01 Atom Heart Mother 02 Set The Controls For The Eye Of The Sun 03 Fat Old Sun 04 Careful With That Axe, Eugene 05 The Fall Of The Son Of Nothing 06 A Saucerful Of Secrets (cuts) Nobody seems to make any idea who made the concert recording.Included in the list of people I have consulted about its origins is Lord Snooty. I asked him near it a while back and he noted that it had ever been a bit of a mystery. LS received a transcript in the mid 70's under the claim of 'Strathclyde 1971' and look backward at some of his records could see no note of Stirling or a see for many years. He couldn't remember when or why it was changed to Stirling 1971-05-18 and has never constitute a known lineage. Tickets were sold far and blanket for the gig but to the better of my knowledge no photos exist from the concert. So working on the assumption that what we are offering here is Stirling and not University of Strathclyde, Glasgow 1971-05-20, I will try and leave you a figure of what it was like. The stage, a temporary construction, was about 30ft by 10ft, wooden and all covered by the band`s equipment. To the good was the group`s chau gong. At the game was a big steel installation by Mary Martin which can still be seen at the University. It must have provided a very striking backdrop (try looking up Mary Martin on google). The interview was really packed in but in keeping with the time most people sat cross-legged in their tiny number of floor space as they enjoyed the sound spiralling around the board and the idle show. I sometimes see comments about the sizing of the venue possibly affecting the audio character of the tape. I suppose that either the master recording equipment was the job or the point had their microphone concealed under clothing, possibly a coat, and they got in a better place for songs such as Set The Controls. The refectory was intimate but the roof was not particularly low, as I have seen some people suggest, and overall the room was light and wide so there shouldn`t have been an event with the point being removed from the stage. There were windows all about the way and they weren`t blacked out. The MC for the evening and principal concert organiser was Paul Martin. For an interesting description of gigs at Stirling University in its early years after being founded in 1967 see Paul`s account at: http://www.anniversary.stir.ac.uk/memories/students/paul-martin.php At the webpage Paul says: "We soon also realized that by utilising University facilities, we could lay on sufficient facilities for up to 1,000 people attending a single concert. This sort of firepower at even 1.00 per ticket allowed us to see booking bands that would otherwise not consider the student circuit. with some funds in the trust we then hired Pink Floyd on May 3rd 1971 who performed Atom Heart Mother in its entirety." I guess the tickets for the Floyd cost 1.50 and you'll note the incorrect reference to 3 May. Paul Martin explains: "We paid them 1,000 pounds just for their execution with two 500 notes which they said were using as pocket money for a golfing holiday in Scotland." A stay in the Highlands must have been much-welcomed after a tenacious and hectic period touring. The whirl of m was around 600 more than the University had paid for any other group. He goes on: "The blood up was David Gilmour, Roger Waters, Richard Wright, and Nick Mason; they were mixed by a Scottish artist Ron Geesin, who had produced AHM, and he also did a light set on the night." Ron Geesin, like now, was a crowd pleaser and compelling according to a pair of accounts I have read. He apparently wandered onstage in overalls that he had been wearing all day and delivered some monologues much alike the ones that he did at Cadogan Hall in 2008, then afterwards a really short set left to rapturous applause. Before the main event various student newspapers wanted to question the band, so a board was duly set up but the punch had to be pulled because some of the would-be journalists were apparently being over-aggressive towards the group. Topping the day off nicely Edinburgh`s Student magazine apparently asked Roger`s favourite question: "Who just is Pink Floyd and what does he do?" It would have been good to be in the way to see the answer.
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