, and Pink Floyd releasing everything they ever released as shiny new remasters, remixes, restorations, re-edits, re-everything, Pink Floyd fans are truly being spoilt.

Pink Floyd:

  • David Gilmour (Guitars, Vocals)
  • Nick Mason (Drums)
  • Richard Wright (Keyboards, Vocals)

Supporting musicians for the live dates:

  • Jon Carin (Keyboards, Vocals)
  • Tim Renwick (Guitars, Vocals)
  • Guy Pratt (Bass, Vocals)
  • Gary Wallis (Percussion)
  • Scott Page (Saxophones, Guitar)
  • Margret Taylor (Backing Vocals)
  • Rachel Fury (Backing Vocals)
  • Durga McBroom (Backing Vocals)

Technical credits:

  • Film Producers: Curt Marvis and Carl Wyant
  • Director of Photography: Marc Reshovsky
  • Lighting Designer: Marc Brickman
  • Conceptual footage directed by Storm Thorgerson, except ‘Money’ directed by Storm Thorgerson, Barry Chattington and Peter Medak
  • Animation on ‘Time’ was by Ian Emes

Audio:

  • Produced by David Gilmour
  • Remixed by Andy Jackson with David Gilmour assisted by Damon Iddins

Audio-Visual:

  • Directed by Wayne Isham
  • Audio Produced by David Gilmour
  • Remixed by Andy Jackson with David Gilmour assisted by Damon Iddins
  • Editor 2019 version – Benny Trickett
  • Creative Director 2019 version – Aubrey Powell/Hipgnosis
  • Lighting Director – Marc Brickman

Formats and track lists:

2-CD Edition

  • Remixed from the original master tapes
  • 24-Page Booklet
  • Features 8 songs not on 1988 2-CD*
  • Also included in The Later Years box set

Disc 1 (Part 1)

  1. Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Parts 1-5
  2. Signs Of Life*
  3. Learning To Fly
  4. Yet Another Movie
  5. Round And Around
  6. A New Machine Part 1*
  7. Terminal Frost*
  8. A New Machine Part 2*
  9. Sorrow
  10. The Dogs Of War
  11. On The Turning Away

Disc 2 (Part 2)

  1. One Of These Days
  2. Time
  3. On The Run*
  4. The Great Gig In The Sky*
  5. Wish You Were Here
  6. Welcome To The Machine*
  7. Us And Them
  8. Money
  9. Another Brick In The Wall, Part 2
  10. Comfortably Numb
  11. One Slip*
  12. Run Like Hell

Blu-Ray and DVD editions

  • Re-edited from the original restored 35mm footage
  • Audio remixed from the original master tapes
  • Blu-Ray – Stereo PCM 96/24, 5.1 dts Master Audio (96/24)
  • DVD – Stereo PCM (48/16), 5.1 Dolby Digital (48/16), 5.1 dts (48/16)
  • Also included in The Later Years Box Set
  • 24-Page Booklet
  1. Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Parts 1-5
  2. Signs Of Life
  3. Learning To Fly
  4. Sorrow
  5. The Dogs Of War
  6. On The Turning Away
  7. One Of These Days
  8. Time
  9. On The Run
  10. The Great Gig In The Sky
  11. Wish You Were Here
  12. Us And Them
  13. Money
  14. Comfortably Numb
  15. One Slip
  16. Run Like Hell

4-disc box edition

Deluxe Box includes 2-CD (23 Songs), Blu-ray (21 songs inc. 5 Bonus Tracks), DVD (21 songs inc. 5 Bonus Tracks), 40-Page Booklet, Double Sided Poster, 5 Postcards

  • Blu-ray – Stereo PCM 96/24, 5.1 dts Master Audio (96/24)
  • DVD – Stereo PCM (48/16), 5.1 Dolby Digital (48/16), 5.1 dts (48/16)
  • Re-edited from the original restored 35mm footage
  • Audio remixed from the original master tapes

2-CD Remixed from the original master tapes

Disc 1 (Part 1)

  1. Shine On You Crazy Diamond Parts 1-5
  2. Signs Of Life
  3. Learning To Fly
  4. Yet Another Movie
  5. Round And Around
  6. A New Machine Part 1
  7. Terminal Frost
  8. A New Machine Part 2
  9. Sorrow
  10. The Dogs Of War
  11. On The Turning Away

Disc 2 (Part 2)

  1. One Of These Days
  2. Time
  3. On The Run
  4. The Great Gig In The Sky
  5. Wish You Were Here
  6. Welcome To The Machine
  7. Us And Them
  8. Money
  9. Another Brick In The Wall Part 2
  10. Comfortably Numb
  11. One Slip
  12. Run Like Hell

Blu-Ray and DVD

  • Blu-ray – Stereo PCM 96/24, 5.1 dts Master Audio (96/24)
  • DVD – Stereo PCM (48/16), 5.1 Dolby Digital (48/16), 5.1 dts (48/16)
  1. Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Parts 1-5
  2. Signs Of Life
  3. Learning To Fly
  4. Sorrow
  5. The Dogs Of War
  6. On The Turning Away
  7. One Of These Days
  8. Time
  9. On The Run
  10. The Great Gig In The Sky
  11. Wish You Were Here
  12. Us And Them
  13. Money
  14. Comfortably Numb
  15. One Slip
  16. Run Like Hell

Bonus Tracks (Blu-ray: Stereo PCM 96/24 / DVD: Stereo PCM 48/16)

  1. Yet Another Movie
  2. Round And Around
  3. A New Machine Part 1
  4. Terminal Frost
  5. A New Machine Part 2

3-LP Vinyl

  • Heavyweight 180g Vinyl, 24-Page Booklet, Slipcase
  • Features 9 Songs not included on the 1988 2-LP*

Vinyl One: Side A

  1. Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Parts 1-5
  2. Signs Of Life *
  3. Learning To Fly

Vinyl One: Side B

  1. Yet Another Movie
  2. Round And Around
  3. A New Machine Part 1 *
  4. Terminal Frost *
  5. A New Machine Part 2 *
  6. Sorrow

Vinyl Two: Side A

  1. The Dogs Of War
  2. On The Turning Away
  3. One Of These Days

Vinyl Two: Side B

  1. Time
  2. On The Run *
  3. The Great Gig In The Sky *
  4. Wish You Were Here
  5. Welcome To The Machine *

Vinyl Three: Side A

  1. Us And Them *
  2. Money
  3. Another Brick In The Wall, Part 2

Vinyl Three: Side B

  1. Comfortably Numb
  2. One Slip *
  3. Run Like Hell