Neil Young has announced the upcoming release of his new album, “Second Song”.
It will be his second album with the band the Chrome Hearts and his first album since “Talkin to the Trees, his 2025 debut with the group, which includes drummer Anthony LeGerfo, bassist Corey McCormick, guitarist Micah Nelson and keyboardist Spooner Oldham.
“Second Song” was recorded in analog at Malibu’s Shangri-La Studios and produced by Lou Adler, with Neil Young and Niko Bolas, who are credited as the Volume Dealers. According to a press release announcing the album, “Second Song” is mostly an acoustic record. “Talkin to the Trees” was an electric album, closer in spirit to the band Crazy Horse.
“Second Song” features seven tracks written by Young. While five of the songs are new, two date back years, though these are new recordings with the Chrome Hearts.
“Casting Me Away From You” first appeared on 2009’s The Archives Vol. 1 1963–1972 as an unreleased 1965 recording made with Comrie Smith.
Likewise, the new album’s closing track, “I’ll Love You Forever,” also appeared on the 2009 box set in a previously unreleased recording made with his band the Squires in 1964.
2017’s Sad Clowns & Hillbilliesis another album from Mellencamp’s very strong late career run. It is also a bit of a detour in that the album is billed to John Mellencamp featuring Carlene Carter, a noted country musician in her own right and the daughter of June Carter Cash and stepdaughter of JohnnyCash. Carlene Carter contributes co-lead vocals to five of the thirteen songs here on Sad Clowns & Hillbilliesand prominent backing vocals on several others (with country star Martina McBride singing on one more). This female presence and dynamic lends Sad Clowns & Hillbillies a sound and dynamic that sets it apart from most of Mellencamp’s other albums, although it never really feels like the work of anyone other than him either.
Sad Clowns & Hillbilliesopens with the song “Mobile Blue”, a song that we have already covered as Mellencamp would also include it on his covers record Other People’s Stuff a year later (and we covered that album already). That said, “Mobile Blue” is an excellent way to open this record, a rootsy update to the delta blues that sets the tone for Sad Clowns & Hillbillieswonderfully. Even better is the rambling and yearning “Battle Of Angels”, which finds Carter showing up on the album for the first time with perfectly placed backing vocals. “Battle Of Angels” feels like a song that could have been a massive hit for Mellencamp in the late 80s just written thirty years too late.
Across the album Carlene Carter serves as a perfect foil and balance to Mellencamp and she is given co-lead vocal credits on “Indigo Sunset”, “What Kind Of Man Am I”, “Damascus Road”, and “My Soul’s Got Wings”, as well as a solo lead vocal turn on “Sugar Hill Mountain”. “Indigo Sunset”, largely written by Carter, is a warm, lovely ballad that sounds like modern alt-country or roots rock like Jason Isbell or The Wallflowers. “What Kind Of Man Am I” is a dark ballad about a man at a crucial turning point in his life. “Damascus Road” was written entirely by Carter and is one of a handful of songs here that show the roots of the album as a gospel album. Mellencamp had originally approached Carter to make an album of new songs that felt like traditional religious and gospel songs.
The album ultimately moved in a different direction, but echoes of that original intent can be heard here. Those same religious/gospel roots can be heard as well in “My Soul’s Got Wings”, a poem by Woody Guthrie that Mellencamp set to music and sang a co-lead with Carter on.
The final Carter lead vocal is “Sugar Hill Mountain”, a song Mellencamp wrote for the Meg Ryan film Ithacaand that Carter sang for the soundtrack originally. Because Mellencamp and Carter were working together on Sad Clowns & Hillbilliesincluding “Sugar Hill Mountain” made sense. The song is a fun, modern version of a 1920’s styled song that adds a touch of levity and a sense of history to Sad Clowns & Hillbilliesand one of the best things on a strong record, in my opinion. As mentioned before, Carter would also sing backup on several other songs, but these are her prime contributions on Sad Clowns & Hillbilliesand they are key to the album’s greatness.
“Grandview” is a delightful, humorous rocker about wanting to live a simple life with his girlfriend in a trailer home placed in Grandview trailer park. The woman agrees to live with him (sung with a perfect twang by Martina McBride), but only if he will buy her a brick house like her mama. The narrator gives in but never gives up his trailer park dream and the song ends with his youngest daughter moving out and him getting ready to move his brand new trailer home down to Grandview, no matter what his wife (ex-wife?) wants any more. It is a fun, rootsy rocker with a sense of humour that not only features Martina McBride but former Guns ‘N Roses guitarist Izzy Stradlin and former Tom Petty & The Heartbreaker drummer Stan Lynch, as well.
The more Mellencamp centered songs include the first two – “Mobile Blue” and “Battle Of Angels” – as well as “All Night Talk Radio”, “You Are Blind”, “Early Bird Cafe”, “Sad Clowns”, and “Easy Target”.
“All Night Talk Radio” points out how many people are lonely and desperate that they stay up all night to share their problems and feel connection with an unknown DJ who doesn’t really know them, just to feel a sense of community with those in a similar situation. The song makes an insightful point that perhaps helps to explain modern America and is a pretty strong song musically as well. “You Are Blind” is a traditional sounding folk/country ballad about loving a chaotic and difficult woman. Mellencamp rarely writes such direct love songs as this, but this one really works. “Early Bird Cafe” is a good song, but more pleasant album filler than a major song. Still, it fits the album’s sound and tone well and is good while playing. “Sad Clowns” is a vintage throwback that is even recorded to sound like it was made in the 30’s or 40’s. It is a short and humorous song that adds to the vibe more than anything, but I like it.
The record ends with “Easy Target”, a moody piece of social commentary that calls out the racism and poverty still felt by too many directly and allowed by those who could do something about it. It ends the album with a sense of purpose, but it isn’t the best song here musically. It hardly matters though as Sad Clowns & Hillbilliesproves to still be a very strong and very interesting album.
Diiv have made a stealth announcement of a new album, “Zirp!“, via a hotline number mailed to fans and teased on social media. Produced by A. G. Cook, the follow-up to Frog in Boiling Water is due October 30th. The hotline presents a telemarketer-style message heralding the LP as “the future of alternative multimedia entertainment,” Stereogum notes; Diiv’s own website playfully touts the record as an emissary of “the new alternative: a new genre for the 21st century.”
DIIV surprised us with this one. For one thing, we aren’t used to such a quick turnaround from Z. Cole Smith and friends. They tend to take a fairly long time between albums, but the masterful “Frog InBoiling Water” came out just over two years ago, so the recent teasers for a forthcoming DIIV LP called “ZIRP!” were unexpected.
Even more startling was the news that the band had teamed up with A. G. Cook, the PC Music founder and sonic visionary now best known for his close working relationship with Charli XCX. Cook was cooking up rock music long before “Rock Music,” but a hyperpop pioneer is an intriguing fit for DIIV given their mastery of the grungy shoegaze dirge. Now we get to hear them in action together.
“The Fountain” is very much a DIIV song, full of whispery vocals and ominous guitars. But the oscillating synth-powered beat that kicks in at the end along with the woozy lead guitar line is something new and exciting for this crew. It’s certainly not the first time a dreamy rock band has ventured into the world of electronic pop, but it’s one of the best iterations of the post-“Soon” paradigm I’ve heard in some time.
Cook says when DIIV first approached him, “it was in the spirit of destroying & rebuilding their demos, Screamadelica-style, into a finished product, but that hybrid, half-remix approach felt completely wrong to me.” Instead, he started going to DIIV shows and developing a grand theory of their music.
Coming two years after “Frog in Boiling Water”,” Zirp!” will mark the quickest turnaround for a Diiv LP yet, despite a chaotic interim period in which Zachary Cole Smith and his wife welcomed a second child and lost their home in the Altadena wildfires. Last May, the band released a stopgap single, “Return of Youth,” addressing the fallout from the fires.
the new album “ZIRP!“, out October 30th, 2026 via Fantasy Records.
In the latest issue of MOJO we take an exclusive look inside the new, expanded edition of “Rubber Soul”, dig into the story behind the Fabs’ first masterpiece, and reveal all about newly unearthed, long-lost Beatles song, “Little Girl!“
Also in the issue: Johnny Marr speaks frankly, David Bowie – the unheard tapes, Joy Division – Live! Queen take on Trump! The Afghan Whigs spill the beans, Wishbone Ash tune into the cosmos, the wonderful world of Kate & Anna McGarrigle, and Beastie Boys’ Mike D discusses tabloid infamy, grief, Bob Dylan’s “pro-smoking concert” and his surprising new solo album.
Plus! The Mary Wallopers, Flamin’ Groovies, Phoebe Bridgers, The Cure on film, Generation X, all back to Arthur Brown’s place and more!
This month’s covermount CD is Spread The Word! The Soul Of The Beatles. Fifteen R&B bangers John, Paul, George and Ringo were digging in 1965. Featuring: Little Richard, Otis Redding, Ray Charles, Patti Labelle, Wilson Pickett, Larry Williams and more!
The latest issue of MOJO is in UK shops from Tuesday 11 August
THE GO-BETWEENS LP +CD REISSUES “Liberty Belle and the Black Diamond Express”, “Tallulah”, “16 Lovers Lane”, “Fountains of Youth (Live at the Town and Country Club)”
The Go-Betweens are one of the most beloved and influential Australian groups of all-time and were the quintessential cult band. Throughout their hugely acclaimed career they sustained an unparalleled artistic consistency which year by year matched the very best of their contemporaries.
We are pleased to announce that their three Beggars Banquet albums will be made available individually on vinyl for the first time in over 30 years. The records were remastered in 2019 for the second volume of Domino’s “G Stands For Go-Betweens Anthology”, and will also be available on cd.
The albums were recorded in what could be called the band’s ‘London Years’ – when they lived and recorded in the city. “Liberty Belle and the Black Diamond Express” (1986) and “Tallulah” (1987) are studio albums, while “Fountains Of Youth“, catches the group in imperious form at the Town and Country Club in May 1987. Many of the songs for “16 Lovers Lane” (1988) were written at this time, before the band returned to Sydney to record the album. The majestic sun-filled “Streets Of Your Town” was the first single off the record.
Formed in Brisbane in 1978, Grant McLennan and Robert Forster were two Queensland University students with a passion for films, mid-Sixties Bob Dylan and the New York punk scene. They both sang, played guitar, and wrote songs. The set up of the band with two independent singer-songwriters at the helm was an unusual one, but in this case, it worked beautifully. Robert’s edgy, dark romantic compositions were perfectly balanced by Grant’s highly melodic, pop poetic contributions.
Through a set of very strong singles, beginning in 1978 with John Peel favourite, “Lee Remick/Karen”, the band were signed to Rough Trade, beginning their London period with the post-punk opus “Before Hollywood” (1983). Lindy Morrison had joined the group on drums, and shortly after came Robert Vickers (bass) and Amanda Brown (violin, oboe, vocals) – creating a band that sounded and looked like no other on the planet. John Willsteed (bass, guitar) joined the band in 1988 for “16 LoversLane”.
The Go-Betweens existed in and out of time – widespread fame may have alluded them, but the ability to make great records didn’t. Their sound, songs, and image, have been a huge inspiration to generations of bands and fans alike. The Beggars Banquet albums lie at the heart of this appreciation.
Liberty Belle and the Black Diamond Express (1986)
This was the fourth album by The Go-Betweens. Record Collector called it “one of the greatest albums of the decade” and Uncut wrote that “everything comes together with the perfect fourth album”. Drummer Lindy Morrison said “We produced this ourselves and it’s got the best songs, and I think every single song is a classic.” The band entered the studio determined to create the album they envisioned. Forster later wrote, “If this was to be our last shot, it had to be on our terms. There’d be no drum machines, no piecemeal recording, no acquiescence to higher authority. Our intention was to expand on the crisp, woody sound of “Before Hollywood“, to include a grander, more exotic range of instrumentation.”
This album by The Go-Betweens features more accessible pop elements, demonstrating a matured approach to songcraft and production. “Liberty Belle and the Black Diamond Express” includes some of the band’s most memorable tracks and showcases their ability to blend poetic lyrics with catchy melodies.
Tallulah (1987)
On the band’s fifth album, they added multi-instrumentalist Amanda Brown, and she broadened their sound and gave it more drama. The album is a pivotal one in their discography and sits as a stepping-stone between their early era, and their more richly textured later work.
“Tallulah” is notable for its lush production and the introduction of orchestral elements that expanded The Go-Betweens’ sound. The album showcases a mix of vibrant pop songs and reflective ballads, establishing a more mainstream appeal while maintaining the band’s signature lyrical depth.
Recorded at Prehistoric Sounds Studios, Sydney, and mixed at Mayfair Studios, London, in early 1987, the album was produced by Craig Leon. The band’s lineup included Amanda Brown, who contributed violin, oboe, and backing vocals, enriching the band’s sonic palette. “Tallulah” did not achieve Billboard chart success.
Paste Magazine included it in their list of the best new-wave albums and said that it features “several signature works by the group’s chief writers, most notably McLennan’s infectiously chorused shoulda-been-hits “Right Here” and “Bye Bye Pride,” as well as such characteristically edgy Forster compositions as the undertowing “House That Jack Kerouac Built” and “The Clarke Sisters,” a haunting character study of spinsters that perfectly captures its author’s eye for detail.”
16 Lovers Lane (1988)
This was the band’s sixth album, and Record Collector noted that it’s “almost universally acknowledged as The Go-Betweens finest hour” – and it’s been referred to as “the indie Rumours”. The ten beautiful songs on this album are all love songs and it’s been called a piece of “romantic artistry”. Legendary music critic Robert Christgau called it “the straightest and catchiest bunch of love songs they’ve ever produced” and the album was included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Forster described the album as, “the perfect combination between London melancholy and Sydney sunshine.”
“16 Lovers Lane” represents the pinnacle of The Go-Betweens’ commercial and artistic success, featuring some of the most polished and poignant songs of their career. The album is celebrated for its rich emotional landscapes and masterful songwriting, highlighted by the hit “Streets of Your Town.”
The album was recorded at Studios 301 in Sydney, from February to March 1988, and produced by Mark Wallis. It featured an expanded lineup including John Willsteed on bass, which allowed more intricate guitar interplays. “16 Lovers Lane” charted modestly in the UK.
Fountains Of Youth (Live at the Town and Country Club) (2020)
Recorded professionally in May 1987, this stunning live set was captured right before the release of “Tallulah“. About it, Uncut said that it “provides detailed evidence of the band’s growing confidence and continuously refined songwriting”. Robert Forster noted that “This show is almost certainly the only performance of The Go-Betweens’ career that was captured on 24-track, 2-inch analog tape.
The recording was made from a mobile recording truck parked beside the venue’s stage door….Our intentions for the recording heavily influenced the way we approached our performance. What you are hearing is not a typical Go-Betweens show. This is a one off – and it manifests itself in one big way. The set list. Given this opportunity to catalogue over four sides of vinyl, we took a more adventurous course regarding ‘the set’. What we have, is not only a one-off recording, but a one-off show. And some of the best moments comes from our wild intent.”
In recent years, the Go-Betweens lore has grown with a 2017 documentary film, career spanning box sets, tribute concerts and books. They have even had a bridge in Brisbane named after them. They are ripe for re-discovery and renewed appreciation, and we are honored to help grow their legacy.
Set for release on September 25th (excluding AUS/NZ)
The Marias offers a distinctive, atmospheric sound that fans love. Blending dream pop, jazz, and synth-pop influences, their album Submarine explores themes like grief, isolation, and self-discovery. In fact, according to The Marias, the album was born from a breakup between co-founders Maria Zardoya and Josh Conway.
“Submarine” is an album that represents solitude and exploration. it represents choosing to be alone and listening to what the heart needs and not what it wants.
The Marías’ sophomore album “Submarine“, a passionate mix of the sultry and vulnerable like sound we’ve all come to love from the group. Though, this album in a way seems very much so an extension or even a bit of an evolution. With the dreamy and moodier tracks like “Vicious Sensitive Robot” a synth heavy addition to the album’s closer “Sienna,” is a vulnerable expression reminiscing on the what ifs. While “Lejos de Ti” expresses an emotional yearning for a lover far away. Though “No One Noticed” seems to be the breakout song that has garnered the attention of fans and non-fans alike – for good reason.
“No One Noticed” a very melancholic expression of loneliness and longing for her lover to stay. The soft pattering of a drum and low guitar paired with Maria Zardoya’s voice speaks to the overall somber and vulnerable words she sings. In a way, the album itself embodies the title, an overall experience of being submerged in a dark and dreamy space, as Zardoya swims by your side.
Greta Van Fleet has released the new ballad “Saw You Stand” through Republic Records and announced its forthcoming album, “Palace For The People“, for October The song arrives ahead of the band’s sold-out July 31 performance at Chicago’s Metro. The club date is a rare small-room appearance for the group.
The band recorded “Palace For The People” in Tennessee during spring 2026 and co-produced it with Mike Elizondo, whose credits include Turnstile, Eminem and Fiona Apple. The writing process combined unfinished demos and partially developed songs with material created during the sessions, while the group worked without touring, press or other outside obligations. Its songs address humanity, connection, resilience and transcendence. “As much as it is a Greta Van Fleet record and a rock and roll record at its core, in its heart, it’s a very modern record,” guitarist Jake Kiszka said.
The album’s title traces back to a stop at Alexandra Palace, the London venue commonly called Ally Pally. A friend explained that the Victorian building was originally known as “The Palace of the People” and intended as a public gathering place rather than a site reserved for royalty or wealthy aristocrats. The story prompted the musicians to ask what a palace for the public could mean in 2026. Bassist and keyboardist Sam Kiszka pointed to fans who say they met close friends through Greta VanFleet’s music or concerts. “We realized, the music is our palace!” he said. That idea became the framework for the album’s name.
Frank Zappa’s 1966 debut album “Freak Out!” a pioneering double LP and one of rock’s first concept albums, blending experimental rock, satire, and avant-garde sound collages. Freak Out! was originally released onJune 27th, 1966, by Verve Records and marked the debut of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention . Produced by Tom Wilson, the album is often cited as one of rock music’s first concept albums, satirizing American pop culture and the emerging Los Angeles “freak” scene .
It was recorded over four days at TTG Studios in Hollywood in March 1966 . The album features Zappa on guitar and vocals, alongside Ray Collins, Roy Estrada, Jimmy Carl Black, and Elliot Ingber, with contributions from session musicians known as the “Mothers’ Auxiliary”
The album’s music spans rhythm and blues, doo-wop, blues-influenced rock, orchestral arrangements, and avant-garde sound collages The expanded box set will mark six decades since the release of the double album, which is widely cited among rock’s earliest concept records.
When Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention’s “Freak Out!” arrived in the summer of 1966, it represented a seismic shift in what a rock album could be. Virtually unprecedented as a debut release — Zappa and The Mothers rejected the prevailing conventions of the three-minute pop single, instead crafting an ambitious work that blended doo-wop, rhythm and blues, orchestral music, free jazz, tape manipulation, and biting social satire into a cohesive artistic statement. Set against the backdrop of a pivotal moment in American culture amid the rise of the counterculture, the Vietnam War, and a growing distrust of mainstream values the album skewered suburban conformity, celebrity culture, consumerism, and political complacency with a level of sophistication and irreverence that was virtually unprecedented in popular music.
Its experimental structure, culminating in the groundbreaking sound collage ‘The Return of the Son of Monster Magnet,‘ helped redefine the possibilities of the LP, demonstrating that a rock album could function as a unified artistic work rather than simply a collection of songs. In doing so, “Freak Out!” expanded the creative vocabulary of popular music and helped define the increasingly ambitious and experimental direction rock would take in the latter half of the 1960s.
The newly expanded 60th anniversary edition will be released on Zappa Records/UMe in a variety of formats, including a six-disc (5CD/1Blu-ray Audio) Super Deluxe Edition that features 105 tracks in total, many of which have never been released. Produced by Zappa Vaultmeister Joe Travers, this new, expanded collection titled “Freak Out!:” 60th Anniversary Edition contains Travers‘ 24-bit/192kHz digital transfers and John Polito’s 2026 mastering of the core album’s 15 tracks, along with the rediscovered 1966 pre-master mix, the retrieved and restored 1966 mono mix, Fillmore Auditorium tapes mainly culled from a trio of live 1966 dates, original Mothers 1966 rehearsals, original Mothers demos, mono vocal reference mixes, and a truly special three-track “Freak Out!” late-night jam session outtake collage.
Tracks like “Hungry Freaks, Daddy” critique the American school system, while “Who Are the Brain Police?” explores themes of societal control and conformity
The 12-minute closer, “The Return of the Son of Monster Magnet”, is an unfinished ballet in twotableaux, showcasing tape manipulation and experimental sound techniques
Zappa described “freaking out” as a process of casting off restrictive social norms to express creativity individually and collectively, “Freak Out!” was one of the first double albums by a rock act and influenced the development of concept albums and avant-rock
Although initially underappreciated in the U.S., it gained a cult following and was more successful in Europe Sixty years after its release, “Freak Out!” remains not only a landmark recording, but a bold artistic manifesto whose originality, irreverence, and uncompromising vision continue to challenge, provoke, and inspire new generations of musicians and listeners alike.
A mammoth 5-CD boxset of Elvis Costello’s 1977 debut album “My Aim Is True” will be released on October 2nd via UMe, containing 104 Tracks – 52 of them previously unreleased.
Alongside a new 2026 remaster of the original album from the original analogue tapes, the set includes solo demos, early band recordings, studio out-takes and live tracks, plus rare and unseen photographs, handwritten lyric scans, diary entries and brand new liner notes from Costello.
“When first proposed, I thought the whole idea of celebrating a 50th Anniversary of “My Aim Is True” was preposterous,” writes Costello. “It made my teeth itch… It couldn’t just be set up like a venerable object in a glass case.
“Making my first record seemed like the beginning of something that I’d imagined for a long time, before I had any sense of a potential audience, let alone the expectation and the assumptions of others about songs written and performed in mere minutes. Nevertheless, I raise a chaste glass to “My Aim IsTrue” and all who sail in her.”
The first disc pairs the original album with one of his most beloved early songs, “Watching The Detectives,” thereby blending the original U.K. and U.S. track listings. Recorded with producer Nick Lowe and the Marin County band Clover during four six-hour sessions at Pathway Studios, the album was made with little budget.
“Last night I listened to this wonderfully wonky record in its entirety for the first time in about 45 years,” Lowe writes in a new note for the set, recalling the studio’s ambience of “cigarettes, ill-laundered clothes, exposed electrical units, and urinal disinfectant.” He notes that making the album gave him “the priceless opportunity to observe at close range the extraordinary work of one of the foremost composers of popular song of this or any other era.”
The second disc, The Blue Print, gathers 17 recordings from 1975 and 1976, spanning bedroom tapes, early Pathway recordings and 13 performances from a 1976 session at the Hope & Anchor Studio. Also included is a recently-discovered recording preserved by Costello’s ‘70s contemporary Charlie Dore that features Costello trying out songs in 1976.
The Stranger In The House contains 28 demos, outtakes and early band recordings, 15 of which have never been released, including every surviving outtake and demo from My Aim Is True. The disc includes tracks by Costello’s “Pre-Professional” band, Flip City: “In the so-called Pub Rock scene, we barely qualified as also-rans. We were ready and we were willing, but the bookings were few and our progress was slow.”
The fourth disc, Becoming The Attractions, witnesses Costello captivate American audiences in late 1977 and 1978. Its 25 tracks, 12 previously unreleased, include live recordings, broadcasts and a summer 1977 Nashville Room soundcheck by Costello and the newly formed Attractions.
The collection closes with Covered In Clover, an entirely unreleased recording of Costello’s 2007 reunion with the American band at San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall. Together, they perform “My Aim Is True” in its original U.K. sequence and conclude with “Watching The Detectives,” a full-circle moment for Costello and the musicians who recorded together three decades earlier.
Listen to the evolution of “Watching The Detectives” in previously unreleased versions, Each of the five discs – My Aim Is True, The Blue Print, The Stranger In The House, Becoming The Attractions and Covered In Clover – is accompanied by extensive new writing from Costello, alongside rare and unseen photographs, handwritten lyrics and diary entries from 1976, and lists of songs he was performing solo, as then he struggled to find an audience in London before Stiff Records heard something in his songs.
Pink Floyd in “Venice: A Concert for Europe” was a 1989 live performance by the English rock band during their “A Momentary Lapse of Reason” Tour, staged on a floating barge on the Grand Canal in Venice,
Such is the celestial splendour of Pink Floyd’s Great Gig In The Sky, it’s easy to forget that this performance – filmed in Venice in 1989 – only took place after three months of bickering with the local authorities, led to the resignation of the town’s mayor, and took place on a barge.
Backing vocalists Rachel Fury, Durga McBroom and Lorelei McBroom sing Clare Torry’s original freeform part brilliantly, much to the presumed delight of the estimated 100 million people who watched Pink Floyd in Venice: A Concert for Europewhen it was broadcast worldwide.
Counted among the most extraordinary rock concerts ever held in Italy, it took place on 15t July 1989 on the traditional Redeemer festival (festa del Redentore) at the presence of some 200,000 spectators positioned on the banks and boats of the St. Mark’s basin. It was broadcast by RAI worldwide with an audience of about 100 million viewers.
Initially it was planned to set up the stage, twenty-four metres high, on the extreme tip of the island of Giudecca, but due to space availability issue it was decided to use some large rafts moored in the middle of San Marco basin, .
The announcement of the event was spread in the beginning of April 1989, triggering a bitter polemical debate in the following three months, particularly concerning the city’s decorum and the fear that the excessive volume of the music could damage its artistic heritage. The Superintendency of Cultural Heritage therefore set a limit of only 60 decibels so as not to damage the Byzantine mosaics of St. Mark’s basilica (although peaks of up to 92 decibels were recorded during the concert)
The cost of the event was financed with one billion Italian lire by RAI, who broadcast the concert worldwide, including the Soviet Union (on a delayed basis) and simultaneously in the two Germanies; the rest of the expenses (several hundred millions lire) were covered by Pink Floyd themselves. It is estimated that worldwide, the concert was watched by 100 million spectators, 27 million of them in the United States (where the event was broadcast on cable for the price of ten dollars). In Italy, the concert was seen by over 3.5 million viewers, with an audience share of 30%.
For technical reasons, due to the TV live broadcasting requirements, the availability of satellites for world-wide viewing, and commercial advertising, the concert was limited to only 90 minutes, with some songs cut from the original setlist or eliminated altogether: only 14 songs were played instead of the 23 scheduled on the original tour.
The Venice show was great fun, but it was very tense and nerve-wracking. We had a specific length of show to do; the satellite broadcasting meant we had to get it absolutely precise. We had the list of songs, and we’d shortened them, which we’d never done before. I had a big clock with a red digital read-out on the floor in front of me, and had the start time of each number on a piece of paper. If we were coming near the start time of the next number, I just had to wrap up the one we were on.
We had a really good time, but the city authorities who had agreed to provide the services of security, toilets, food, completely reneged on everything they were supposed to do, and then tried to blame all the subsequent problems on us. Lots of twaddle was written about it, even by some nice respectable journalists from The Guardian – stuff about our music disturbing the buildings; complete ****ing absolute twaddle.
David Gilmour
The closing of the concert was marked by the traditional large fireworks show of the Redeemer festival, that registered an intensity of 107 decibels, thus exceeding the limits allowed for the concert.
In the last few weeks, PinkFloyd have also released “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”, “Time”, “Learning To Fly”, “The Dogs Of War”, “On The Turning Away”, “Yet Another Movie”, “Sorrow” and “Round And Round” from the Venice show.
The Fat Angel Sings 