Pink Floyd Animals

Olympic stadium Montreal July 6 1977 

The final encore was performed as the crew broke down the stage at the end of the show, and didn’t include David Gilmour. This show concluded the Animals tour and was the final straw for Roger, frustrated by the lack of attention from the 80,000-strong audience, members of whom were shouting, screaming, letting off fireworks and generally oblivious to the attempts by the band to perform and be heard properly. These frustrations resulted in the famous “spitting incident” which Roger has, on his 2010 North American Wall shows, referred to in the prelude to Mother. The show of course proved the inspiration for The Wall, with Roger vowing never again to play in large stadiums.

Pink Floyd Animals

Pink Floyd Animals was the album that followed Wish you were here 1977. Animals was also the first album mainly written by Roger Waters. The album has 5 tracks, Pigs on the wing 1, Dogs, Pigs (three different ones), Sheep and Pigs on the wing2.

Dogs is written by Roger Waters and David Gilmour and all the other tracks are written by Roger Waters. Produced of course by Pink Floyd, engineered by Brian Humphreys recorded at Britannia Road Studios London with re-mastering supervised by James Guthrie.

According to Roger Waters everybody fits into one of three groups they are Dogs or Sheep or Pigs. Dogs represent the leaders the ones who are always in charge. Sheep are people who follow the Dogs and Pigs at is everything else. The album was not anywhere as successful as the previous two albums namely the Dark side of the Moon and Wish you were here.

The reason has to be said why it is not as so successful is because it's obvious that the other members of the group aren't involved as much as they were on previous recordings.

The Animals tour which included North America and Canada is when the now famous concert at which Roger Waters who is getting so fed up with the crowds not really taking much notice of the music but just being there because it was Pink Floyd became so fed up and frustrated that he actually spat at one of the.

This was the beginning of The Wall.

After this incident Roger Waters was so ashamed of what he had done and made him realise that the group and himself personally was being surrounded metaphorically speaking by a Wall.

Two years later The Wall was released and became their second biggest selling album after Dark Side.

The other notable famous incident regarding Pink Floyds Animals is that fantastic sleeve.

Most people who wanted a pig flying would have the photo doctored and of course in today’s computer technical knowledge it would take 2 minutes to do. But Roger Waters in particular wanted the real thing so a pig was constructed made out of plastic, like a big huge balloon and lifted up after being filled with hydrogen to go over Battersea power station in the centre of London. In case it escaped on the day the photographs were to be taken, a sniper was hired to stand by so if the pig did escape it could be easily shot down without causing hindrance to aircraft or anything else that might be flying around. Unfortunately on this day the weather was too bad to take photos. So the next day every one gathered again ready to take the photo. Everything was set up and as the cameras began to roll somebody realised that they haven't asked the sniper to return in case the pig should escape. Of course what happened was the pig did escape and flew off with the wind and going towards France.

 It’s not every day that you see a pig flying overhead back in 1977. But there it was flying over and landed much to the bemusement of the farmer in his field.

 A couple of aircraft didn't report the pig flying because they said pigs can't fly well now we know the truth.

Taken from Pink Floyd a visual documentary by miles.

 December 2, 1977 a collection of photographers and film people gathered at Battersea power station in the early morning to photograph the launching and flight of a large helium filled inflatable pink pig. The pig had been constructed in Germany with balloon fabric by the same company that made the Zeppelins. A marksman waited in the wings in case things got out of hand. He was armed with a rifle loaded with dumb dumb bullets in case the Pig escaped. But unfortunately they had not enough helium to achieve lift off and the party went home to breakfast.

 Photographs of the pig would be used on the cover of the forthcoming animals album.

December 3.

The group of photographers assembled again to witness the ascent of the 40 foot pig into the early morning sky above Battersea power station. The photographers or shot furiously and then to everyone's horror one of the guidelines broke and the massive  pig began to float away out of control as one of the guiding lines broke. The sniper had not been asked to come down this day so he wasn’t there to shoot the pig. The first sighting came from a jet pilot on touch down at Heathrow airport and reported the sighting. Some reports say that they tested his breath before taking his information seriously. A police helicopter was sent up to follow that pig over London. It tracked it at a height of 5000 feet before having to return to base. The civil aviation authorities then took over and a general alert sent out to all pilots that the 40 foot long pig was flying  on the loose in the airspace over the capital. The London evening newspapers began to get reports of sightings from readers. The civil aviation authority last radar contact with it at the point East and settling near Chatham in Kent flying at the height of 18,000 feet and heading eastwards towards Germany .

You could call it a homing pig quipped the man from the CAA The pig finally landed back to earth in Kent. The Pink Floyd office at first slapped an embargo on information concerning the bait and then emitted that they weren't even sure that they had enough pictures of it the album cover.

 The Pig is famous in the Pink Floyd story for another reason.

When Roger Waters left Pink Floyd and the remaining 3 members wanted to tour under the Pink Floyd name. Roger banned them using the Pig. Saying he owned the copyright. Someone in the Pink Floyd camp was very clever and noticed that the Pig was female so to get over Rogers objection they put testicles on it.

Both Pink Floyd and Roger Waters concerts the Pig is used. It’s huge as it drifts over the audience as if it’s going to pounce on some one. In fact it’s almost a bigger star then its owners.

 Pink Floyd Animals

TRACKS

1 Pigs on the wing pt 1

2 Dogs

3 Pigs (Three differant ones)

4 Sheep

 5 Pigs on the wing pt 2

ON EBAY

 CD

VINYL

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