In the Flesh (Pink Floyd tour)

In the Flesh Tour
Tour by Pink Floyd
Associated album Animals
Start date 23 January 1977
End date 6 July 1977
Legs 2
No. of shows 55
Pink Floyd concert chronology

The In the Flesh Tour, also known as the Animals Tour, was a concert tour by the English rock band Pink Floyd in support of their album Animals. It was divided in two legs, one in Europe and another in North America. The tour featured large inflatable puppets, as well as a pyrotechnic "waterfall", and one of the biggest and most elaborate stages to date, including umbrella-like canopies that would rise from the stage to protect the band from the elements.[1]

History

Pink Floyd's market strategy for the In the Flesh Tour was very aggressive, filling pages of The New York Times and Billboard magazine. To promote their four-night run at Madison Square Garden in New York City, there was a Pink Floyd parade on 6th Avenue featuring pigs and sheep.[2]

This was the first tour since their 1973 tour that Pink Floyd didn't use female backing singers. The musicians that augmented the band for the tour were sax player Dick Parry (who occasionally played keyboards out of view of the audience) and guitarist Snowy White, who also played bass on "Sheep", "Pigs (Three Different Ones)" and "Welcome to the Machine" while Roger Waters played electric guitar on "Sheep" and "Pigs" and acoustic guitar on "Welcome to the Machine".

In the first half of the show, the band played all of the Animals album in a slightly different sequence to the album, starting with "Sheep" then "Pigs on the Wing (Part I)", "Dogs", "Pigs on the Wing (Part II)" and "Pigs (Three Different Ones)". During "Pigs (Three Different Ones)", Waters would shout the number of the concert on the tour (such as "1-5!" for the fifteenth show) so recordings of the shows would be easy to distinguish from each other. The second half of the show comprised the Wish You Were Here album in its exact running order ("Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I–V)", "Welcome to the Machine", "Have a Cigar", "Wish You Were Here" and "Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts VI–IX)"). This was the first time "Welcome to the Machine" and "Wish You Were Here" were played live, with the latter being played differently than the studio album. It featured an extended guitar solo, a reprise of the second verse and Richard Wright closing out the song with a piano solo. The encores were "Money" and often "Us and Them" from The Dark Side of the Moon. At the Oakland, California show on 9 May they played "Careful with That Axe, Eugene" as a second encore, the first time it had been played since 1974 and the last time it was ever performed. The final night of the tour on 6 July at Montreal's Olympic Stadium had a second encore of "Drift Away Blues" which saw David Gilmour sit out the final encore as he was unhappy with the band's performance that night. Snowy White played a bluesy guitar solo with the rest of Pink Floyd in Gilmour's place.

During the tour Waters began to exhibit increasingly aggressive behaviour, and would often yell abusively at disruptive audiences who wouldn't stop yelling and screaming during the quieter numbers.[2] In the New York shows they had to use local workers as lighting technicians due to union problems with their own crew. They had several difficulties with the workers; for example, Waters once had to beckon one of the spotlights to move higher when it only illuminated his lower legs and feet while he was singing.

The Montreal show, 6 July 1977, the final performance of the tour, ended with Pink Floyd performing a blues jam as the roadies dismantled the instruments in front of the insatiable audience who refused to let the band leave the stadium. A small riot at the front of the stage followed the band's eventual exit. Earlier that night, Waters spat in the face of a disruptive fan;[3] The Wall grew out of Waters' thoughts about this incident, particularly his growing awareness that stardom had alienated him from his audience.[4]

Although the Animals album had not been as commercially successful as the previous two, the band managed to sell out arenas and stadiums in America and Europe, setting scale and attendance records. In Chicago, the band played to an estimated audience of 95,000; in Cleveland and Montreal, they set attendance records for those venues by playing to over 80,000 people.

Tour band

Additional musicians:

Set list

A typical 1977 set list would include the following:
Set I – Animals:

  1. "Sheep"
  2. "Pigs on the Wing (Part I)"
  3. "Dogs"
  4. "Pigs on the Wing (Part II)"
  5. "Pigs (Three Different Ones)"

Set II – Wish You Were Here:

  1. "Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I–V)"
  2. "Welcome to the Machine"
  3. "Have a Cigar"
  4. "Wish You Were Here"
  5. "Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts VI–IX)"

Encore 1:

  1. "Money"
  2. "Us and Them" (added to February)

Encore 2:

  1. "Careful with That Axe, Eugene" (performed once in 9 May 1977 Oakland, California)
  2. "Drift Away Blues" (with Snowy White) (blues improvisation performed once in 6 July 1977 Montreal, Quebec in response to an aggressive audience)

Tour dates

Date City Country Venue
Europe
23 January 1977 Dortmund West Germany Westfalenhallen
24 January 1977
26 January 1977 Frankfurt Festhalle Frankfurt
27 January 1977
29 January 1977 West Berlin Deutschlandhalle
30 January 1977
1 February 1977 Vienna Austria Stadthalle
3 February 1977 Zürich Switzerland Hallenstadion
4 February 1977
17 February 1977 Rotterdam Netherlands Sportpaleis Ahoy
18 February 1977
19 February 1977
20 February 1977 Antwerp Belgium Sportpaleis
22 February 1977 Paris France Pavillon de Paris
23 February 1977
24 February 1977
25 February 1977
27 February 1977 Munich West Germany Olympiahalle
28 February 1977
1 March 1977
15 March 1977 London England Empire Pool
16 March 1977
17 March 1977
18 March 1977
19 March 1977
28 March 1977 Stafford New Bingley Hall
29 March 1977
30 March 1977
31 March 1977
North America
22 April 1977 Miami United States Miami Baseball Stadium
24 April 1977 Tampa, Florida Tampa Stadium
26 April 1977 Atlanta The Omni
28 April 1977 Baton Rouge, Louisiana LSU Assembly Center
30 April 1977 Houston Jeppesen Stadium
1 May 1977 Fort Worth, Texas Tarrant County Convention Center
4 May 1977 Phoenix, Arizona Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum
6 May 1977 Anaheim, California Anaheim Stadium
7 May 1977
9 May 1977 Oakland, California Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum
10 May 1977
12 May 1977 Portland, Oregon Memorial Coliseum
15 June 1977 Milwaukee County Stadium
17 June 1977 Louisville, Kentucky Freedom Hall
19 June 1977 Chicago Soldier Field
21 June 1977 Kansas City, Missouri Kemper Arena
23 June 1977 Cincinnati Riverfront Coliseum
25 June 1977 Cleveland Municipal Stadium (World Series of Rock)
27 June 1977 Boston Boston Garden
28 June 1977 Philadelphia The Spectrum
29 June 1977
1 July 1977 New York City Madison Square Garden
2 July 1977
3 July 1977
4 July 1977
6 July 1977 Montreal Canada Olympic Stadium

References

  1. ↑ Schaffner, p. 216-217
  2. 1 2 Schaffner, p. 218
  3. ↑ Maben, Adrian (Director) (April 18, 2000). Pink Floyd Shine On: Interviews (VHS). Frantic Films. ASIN 6305855730.
  4. ↑ Schaffner, p. 219
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