Rainbow Theatre,
London, England
20 February, 1972
"The Best Of Tour '72 - Restored"
Remastered From Original 1st LP Pressing
This excellent audience recording captures 'Dark Side Of The Moon' in its earliest stage. No other available from the January-February 1972 tour (in which DSotM was first performed) sounds as good as this. It still has some flaws, mainly the annoying cuts in "Time", Us And Them" & "Eclipse" but the music and sound quality is just too good to overlook.An upgrade that is by far the best sounding version of this recording. You need this whether you are an average or diehard Floyd fan.
01. Speak to me (cuts in, only last 8s left)
02. Breathe
03. Travel Sequence
04. Time (cut within)
05. Home again
06. Religious Theme
07. Money
08. Us & Them (cut within, misses most)
09. Dave's Scat Section
10. The Lunatic Song
11. Eclipse (cuts off)
Time: 40:52
Lineage: High Quality Condensator Stereo Mics -> Reel-to-Reel Master -> Mastering -> Mastered source (likely recorded on Hi-Speed Reel-to-Reel) -> 1st Pressing Vinyl Bootleg (16-421/422) -> Technics 1210mk2 with -881mk2s stylus -> Tascam DA20mk2 (A-D conversion 16 bit, 48kHz) -> PC -> Cubase SX 2.0 -> Wave (downsampled to 44.1k) -> FLAC -> Torrent
See below for clarification.
Re-Mastered @ the Soundhouse by Prof. Stoned, February 2006.
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A note from the Prof.:
Today, 34 years and a couple of days after this was first recorded, I present to you all a significant digital upgrade -maybe even the definitive version- of the legendary "The Best of Tour 72" boot. It KILLS both the "Swinging Pig" and the "Original Masters Series" bootleg CD's of this album that most of you all know.
These two boots were both taken from the same inferior source which is ruined by a heavy NoNoise treatment. This is a trueful reproduction of the original vinyl bootleg and will make you hear details in the recording that you never heard before.
***About the Original Bootleg***
The content of this CDR has been carefully mastered from a rare vintage (1972) vinyl copy (strictly rated: EX), the very 1st pressing of this classic floyd bootleg, and therefore the closest source to the (unfindable) original tape. The recorded content of the original LP was handled professionally from start to finish (not counting the cuts in the recording). The sound is beautiful. A very wide stereo image with clear separation of instruments & voices. There is little hiss or distortion. The unmastered source that the bootleggers used must have been 0th or maybe 1st generation tape. The original pre-vinyl tape has had a mastering treatment with a compressor, Dolby(A) and likely some EQ-ing.
The vinyl itself is nice and thick, made to last. This could very well have been pressed at a pressing plant which was used by major record company's as well.As you can read in Clinton Heylin's excellent book "Bootleg! The Rise and Fall of the Secret recording industry" this used to happen a lot in the early 70"s, and it would explain why the bootleggers were so keen to hide the name Pink Floyd, even on the record label itself.
Although the pre-vinyl part in the source info chain is speculated, it's 100% certain that this is NOT a soundboard and/or FM. Ever since this came out, the SQ has led people to believe it is. Even the above mentioned book, erroneously stated this was taken from a BBC radio broadcast. And even to this day, this recording is way more often labelled as "radio" or "soundboard" than as what it is: "EX audience".
Enjoy, Prof. Stoned
Asterix2112 kindly provided the following comprehensive information below :
There is a complete version of the concert, out for
several years now, with all the cut parts included from another (albeit
not as good) source, so you can here the whole show.
Pink Floyd - The Best of Tour 72 Completed and Restored -
Live at the Rainbow Theatre, Finsbury Park, London UK, 1972-02-20
Set List (in brackets the position on the original first issue LP, side a, side b)
01 (a). Heart Beat Intro (complete) 2:51
02 (a). Breathe 2:46
03 (a). The Travel Sequence 6:08
04 (a). Time (complete) 6:51
05 (a). Home Again 1:02
06 (a). The Mortality Sequence 4:23
07 (b). Money 7:45
08 (b). Us and Them (complete) 6:51
09 (b). Dave's Scat Section 4:36
10 (b). The Lunatic Song 3:51
11 (b). Eclipsed (complete) 2:58
We made this operation more than one year ago with the release of "In Rainbow Light". This release goes even further and upgrades, restores and completes the
content of the original LP version of The Best of Tour 72 only,
primarily for those older collectors who have had it for many years. A sort of emotional commemoration of another famous and time honored bootleg LP. The first edition was released on black vinyl in 1972 in Europe by the Tour 72 label.
Pink Floyd were excited to be able to develop new material on the road
but were horrified to learn of a bootleg album that was released
containing a complete performance of the piece recorded in February of
1972 at the Rainbow Theatre. The bootleg was issued a mere six weeks after the concert, about a full year prior to an official release. Professionally packaged, the unit reportedly sold in excess of 100,000 copies, many thinking it was the real thing. Trivia note: around this same time the Omayyad LP was released in USA.
The Best of Tour 72 had large success and was reissued and
re-bootlegged many, many times due to the stunning sound quality and the
full presence of unissued songs. Four songs were cut: Heart Beat Intro, Time, Us and Them and Eclipsed. We don't know why. Maybe the reason was the tape length or some
problems on it or the capability of the LP to support the whole suite. Here you can AT LAST listen to the whole Dark Side suite in the best
Sound Quality ever, without having to be "traumatized" as we were for
more than 30 years by the cuts.
The Rainbow Theatre was booked for three shows for press introduction
to Dark Side of the Moon but soon a fourth show was set due to the big
response. This extra show was to be played on Sunday 20th February 1972 at 8:00 p.m, for the first time the title Dark Side of the Moon was used. In "The Free Program of Rainbow Theatre, n.13" we can read: "The Dark Side of the Moon - A Piece for Assorted Lunatics"
A month before they were in this theatre to rehearse for three days, to
try the new suite together with the new mixer, the new quadrophonic
system and the new light show. The suite was performed ten times around England before the Rainbow' nights. It already changed a little from first couple of nights in Brighton and Portsmouth. Eclipsed was added and more changes would occur before the end of the year.
A generation and more of fans thought this album was recorded on the
17th of February, but many years later we all learned that it was the
20th, the fourth Rainbow show.
- Titles and Songs -
The title of the boot refers to the whole small British tour of January and February 1972.
The names of the songs reflect the names used on the studio track sheets early in the recording of the DSotM album. We didn't dare to be totally philologic so we didn't call The Mortality
Sequence ...Religious Section (!) and Eclipsed simply End. For the Intro we used "Heart Beat" to tribute the first time that it was
used by Pink Floyd, during the Zabriskie Point Sessions. For what its worth, we didn't like the simple "Scat" title for Any
Colour You Like, so we mixed together all those we saw around in more
than 30 years.