Pink Floyd: Delicate Sound of Thunder

It is a great documentation of the Nassau 1988 Concerts but the filming is terrible, mostly dark and, virtually, everything moves too fast, thus, one does not get a clear picture of what is happening on stage at all times.

You should get this one if you are a collector or a Pink Floyd fan.

And one other low point, it is just one hour and 30 minutes of the concert, however, the original concert was about two hours and 20-30 minutes.

If you are looking for a Pink Floyd concert, PULSE or Live At Pompeii are far better.

OK, so having been at this concert my opinion is slightly biased, but it was like being at Devil's Tower for the final scene of Close Encounters of The Third Kind FOR REAL! This was 1988 and no band or any multimedia presentation since has come close! The Olympics and Superbowl have had some good multimedia displays, and that video of the building in Germany I think when they used a projector to make some 3D images, the Tupac hologram, and some of the videos of Christmas lights are cool, but this was 2 hours of that stuff combined with the clearest 3D surround sound music you've ever heard at a live event! Tickets were $25 when most tickets were $15, but it was well worth it! The concert is on YouTube and if you haven't seen it check out "One of These Days" or "Run Like Hell" if you want to see why a light show is called a light show! I have no idea how promoters are getting people to pay $450 for floor seats now! $25 back then was 2 tanks of gas and now 2 tanks of gas is $100 and if a band isn't giving a multimedia presentation equal to this for $100 you're being financially raped! I bought like 8 copies of this on VHS back in the day. I had to replace them because the VCR ate them, or because friends borrowed/stole them, or because I played them so much they wore out. The CD doesn't have "One Slip" but the DVD doesn't have "Money"! Can you imagine releasing a Pink Floyd video and cutting out "Money"?

Great starting place for upcoming "Floydians." Music is terrific, lights are amazing - and the obvious chemistry between lead singer David Gilmour and backup singer Rachel Fury is tantamount. Later works may overwhelm this, but taking away the content of this production is useless.

My vote: 9.9 MUST SEE

`The Delicate Sound of Thunder' is stunning. David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Richard Wright, supported by outstanding musicians and backing vocals, and a great selection of songs, give a marvelous 90 min. concert. Although without Roger Waters - the creative soul of the group, this show is stunning. It is difficult to highlight a song, but `The Great Gig in the Sky' in the voices of Margret Taylot, Durga McBroom and Rachel Fury and the saxophone of Scott Page in `Us and Them' are unforgettable. The light and choreography, together with the performance of the stars works perfectly in this video. `Comfortably Numb' is fantastic. My vote is ten.

I saw this show at Cleveland Stadium before they tore it down and put up the monkeyhouse they call Jacob's Field. I had seats WAAAY back in the stands, and, although they would be considered bad seats at any other concert, those seats are the only place to see a Floyd concert from. One of the things I really appreciate Pink Floyd for is the fact that they know if they give a concert, there are going to be several thousand people attending it, and only a handful of them will be able to really SEE them perform - for everyone else, it'll be a bunch of doll-sized (or smaller) images doing something that looks like playing instruments. Because of this, a Pink Floyd concert is a show in the true sense of the word - the lights, the movies shown on the round screen, the surround sound set-up, everything - is designed to be experienced from a distance. I enjoyed the show live and enjoyed it even more in this excellent video.

One of the great things about this concert is the inclusion of outside musicians. Pink Floyd does amazing things in the studio - lots of layering and overdubs that give their records a rich, unmistakable sound, and the fact that they go to the added expense and trouble of hiring other musicians and back-up singers to fill the sound out instead of relying on pre-recorded tapes is something I appreciate. When I go to a concert, I want to hear what I heard on the record re-created live, not a "Gee, that was close, but where is the such-and-such" live version.

This video is flawless - no cutaways to "psychedelic" footage of amoebas or such during solos, no "Hey, look at the neat effects we can do" - type transitions. The director used his multiple cameras very well, employing skycams, cranes, and handheld cameras perfectly and editing what he ended up with beautifully. He and his crew capture the essence of a Pink Floyd show expertly, employing dissolves, black and white footage, angles and camera movement with real care and deference to the music and the show itself. One of the hallmarks of a good concert film is not seeing the cameras or operators in the background, and you'd have to look very hard in this one to spot any. This video is about the music and the show, not about the style of the direction, and that's how it should be.

The audio is good for what it is - Hi-Fi VHS stereo - and was great before the advent of DVD and DTS and Dolby Digital, but now, like everyone else, I'm spoiled. I WANT THIS MOVIE ON DVD! NOW!!! I have no idea what the holdup on this is. The company that owns it HAS to know that there are millions of Pink Floyd fans that would snap this up the second it's released.