Pink Floyd Soerser Stadium, Aachen � July 12th, 1970

Disc 1:
Astronomy Domine
Green Is The Colour
Careful With That Axe Eugene
Atom Heart Mother

Disc 2:
Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun
A Saucerful Of Secrets
Interstellar Overdrive

lineage: cass (unknown) > cd > eac > flac

Pink Floyd played several big outdoor festivals in the summer of 1970. The most well known was the Bath Festival on June 27th followed the next day at the Kralingen Pop Festival (the audience recording was released several years ago on Stamping Ground (Highland HL640/641)) on June 28th.

Their appearance at the Soersfestival occurs about two weeks after Kralingen and has the same exact set list. This was a three day long open-air pop festival held in the Reiterstadion in the city of Aachen. Other bands on the bill included Deep Purple, Free, If, Golden Earring, Traffic, Mungo Jerry, Champion Jack Dupree, Edgar Broughton Band, Taste, Hardin & York, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Van Der Graaf Generator, Peter Hammill, Caravan and Kraftwerk early in their career.

Pink Floyd appeared on July 12th, the final day of the event and was the final band to play. The sound quality is fair to good and very compressed as if the recorder pointed the microphone towards one of the speakers out in the crowd instead of at the stage. There are noticeable amounts of hiss on the top end and some points are more muffled than others. The very beginning of �Astronomy Domine� is missing, but �Interstellar Overdrive� is complete as it is on the best versions of the tape in circulation does representing virtually the entire performance.

The idea that many different artists and groups coming together for a common expression transcends its origins and brings additional meaning to the music performed. It is for this reason, by placing the performance into this context, that makes releases like this and Stamping Ground worth having. �Astronomy Domine� serves as the opener for their two hour long set as it did with the other festivals. �Green Is The Colour�, which by 1970 was beginning to sound very dated, is segued with �Careful With That Axe, Eugene� as was the custom.

�Atom Heart Mother� is introduced as a sidelong song without a title from the new album coming out in August. It was called �The Amazing Pudding� at this point, but this would actually be the final performance of the piece under that title. It would receive its name four days later on July 16 before their �In Concert� appearance on the BBC. This version is nineteen and a half minutes long and is played by the band only without the orchestra.

�Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun� is a thirteen-minute long epic and the band does well in creating a spacey feeling in the outdoor arena. It sounds as if the people by the recorder become impatient with the band and some muffled conversations in German can be heard throughout the performance.

�A Saucerful Of Secrets� sounds slightly duller than the rest of the tape for some reason. There is a small cut at 13:08 missing some seconds of music. This version is very good, although doesn�t have the drama as the Kralingen. The wordless vocals on the final section �Celestial Voices� are enough to send a shiver down the spine.

�This really is the last one and this is called �Interstellar Overdrive�.� This song has the potential for being a potent instrumental in Pink Floyd�s repertoire, but this version sounds tired and self-indulgent. Perhaps the band needed a break after their performance or maybe Gilmour ran dry of ideas?

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