Pink Floyd was considered a band that made albums, as opposed to a hit-making band. Their material worked best as a whole, cohesive project. Listeners would have to invest time to listen to the prog rockers, instead of digesting a single or two. While their ability to make stellar albums is, in part, what made them such a powerful outfit, it also had its limitations. At one point in their career, they found themselves at a loss on how to stay relevant. Those issues came to a head at one concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London. Roger Waters deemed this show irrevocably “embarrassing.”
The Rock Legend Reflects on a Theatrical Moment That Missed the Mark
By the time the 1960s came to a close, Pink Floyd was struggling to attract new listeners. According to drummer Nick Mason, it was their lack of easily digestible singles that was to blame for this. To combat their shortcomings, they incorporated a theatrical element into their live shows, which they hoped would excite the audience. In the end, it proved more embarrassing than profitable.
Mason and Waters once recalled a show at the Royal Albert Hall in which they had their stagehands brew coffee while the band members assembled a table on stage. It was meant to be a heady, conceptual piece that corresponded with an instrumental. It didn’t quite hit the mark.
“One of us held a leg, and another banged a nail in…Some might say it was experimental, but, looking back it was pretty embarrassing,” Waters once said. “To be honest, we probably did all this improvisation because we hadn’t yet come up with constructive songs to perform.”
“It was great fun and interesting, but I don’t think we were being great artists,” Mason added elsewhere. “Some of it was absolute nonsense. But I think we were still looking for a direction.”
Pink Floyd’s Live Show Success
Despite falling short at the Royal Albert concert, it didn’t sully Pink Floyd’s career as a live band. In fact, they delivered one of the most iconic concert films of all time: Live at Pompeii.
As the title suggests, the film sees the rockers performing amidst the rubble of Pompeii. The intimate setting flexed the band’s unmissable talent on stage. Revisit a clip from the film below.
