Exactly 37 years ago, on 15 July 1989, Pink Floyd succeeded in an undertaking that until then seemed unthinkable: transforming the San Marco Basin into a gigantic open-air theatre, with a floating stage in front of the most fragile and spectacular city in the world. What was supposed to be the culminating moment of the Festa del Redentore turned into one of the most discussed and memorable musical events ever organized in Italy, capable of dividing public opinion but also of definitively entering the history of rock.
37 years later, that concert could return to the cinema. In fact, a mysterious trailer entitled “Pink Floyd: Live In Venice” appeared on the band's official YouTube channel some time ago. No official announcement has yet arrived, but many fans hypothesize that, after the success of the cinematic restoration of “Pink Floyd At Pompeii – MCMLXXII”, the historic Venetian live concert could also be at the center of a new cinematic production.
The Venice Gamble
The idea of a concert in Venice was born at the height of the tour of “A Momentary Lapse Of Reason”, the first album released by Pink Floyd without Roger Waters, who left the group after the publication of “The Final Cut”. The survivors David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Richard Wright had returned to the top of world rock and they were looking for an event capable of surpassing any traditional concert. The choice fell on Venice, on the occasion of the Feast of the Redeemer. The initiative was supported by Rai, which invested around a billion lire for an event intended for worldwide viewing, and should also have represented a great international showcase for the city, then involved in its candidacy for Expo 2000.
The idea of the floating stage was not accidental: it took up the ancient Venetian tradition of orchestras that performed on boats in the lagoon during the Redentore. To host the band, a 24 meter platform was built, placed on a 90 by 30 meter barge, anchored in front of Piazza San Marco.
The show for two hundred thousand
The concert was free and attracted around 200 thousand people, distributed among the banks, squares, boats and boats that crowded the San Marco Basin. Around 100 million viewers followed the event from home thanks to the RAI live broadcast broadcast in numerous countries.
The organization, however, proved insufficient to manage a turnout of that size. To protect the mosaics of the Basilica of San Marco, a limit of 60 decibels was imposed, a choice which inevitably penalized the sound performance and sparked protests from part of the public.
The controversies exploded especially after the show. Venice woke up submerged in waste: around three hundred tons of rubbish and five hundred cubic meters of abandoned cans and bottles, as well as several episodes of vandalism, fueled a very harsh political and institutional debate. Even today the concert is remembered both for its extraordinary artistic significance and for the organizational problems that followed.
The show: 90 minutes of lights, quadraphonic and great classics
From a musical point of view, the concert condensed into about ninety minutes everything that had made Pink Floyd one of the greatest live shows on the planet. The English band, supported by the group of musicians who accompanied them on tour – Jon Carin, Guy Pratt, Tim Renwick, Scott Page, Gary Wallis, Rachel Fury, Durga McBroom and Lorelei McBroom – built a show dominated by plays of light, lasers, scenographic effects and the characteristic quadraphonic sound system, technology that the group had contributed to developing already in the Seventies.
To respect the television times, the setlist was reduced compared to the other concerts of the tour and some songs, such as “Sorrow” and “Money”, were performed in an abbreviated version. Despite this, the repertoire offered many of the most famous moments of the band's career: from the opening with “Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Part I)” to the grand finale with “Comfortably Numb” and “Run Like Hell”, passing through “Learning To Fly”, “Time”, “Wish You Were Here” and “Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2)”.
It was a show inevitably different from the suspended atmosphere of Pompeii: here Pink Floyd did not play in the silence of an empty amphitheatre, but in front of a city transformed into an immense floating audience.
Below is the full video of the Pink Floyd concert in Venice.
The concert lineup
Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Part I)
Learning To Fly
Yet Another Movie
Round And Around
Sorrow
The Dogs Of War
On The Turning Away
Time
The Great Gig In The Sky
Wish You Were Here
Money
Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2)
Comfortably Numb
Run Like Hell
After Pompeii, Venice too on the big screen?
The images of the Pink Floyd concert in Venice are not new. Already in 1989, Dutch television produced a special directed by Wayne Isham and Egbert van Hees, which was subsequently also broadcast in the United Kingdom. Furthermore, in 2019, the live performance was included in the “Pink Floyd: The Later Years” box set on DVD and Blu-ray. The trailer published today, however, suggests something different: a new cinema edition, probably restored, which would bring one of the most spectacular events of the last phase of Pink Floyd's history back to the big screen.
For the moment the band maintains maximum confidentiality and has not released further details. But after having brought the myth of Pompeii back to theaters, Venice too could soon have the recognition that many fans have been waiting for for decades: that of a concert that has become legendary, finally told like a real film.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
