In November 1971, Pink Floyd returned from a five-week US tour and took stock before making plans for the following year. Their latest album, Meddle, had been released earlier that month. It was dominated by the side-long epic Echoes that they had laboriously pieced together over the course of recording sessions during the first half of the year. Starting with an accidental ‘ping’ as Rick Wright set up his keyboards in the Abbey Road studio, the piece had the less-than-optimistic working title Nothing, which had gradually progressed to Son Of Nothing and then Return Of The Son Of Nothing.
Nonetheless, the band were satisfied with the final piece. And it had gone down well when they premiered it at the first Crystal Palace Garden Party, in May 71, an event they headlined over the Faces and Mountain. PA company WEM had supplied a 2,600-Watt sound system for the Hollywood Bowl-style stage, with new bass bins, parabolic reflectors and horn speakers that it was said had stunned and killed most of the fish in the lake that separated the stage from the audience. The fish had also been harassed by a 40ft inflatable octopus that rose up during the finale of A Saucerful Of Secrets, another lengthy instrumental, amid billowing clouds of coloured smoke.
All of which served to distract from Pink Floyd’s perceived lack of personality. Which didn’t bother the faithful, who were perfectly happy to sit on the grass, roll a few and soak up the carefully constructed dynamics of Floyd’s soundscapes and whatever visual effects the band threw in for good measure.
It bothered the rock press, though, who were in thrall to the gladiatorial excesses of bands like the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, ELP, The Who, Jethro Tull and Yes as they barnstormed their way around America. In contrast, Pink Floyd’s studied anonymity, their growth by stealth out of the underground movement of the late 60s, their refusal to wave their willies around on or off stage, was almost an affront.
But the press had to be a bit circumspect. A recent Melody readers’ poll had put Floyd second behind ELP in a list of favourite British featuring another side-long epic, had reached No.1, and even though the highest chart positions were currently being monopolised by the flamboyance of Zep’s Four Symbols, ELP’s Rod Stewart’s John Lennon’s and T.Rex’s was clearly going to sell a lorra lorra copies.
