Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
History always seems to be made when the fan and keen lover of music consider deeply a band’s choice of setting for a gig, for a concert that stands out for its geographical position, its more unusual location. Whilst many attend a night with their favourite groups or singers and are content to be sat in the splendour of the ornate and the predictable spaces, there is something to be said for a concert that doesn’t take place in a music hall, or everyday venue; and it is to the imagination of the greats that we learn that perhaps the historical emptiness of Pompeii is cool, but set against the Venice waterfront is exquisite.
Pink Floyd are the masters of such unpredictability, and it is perhaps to be seen as an even greater portrayal of artistic vision; it doesn’t always guarantee a sound that is outstanding, but to witness it live is to understand the visual exclamation of the fantastic. To transfer the spectacle to a point where the listener has to rely on the music as a full and abiding reveal is a process that asks everything of the band and those recording it to be completely open that there might be flaws.
Live In Venice – The Complete Venice 1989 PBS Broadcast was already legendary, its presence brought the band into a new realm, away from the Roger Waters era properly for the first time, and on the back of the 1987 studio album A Momentary Lapse Of Reason, the next incarnation of the group, the threesome of Gilmour, Mason, and Wright strode back onto the world stage with purpose and the sense of the accomplished fully restored; and this album fully reflects this new occasion.
Over 200,000 people attended the free gig amongst lagoons and the historical setting, matched a couple of decades later by their Progressive peers Genesis as they shook Rome to its core, and it doesn’t require much imagination to envisage a harbour full of boats of all sized and descriptions, the mind more than capable to see the band, aided by the likes of Jon Carin, Scott Page, Guy Pratt, Tim Renwick, Gary Wallis, Rachel Fury, and Durga and Lorelei take on classics and the majority of the new recording with outrageous competence and an ingenuity that dreams are made of.
Through tracks such as Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Part One), Learning To Fly, The Dogs Of War, On The Turning Away, The Great Gig In The Sky, Wish You Were Here, and Comfortably Numb, Pink Floyd’s almost mythical status as one of the biggest bands on the planet was once more, and unashamedly, sealed, signed, and delivered in all forms of communication.
How many more concerts are out there for the band to issue, that remains to be seen, but for now for the fans of Floyd have yet another souvenir of Time to relish within, and Live In Venice – The Complete Venice 1989 PBS Broadcast is worth every moment.
Ian D. Hall