As a collector, it’s always really exciting to hear the words “first time on vinyl”. For a lot us, that could very well mean that we’ve never heard the concert in question before. There’s even a chance that the tape is newly uncovered, or that for some other reason, it’s never even been released on CD or as a digital file. At this point, there isn’t too much Pink Floyd material that I haven’t heard, but there is still a large amount that I don’t have on vinyl, and a nearly immeasurably amount that has yet to be pressed. Live At Olympia Stadium 1975 is one of those concerts that I didn’t have in my collection, and that I had never listened to before. It has been available on CD for some time, but I haven’t picked up a copy yet. Leave it to the guys at Casino Records to come up with yet another “essential” Floyd release.
It seems like Casino puts out a Pink Floyd title about every other month, which helps a bit on the wallet for collectors like me. They must have people working around the clock to uncover quality material, clean it up, do package designs and make test pressings. They are doing the Lord’s work, so I appreciate the effort! Olympia Stadium 1975 is actually last month’s release, but it takes me some time to get through all this stuff. Time flies and judging by some sales posts I have seen go up recently, there is a new Floyd coming in early July! It’s going to be a Wall related title, and it also looks like it’ll be the first time on vinyl for it as well. If that sounds intriguing, I would start looking around now, as I’m predicting a quick sell out on that one.
So back to The Floyd at Olympia Stadium in ’75. Basically, the attraction here for collectors is going to be the fact that this show has some early versions of Animals tracks. This was pretty much the tail-end of a time in history where bands like Pink Floyd would test out their new material while on the road. Even though people were obviously taping the show, these bootleggers would have been few and far between, and it hadn’t really become a problem yet. As you could imagine, if a band tried to do this today, the whole album would be on YouTube 2 hours after the concert ended.
A good modern example of this is Morrissey’s Bonfire of Teenagers album. It’s apparently been written for years but remains unreleased by the labels. Since he plays the songs live here and there, fans have cobbled together the track listing, and you can essentially listen to the entire album even though it’s never been released. Spoiler alert… it’s another Morrissey masterpiece, and I hope I live long enough to buy a copy of every version. With these songs from Animals, though, they were obviously still heavily in development. I guess it was one thing for a relatively small number of fans to hear the work in progress live, versus today where the entire world is essentially the audience via the internet.
At this point in history, The Darkside of The Moon was already a mega-hit record, and Wish You Were Here would have been on the shelves for a couple of months. So, this show at Olympia Stadium (which was in Detroit, by the way) treats us to a full DSOTM performance, a couple of hits from WYWH, a very unique version of “Echoes”, and sort of a short trial run at Animals. This is a 3 LP set, and as usual, the packaging looks fantastic. It’s a triple gatefold with crystal clear artwork printed on high quality materials and is limited to only 400 copies. I always like it when I get a cool number, and for this one, I ended up with number 399/400. The wax looks fantastic and is a little different than the styles Casino has been using lately. As you can see, the LPs are clear with deep colors, and have sort of a black, smoky whisp throughout.
As per standard, each copy comes in a re-sealable outer sleeve complete with a numbered hype sticker. In this case, the sticker is tri-colored, reflecting the colors of each of the three records in the set. The LPs come housed in black, poly-lined sleeves, and mine arrived in perfect condition with no scratches, warps or defects. Just to be safe, I cleaned them as usual using the VPI and ultrasonic. Finally, it was time to give this show a spin.
None of my collector friends has heard this particular performance before either, so when I went to put it on, I genuinely had no idea what to expect. I won’t go through everything song by song, but I want to try and give you a good idea of the standout pieces, and things that I feel most of us would be interested in. Right away, it’s obvious that this is an audience recording. Some people hate anything that’s not a “soundboard”, but the fact is that some of the best shows we have preserved came from audience members skilled in the arts of deception and audio recording. See my last post on Mike Millard, if you haven’t already. In my opinion, this is a very good sounding recording, considering that it was done by an audience member. It’s certainly not perfect, but I found it to be quite enjoyable overall.
Audience Recording – Olympia Stadium – Detroit, Michigan, USA – 24th June, 1975
A1 Raving And Drooling
A2 You Gotta Be Crazy
B1 Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Part 1-5)
B2 Have A Cigar
C1 Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Part 6-9)
C2 Speak To Me
C3 Breathe
C4 On The Run
D1 Time
D2 Breathe (Reprise)
D3 The Great Gig In The Sky
D4 Money
E1 Us And Them
E2 Any Colour You Like
E3 Brain Damage
E4 Eclipse
F1 Echoes
The show starts with the “experimental” material section, and Roger announces each of the songs as they happen. The first number is introduced with the shockingly long title of “Raving And Drooling He Fell On His Neck With A Scream”. This would later be truncated to “Raving and Drooling” before ultimately becoming “Sheep”. This is close to, but not the longest title in Pink Floyd history. That particular distinction goes to “Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict”. Even though it’s not completely accurate, the label lists the title on the jacket simply as “Raving and Drooling”, no doubt for the sake of brevity. In any case, this version of “Sheep” has an extended musical intro, and is extra heavy on keyboard and synth. This creates a very unique atmosphere for the song, and we get more instrumental extension after the lyrics (which are still in the early stages of development at this point).
“You Gotta Be Crazy” is of course an early version of what would become “Dogs”. Once again, all the musical elements are pretty much here, featuring the same recognizable melody that would appear on the finished album track. The lyrics are still rough and are somehow even darker than the ones we ended up with in the final version. It’s very cool to hear the song in this particular stage of development, but it’s also the first time that we hear some major distortion on the source tape. This particular distortion is bass flooding the mix, and it sort of washes over everything else. It’s a common problem that occurs when trying to record live music with gear that’s really not meant for the job. It also tells me this person was probably seated in a decent seat, somewhere near the front and center. This isn’t the last time the distortion happens, and it doesn’t wreck the show or anything, but it might be a little loud and jarring if you aren’t expecting it.
So, those two songs are all we get from Animals at this particular point in 1975, but the show still has a ton of other great material. From the WYWH section, “Have A Cigar” splits up the two sections of “Shine On”, and these are all mostly the versions we know and love, with a little added live flair to them. “Shine On” is also heavy on keyboards, and once again sets that ethereal type of atmosphere that seems to be present throughout the entire show. Once we get into DSOTM, the band and audience go into a bit of cruise control. That’s not to say this isn’t a great live show, but listening in 2025, we all know exactly what to expect. They had played that set a ton of times at this point, and as we know, it really only has its full effect when you hear it as one performance piece. There are a couple more spots where the bass “bottoms out”, but other than that, the audio quality is consistent throughout the performance of possibly the most famous and important album in history.
At the conclusion of Dark Side, we get an encore performance of “Echoes”, which is always a treat. Apparently, the band had hired Dick Parry to come out on tour with them again at this point, and there is certainly some saxophone in places that it wouldn’t normally be. As usual though, “Echoes” is where they really got their moneys worth. While this isn’t my favorite saxophone heavy version of the song (you can read about that version here, which can be found on California Soundboard), it is a great one. The extra instrumentation certainly adds something cool to such live versions, but I am glad it wasn’t recorded that way on the album. As part of a live experience like this one, though, I wouldn’t change a thing.
So how does Live At Olympia Stadium 1975 stack up as far as quality and value? All and all, this is a great show and a pretty decent recording. Whoever the taper is, he was no Mike Millard, but he must have had decent gear, a good spot in the audience and some luck. Audio source wise, I would say this is about a 7.5/10. It’s not superb, but it is fully listenable, even with the few issues that crop up here and there. If you are listening late at night while I was, you might blow your neighbors out at a few points, but I’d say it’s worth the risk. Packaging is a solid 10/10, and I would give the actual pressing a 9/10. These are absolutely beautiful records, but there is a bit of surface noise that I wasn’t able to clean off. It’s just accentuated vinyl record sound, so I wouldn’t let it scare you, but it is there. It’s just not dead silent like the majority of Casino releases tend to be these days.
Well, that’s if for another review. I am still getting mentally prepared to make the journey from Vegas to the UK for Back To The Beginning, which is just a couple weeks away at this point. I have some stuff in the hopper though, so blog updates should continue as normal, even while I’m away. Hopefully, I will have some good photos and info to post here upon my return. Follow over on social media if you want to get an update or two from Birmingham. Until next time…