Pink Floyd surprise-release 12 live albums documenting early ’70s gigs

Pink Floyd 1971
(Image credit: Bernard Allemane / INA via Getty Images)

Pink Floyd have made 12 live albums, spanning the years 1970 to 1972, available on streaming services.

No prior announcement was made ahead of the sets, all official releases, emerging.

The earliest recording, titled They Came In Peace, and featuring performances from Leeds University on February 28, 1970 and Washington University on November 16, 1971 features seven tracks and clocks in at one hour 34 minutes in length: the track listing is The Embryo, Careful With That Axe, Eugene, Atom Heart Mother (then still untitled), Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun, Interstellar Overdrive (introduced as “the fastest Interstellar Overdrive ever“), A Saucerful Of Secrets and One Of These Days.

The most recent of the recordings, taped in Tokyo on March 16, 1972, finds the band performing seven tracks from The Dark Side Of The Moon, in sequence, almost a year before the album was released, on March 1, 1973.

There’s also a full recording of the quartet’s September 23, 1971 show at the KB Hallen, Copenhagen, split into two volumes.

The full list of albums is:

They Came in Peace, Leeds University 28 Feb 1970 Washington University 16 Nov 1971
Live at Grosser Saal, Musikhalle, Hamburg, West Germany 25 Feb 1971
Mauerspechte Berlin Sportpalast 5 June 1971

Lyon & Tokyo, Lyon 12 June 1971, Tokyo 16 March 1972
Palaeur Rome 20 June 1971
Amsterdamse Bos Free Concert 26 June 1971

Live in Montreux 18 & 19 Sept 1971
KB Hallen, Copenhagen 23 Sept 1971
KB Hallen, Copenhagen, Vol II, Live 23 Sept 1971
Over Bradford Pigs on the Groove Bradford University 10 Oct 1971
Embryo, San Diego, Live 17 Oct 1971
The Screaming Abdabs Quebec City, Live 10 Nov 1971

Paul Brannigan
Contributing Editor, Louder

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.