This is an introduction I wrote for ‘The Dark Side of the Moon 50th Anniversary book’. It wasn’t used in the end, but a number of people said it should have been, so here it is as my first blog.

In the summer of 1974, shortly after graduating from the Central School of Art and Design, I got a thrilling call from Storm Thorgerson of Hipgnosis. He and his business partner Aubrey ‘Po’ Powell invited me to join them in photographing Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side Of The Moon British Winter Tour.

The Floyd and Hipgnosis had a special relationship. Syd Barrett, Roger Waters and David Gilmour had known Po and Storm as schoolboys in Cambridge. They all came to London in the mid 1960s to form what was to become one of the most creative unions ever between music and design. I revered their work as did most graphic design students. Hipgnosis had a cramped, messy studio with a sink for a toilet, above a Greek bookshop in Denmark Street, Soho. It was a mystery how such pristine, beautiful artwork came out of there.

*PINK FLOYD - Rick Wright, Nick Mason, Roger Waters, David Gilmour, dressing-room, Brighton Dome 1972*

Although they were constantly rushing to meet some long-past deadline Storm and Po found time to see students. In 1973 I went to show them my portfolio, which already featured a sizable selection of Pink Floyd photos. I was by then one year into working as in-house photographer at the Rainbow Theatre in London, where the band often rehearsed and where they had also played a series of concerts in February the previous year. One live picture shows vocalist Clare Torry, who sang the original glorious vocals on the album version of ‘The Great Gig In The Sky’.

I’d also photographed the band in June 1972 at the Brighton Dome where an early version of The Dark Side Of The Moon was performed before it was recorded. The photos I took there included some rare dressing-room shots.

On 4th November 1974, Storm, Po, myself and another member of the Hipgnosis team, Peter Christopherson, set off for the first venue of the Dark Side of the Moon tour – Edinburgh’s Usher Hall. The intention was for all of us to take photographs of the band throughout the tour, which would then be used in a tour book to be written by a friend of Roger’s, Nick Sedgwick. The book did not see the light of day at the time, but eventually ‘In the Pink (Not A Hunting Memoir)’ was published in 2017 without the tour images.

As a Floyd fan, who had been following the band since I was a young teenager, it was a dream come true although also a daunting prospect. Although I had photographed the band a few times between 1972 and 1974, I was far from being part of their inner entourage. Added to this I had only ever received two weeks’ training as a photographer at art school, so I was pretty much out of my depth technically. Most challenging of all was being young: I had just turned 21 and was very naïve about the rock ’n’ roll business, so this tour was a baptism by fire - and dry ice.

The Floyd guarded their privacy fiercely. They never felt the need to pander to record company execs or members of the press, who were rarely, if ever, given access backstage, and there were no support bands to dilute proceedings. They operated in their own bubble.

Storm was very demanding and somewhat impatient. He fired assignments at me like a machine gun – shoot the travel, the setting up and loading out of equipment, soundchecks, dressing-room, fans, the shows from every angle, sporting breaks (of which there were many), post gig eating out, inside hotel rooms, and so on. The different kinds of lighting and variety of situations tested me in every way.

There were a lot of people on the road and being part of a huge crew was intimidating. The highly skilled lighting and sound people were integral to a complicated show that broke new ground sonically and visually. I didn’t want to piss them off by tripping up on their cables or blocking their site lines. It probably helped that I was small and quiet. I kind of willed myself to be invisible and it worked most of the time.

The band and additional saxophonist, Dick Parry, as well as backing vocalists, Carlena Williams and Venetta Fields, were tolerant, if not enthusiastic, about being trailed after and photographed. They and the crew soon ceased to notice me, which is the best possible situation for a photo-journalist.

The best part of the job was hearing that sublime music played live every night. Bliss.

*Dick Parry and Roger 1974 available via* ro *ckarchive.com*

I was in the unusual position of a fan coming face to face with her idols and not surprisingly my illusions were shattered. They were far more ordinary than I thought they would be. For one thing they were not the stoned characters that their music (mistakenly) suggested to so many people. On the contrary, hotels were booked according to their proximity to sporting facilities. I photographed Roger playing golf, and Nick, Rick and David playing squash. Pink Floyd had their own cricket team in the summer. They were incredibly fit.

The lighting and special effects were a joy to photograph. Storm encouraged me to experiment with long exposures and unusual film such as infra-red. He also suggested putting Vaseline around the lens filter to make the edges of the shots blurry. In retrospect, I can see I overdid the latter, but it was all so experimental. The huge round screen projected surreal imagery by Hipgnosis and filmmaker Ian Emes, dry ice floated over the knees of the spectators, there were flames around the gong and beams of light reflected off a giant mirror ball that mesmerized the crowd. At one point a model aeroplane flew over the heads of the audience, crashing into the back of the stage in a loud crescendo that ricocheted around the venue on quad speakers.

Carlena and Venetta added American heart and womanly soul to the mix. ‘Hit it, Dave!’ they belted out during a particularly awesome solo. And hit it he did even if he was hiding behind an amp and dry ice.

In those days the rock & roll touring circuit was quite primitive. Dressing rooms in vintage theatres were very basic, facilities included bent wire hangers, a Corby trouser press, flock wallpaper and lurid carpets littered with overflowing ashtrays. We mainly travelled to the gigs by train. First class of course! One of the highlights was when the touring party took over a sleeper train from Edinburgh to London – it was like being in a ‘Carry On’ film.

It was a time when the band was at the height of their creativity and on good terms with one another. You can see it in the intimacy between them, on stage and off.

There was a feeling of breaking boundaries at that time, not just for Pink Floyd with their Dark Side show, but also for me. After the tour, I felt as though I had broken through the barrier of youth and shyness to become a professional photographer, and that meant the world to me.

Storm Elvin Thorgerson went to the great gig in the sky in 2013. We remember his rude genius with love.

Notes on Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon Tour 1974

This is an introduction I wrote for ‘The Dark Side of the Moon 50th Anniversary book’. It wasn’t used in the end, but a number of people said it should have been, so here it is as my first blog.