“A freedom window, a goal”: when ‘Pink Floyd at Pompeii’ slipped into Franco’s Spain | Culture | EUROtoday

“We looked a joint and went to see Pink Floyd at Pompeii. It was like being in a concert, with a smoking atmosphere among the public, but sitting in a movie seats. ”The one who speaks is Rodolfo Medina. In 1974, in addition to hair, he was 21 years old. A few days ago he turned 71, and he had some hairs in the testa, few. Medina, who today enjoys an active retired life (yesterday, after picking up his grandson from the school seeing A Complete Unknown), He was one of the Spaniards who were impacted at the time by the documentary Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeiithe filming of a peculiar concert of the English quartet: without audience, in the sand of the Roman Colosseum of Pompeii and just a few months before he recorded his masterpiece and success of sales The Dark Side Of the Moon.

In a context of a music market increasing Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii Adapted to IMAX Salas (large screen) and with a sound improved by the English musician, full guarantees, Steve Wilson. The album of that performance will also be edited for the first time. We talk about a musical documentary that fulfilled an almost social function in the Spain of the time. In 1974, with Franco already in transit (He died in November 1975), but even with cruel energies to issue death sentences, he premiered in Spain Pink Foyd: Live At Pompeii, A space for intersection where rock, psychedelia and history lived.

The film/concert, of one hour and directed by the Frenchman Adrian Maben, had been projected in 1972 at a film festival, but had no commercial route. Two years later the version expanded by the same Maven arrived, with additional half an hour that included quartet scenes recording in Abbey Road, London, London, The Dark Side Of the Moon. This review was the one exhibited in Spain, in art and essay cine.

The journalist and author Jordi Turtós (69 years previous) started simply that yr the profession of Information Sciences: “I saw her in Barcelona, ​​where at that time many musical documentaries were released, such as Monterrey Pop’s or Woodstock. moment.

The idea of ​​recording on that scenario did not arise from the group, but from the director. Maben wanted to distance himself from the further recitals, perform “an anti-Woodstock, where the empty music and amphitheater mean so much, or more, that a multitude of people pulling the group.” The approach was the most attractive: in a scenario populated by the ghosts of the faces with 1,900 years old that dominated the amphitheater columns it was to exploit the sonic potential of Pink Floyd, recreate atmospheres envelopes and get an ethereal sound. But the location came by chance. Maben visited the Roman amphitheater of Pompeya (near Naples), buried by the eruption of Vesuvio in 79 d. C, as a tourist, since he was a great art fan and history. When he arrived at the hotel he noticed that he had lost, among the ruins, the portfolio with his passport. So he returned the next day, without the convoy tourist. There, alone, he noticed the acoustic solemnity and the moving space. The portfolio did not recover it, but the location already had it.

He contacted the representative of Pink Floyd, who raised it to the quartet and accepted. Pink Floyd was right at that time, 1971/72, on the launch ramp towards his highest levels of popularity and also his artistic career. Julio Ruiz (72 years), historical man of music on the radio, worked at that time on Popular Radio FM. “I remember that I had already put in the program the previous discs of Pink Floyd, Ummogma [1969], Atom Heart Mother [1970] y Meddle [1971]. In the record records they were sending them, between affectionate and derogatory: these albums, for the progress. Imagine how we were conceptualized. ”Diego A. Manrique (74 years previous), who additionally had been working as a musical journalist and noticed the documentary in a cinema membership in Burgos, corroborates it:“ The Spanish Emi, in the 60 An anecdote of the projection has: “After the interpretation of Echoes, We applaud, as if we were watching him live. We applauded the screen. That movie was a momentazo for everyone. ”

The Intendance of Recording in Pompeya was not simple. After transporting the equipment and placing it in the amphitheater sand it was found that there was no sufficient electricity supply. Solution: A one kilometer wiring to the City Council building. In the film you can see David Gilmour (guitar and voice) and Richard Wright (keyboards and voice) playing without a shirt, due to excessive heat, which reached 35 degrees. In the last ones you take his whitish back of the guitarist acquires a pink tone. Eye: This is the filming of a concert with trap, since not all the songs were recorded in Pompeya. With the budget exhausted, without time and with regular technical collapses, some issues had to be registered in Paris, such as Careful With That Axe, Eugene o Set the Control for the Heart of the Sun.

The remarkable thing about the film is to check the form of a band just a moment before being catapults to heaven by The Dark Side of the Moon and then Wish You Were Here. Also appreciate the ability to experience, inheritance of its first stage with Syd Barrett, despite being considered a band for large audiences. The film director and music producer Gonzalo García Pelayo (77 years) also saw the film at the time: “That documentary was a myth, a freedom window. I was at that time of manager of Smash, and for them it was a goal: merging rock with culture, since the concert was held in a place as symbolic and as important as Pompeii, with historical and cultural draft. That certified the rock approach to culture, which may now seem more normal, but at that time it was extraordinary. ”

The consulted affirm that there was no fear of going to these musiqueras meetings, which at this point they were not part of the regime’s problems. “The police weren’t very conscious of the melenudos. We weren’t a part of the politicized squad. We have been antidagmatic. We have been nearer to the anarchist approaches than of the socialists and communists, who have been the individuals who wished to have managed the regime. We have been extra concerned about Frank Zappa than the politicized teams,” says Jordi Turtós.

In addition to the severity of the stage, some images are especially interesting, such as Roger Waters (bass and voice), rasing the Gong as Gilmour to torture his guitar by practicing the slide With a metal thorough in Saucerful Of Secrets. Or an interpretation of Seamus A blues integrated into the disc Meddle that in the documentary he renamed like Mademoiselle Nobssince so, Nobs was called the dog that sings the piece; Literal, since Richard Wright is responsible for placing the microphone near the mouth of the can while barking to accompany Gilmour’s harmonica.

Although Live at Pompeii He dragged many individuals within the United States to the cinema, the group was in no way completely happy. “It was very disappointing in economic terms,” ​​stated the drums, Nick Mason, in his e book Inside Pink Floyd. The most pejiguero this time was not Roger Waters, however David Gilmour, who identified years later: “It is the kind of film that should put only once and early.” The curious factor, or maybe exactly due to this aversion to the unique, is that Gilmour repeated the expertise in 2017: he acted within the Pompeii amphitheater however, this time, sure, with public.

Some of those that noticed the live performance in that agonizing dictatorship could repeat in 2025 in a really completely different state of affairs. One of the variations shall be that as a substitute of an ashtray on the arm of the armchair they are going to have a coach.