Pink Floyd - 1969: Dramatis/ation (The Early Years 1965-1972, Volume 3)

8.5 - England - 1969/2017

There are quite a few what-ifs in the history of popular music. What if Hendrix had lived to collaborate with Miles Davis and Gil Evans? What if Kurt Cobain had reached middle-age? What if Paul McCartney hadn't been killed and replaced by a talentless imposter in 1966 (or 1970, depending on who you talk to)?

Of a somewhat lesser stature -- in that it doesn't involve anyone's death -- this third entry in Pink Floyd's Early Years sets poses the question: What if Pink Floyd had never made Ummagumma? Considered one of the most, er... difficult entries in the Floyd canon, Ummagumma consisted of one (very excellent) live disc and one (somewhat wonky) studio disc in which each member had half a side to themselves. The results were spotty (and are described elsewhere). Indeed, at the time, Gilmour worried that the idea was, at best, misguided and, at worst, a pretentious waste of time that would alienate their fans. Later on, the band would end up describing the record as "what a disaster!" (Waters) and "horrible" (Gilmour). Mason was a little more charitable when he described it as "a failed experiment". Still, how about that live version of "Careful With That Axe, Eugene"?

And yet it need not have been so. For at the time, the Floyd had been performing two different suites of material -- The Man and The Journey -- that would have made for an excellent double record. Indeed, a live album release of these suites was considered but ultimately rejected in favour of Ummagumma's two-headed monster. At least one track was recorded in the studio -- The Man's "Biding My Time" ["Afternoon"] which surfaced on 1971's Relics compilation -- and various elements of the suites ended up as parts of Ummagumma (many parts of the two sets had also been reworked from tracks already recorded on earlier albums). The official release on Dramatis/ation of a live recording of The Man and The Journey from a 1969 performance in Amsterdam finally gives us a glimpse of what could have been.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves, as this live performance constitutes the second disc in this set. The first disc includes a number of outtakes from the More soundtrack, the acoustic demo of "Embryo" that was released (against the group's wishes) on a Harvest Records sampler, a BBC session, and an instrumental live set also recorded in Amsterdam.

The More outtakes are faintly interesting. Of these, "Hollywood" is a nice piece of psychedelic moodiness and a driving "Beat Version" of the "Main Theme" gives us a nice Rick Wright keyboard workout. The alternate version of "More Blues" here is only slightly less tedious and irritating than the album version. An early version of the atmospheric instrumental "Quicksilver" presented as "Seabirds" is decent enough, but there is another track of that name circulating around the internet that is not included here. The version of that track is "available" only in clips taken from the film itself in which the ostensibly pretty acoustic song is but a snippet buried beneath the film's awful dialogue. As to why it -- and other known unknown tracks -- was not included in this set remains a mystery. For archival releases such as this one, the presence of obvious gaps is frustrating to the consumer.

Similarly, while it's nice to have the studio version of "Embryo" -- a gentle, brief song that, as the next set in the series will bear out, morphed into an extended slice of awesome space rock -- without having to search out the ultra-bizarre Works compilation, it also seems a missed opportunity to not included the studio version of "Biding My Time" (got to justify Relics' remaining in print, I suppose).

The last half of the first audio disc is rounded out with a thoroughly decent BBC session from May of 1969. The version of "Grantchester Meadows" presented here is, in my opinion, much superior to the Roger Waters solo version included on Ummagumma due in no small part to the lovely keyboard work by Wright and some harmony vocals in the chorus that sound -- to my ears, at least -- like Wright, but Wikipedia has as Gilmour. "Cymbaline" is somewhat extended from its More incarnation (although not the epic it would be in The Man)  and "Green Is The Colour" (surely one of the most criminally underrated Floyd tracks) provides a most pleasant lead-in to yet another version of "Careful With That Axe, Eugene". An unusual inclusion is the third part of "The Narrow Way" taken from Gilmour's section of the Ummagumma studio record. Comparing the two versions, I'm struck by how much Gilmour's drumming on the studio version apes Nick Mason's style, though ultimately there's not all that much difference between the solo and full-band versions.

The entirely-instrumenta; live set that rounds out the disc is quite decent (indeed, the version of "Careful With That Axe, Eugene" here may well be the best one out of all of these sets, lack of harrowing scream notwithstanding), but after the Germin/ation set, I'm a little sick of "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun", so let's just move on to the main event that is Disc 2.

The two suites are each based around a central conceit and prefigure the concept albums that made Floyd superstars in the 1970s. The Man represents a day-in-the-life of, well, a man. "Grantchester Meadows" -- once again featuring the expanded instrumentation heard on Disc 1's BBC session -- starts things off as "Daybreak" before a whistle blows and we are presented with "Work", an exercise in musique concrète in which the group set about "playing" various tools such as hammers and saws. The result is actually a lot more listenable than its somewhat pretentious conceptualization would suggest. Next, after a tea-break in which the band is served tea on stage (would work better in video form; on the record it's an awkward pause), "Biding My Time" steps in as "Afternoon" and the percussive "Doing It" (a recast "The Grand Vizier's Garden Party") is supposed to represent sex (it's somewhat unsettling to have the otherwise sexless Floyd flirt with such carnal matters). The final sequence of the suite concerns night time. The narcotic "Quicksilver" represents "Sleeping" and the clear highlight of the set features More's "Cymbaline" extended into "Nightmare". What was previously a gentle, albeit ominous, acoustic number is greatly electrified with a fantastic solo by Gilmour.

The concept of The Journey is harder to pin down than the perhaps-too-concrete The Man. Ostensibly, it represents a journey of some kind. One that involves being beset by creatures of the deep, heading through the narrow way into the pink jungle and the labyrinths of Auximenes before reaching the end of the beginning while beholding the temple of light. Wowzers. Musically, it might be a little stronger than The Man (due in no small part to the awesome opening duo of a mellow "Green Is The Colour" ("The Beginning") that dovetails into a truly ferocious "Careful With That Axe, Eugene" ("Beset By Creatures Of The Deep"). Due to the more abstract concept at work here, The Journey is a lot more jammy. Other than "The Beginning", the only other "song" here is "The Narrow Way, Part 3", which features some unfortunate awkward straining by Gilmour on the vocals (maybe he was having an off-night). Elsewhere "The Pink Jungle" reaches all the way back to The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn wherefrom it plucks and repurposes "Pow R. Toc H." while "The Labyrinths of Auximenes" (which I'm told draws from "Let There Be More Light") and "Behold The Temple Of Light" sound altogether unfamiliar to this Floyd fan and so are welcome revelations.

Given that so much of these two suites is cannibalized and repurposed from earlier recordings, it is perhaps understandable that they weren't given a proper studio recording and release. Nonetheless, it is still a shame that this material was never put out back in the day. As much as I love Ummagumma's live disc, I think a live album of these two suites would have been the better option. (I still can't quite decide whether I prefer the Ummagumma version of "Careful With That Axe, Eugene" -- which I'd consider the definitive version of that track -- versus The Journey's "Beset By Creatures Of The Deep"). Then again, had I been born in the alternate timeline, I'd have probably spent the last couple of decades breathlessly awaiting the officlal release of the 1969 live versions of "Astronomy Domine" and "A Saucerful Of Secrets" (still not a fan of "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun"). Also, one last trainspotter note: a live version of "Interstellar Overdrive" was tentatively slated to be included on the Ummagumma live disc; surprised that's not here...

Phew. Almost done. Just a wrap up of the video material on this set. Compared to the largely lip-synched videos on Germin/ation, the DVD/Blu-Ray included here aspires to a somewhat higher bar, and, as such, it does slightly disappoint. First, we are given a couple of tracks from a French television show that are mimed performances to studio tracks. While it was faintly amusing to see Roger Waters lip-synch for Syd for "Apples And Oranges" or a clearly bemused band fake its way through "Remember A Day", it's pointlessly bizarre to see the Floyd mime along to the studio take of "A Saucerful Of Secrets" in front a bunch of confused French people. And another version of "Set The Controls...". Umm thanks.

Next up, we are shown some footage of the band rehearsing for a Royal Festival Hall appearance. On the one hand, it's kind of fascinating to see the process -- particularly seeing Wright bust out the trombone on "Afternoon" ["Biding My Time"] -- but on the other hand, it's really just a teaser that makes us want to see the actual show itself. A couple of tracks taken from the Essener Pop & Blues Festival -- "Careful With That Axe, Eugene" and "A Saucerful Of Secrets" -- are interesting, but of somewhat poor audio quality, as are the selections from a Belgian festival whose name I can't be arsed to type out in full. The main thing of note here is a version of "Interstellar Overdrive" in which the Floyd are joined by Frank Zappa. The dynamic between the two artists is quite fun to watch: at first Zappa seems a bit uncomfortable, as if the Floyd's freewheeling improvisation somehow threatened his avant-garde credentials. Mason lays down a syncopated groove on the drums while Zappa plays along with a lead guitar line that is just a little too classical and mannered. Ultimately, however, he settles in nicely and they ended up having quite a good little jam. As it winds down, the film shows the considerable mess left behind by those filthy, filthy hippies.