The Pop Corporation

Copyright is a funny ol’ thing, but basically, thanks to it being funny, Pink Floyd are quietly doing some stuff and semi hoping you won’t notice, in a bid to keep hold of the copyright. Or not. Who cares? Basically, Ver Floyd have uploaded 18 concerts from the Dark Side of the Moon period (they sold quite a lot of record then, dontyouknow?) as well as some alternative tracks from the ’73 LP.

So, not free as such, because you need to be paying for streaming services – we’re going to assume that you are and that, if you’re not, you are capable of firing up a torrent and stealing it all.

This isn’t the first time they’ve done this. Pink Floyd die-hards will know that they pulled a thing like this in 2021 when they eased out a dozen concerts from ’70 to ’72. No fanfare. No advertising. Nowt. Just wanged them online to extend the rights of their recordings. Or not. Who cares?

This is something a number of older acts have been doing. Dylan, for one. Bob Dylan, obviously. In 2013, some guy who works for Sony was talking about this kind of thing to Rolling Stone, “The copyright law in Europe was recently extended from 50 to 70 years for everything recorded in 1963 and beyond. With everything before that, there’s a new ‘Use It or Lose It’ provision. It basically said, ‘If you haven’t used the recordings in the first 50 years, you aren’t going to get any more.’”

That’s quite interesting isn’t it? Especially if you’ve ever wondered what these giant bands sounded like at their peak, or wondered if they had any fun stuff in the vaults.

Anyway, back to Pink Floyd and these gigs are from Jan ’72 to Dec ’72, which happens to be the time that they were fine-tuning Dark Side. Pink Floyd’s whole four-night stand at the Rainbow Theatre from Feb ’72 is also up for grabs. Live stuff – all well and good, but what’s all this about bonus stuff?

There’s a thing, compiled of five tracks called ‘Alternative Tracks 1972’, which features some remixes (imagine! Trance Floyd!) and some ‘ultra rare’ versions of DSOTM songs, in a different version. ‘On The Run’ – there’s a rough demo of that. That’s the good stuff. Demos are always fun to listen to, even if they’re cruddy.

Don;’t expect any fancy artwork – they’ve literally shunted these out to cope with copyright law stuff, but your ears shouldn’t mind that too much, eh? They may not hang around too long online either, so catch them while they’re around, or else.

For the ‘I was there maaaaaaaan‘ of you, here’s a list of the shows released (and the bonus tracks thing).

Live at Southampton Guildhall, UK, 23 January 1972
Live at Carnegie Hall, New York, 5 Feb 1972
Live at the Rainbow Theatre, London 17 February 1972
Live at the Rainbow Theatre, London 18 Feb 1972
Live at the Rainbow Theatre, London 19 Feb 1972
Live at the Rainbow Theatre, London 20 Feb 1972
Live at the Taiikukan, Tokyo, Japan, 3 Mar 1972
Live at Osaka Festival Hall, Japan, 8 Mar 1972
Live at Nakajima Sports Centre, Sapporo, Japan, 13 Mar 1972
Live at Chicago Auditorium Theatre, USA, 28 April 1972
Live at the Deutschlandhalle, Berlin, Germany, 18 May 1972
Live at the Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles, 22 Sept 1972
Live at the Empire Pool, Wembley, London, 21 Oct 1972
Live at Ernst-Merck Halle, Hamburg, Germany, 12 Nov 1972
Live at the Palais des Sports, Poitiers, France 29 Nov 1972
Live at the Palais des Sports de L’Ile de la Jatte, Saint Ouen, France, 1 Dec 1972
Live at the Vorst Nationaal, Brussels, Belgium, 5 Dec 1972
Live at The Hallenstadion, Zurich, Switzerland 9 Dec 72

and

Alternative Tracks 1972