Pink Floyd European Tour 1968

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Pink Floyd European Tour 1968

Tour by Pink Floyd
Start date	17 February 1968
End date	28 December 1968

The Pink Floyd 1968 European Tour was a concert tour in The Netherlands, France, and the U.K which took place intermittently between February and December 1968.

1 History
2 Band members
- 2.1 Additional musicians
3 Set list
- 3.1 Other Songs
4 Tour dates
5 References

[edit] History

The tour began with difficulty as the band's lead guitarist, vocalist and primary song writer Syd Barrett had officially left the band in late January (although this was not officially announced until April). As the main frontman, Barrett had initially been a central part of live performances, although crucially the bands leader and bassist Roger Waters was able to steer the band through a potentially difficult series of live concerts based mainly on the European mainland. Many of these performances took place at multi-artist music festivals in Europe, although the band were starting to establish a successful university circuit around the U.K. In these venues, the band were greeted with a silent respect and during performances the audience would remain silent until the very last note was played.

The tour began on 17 February at the Patronaatsgebouw, Netherlands and ran until a final performance in the Netherlands on the 28 December. The tour was fitted in and around recording commitments and the band did not perform constantly during this period.

The recent departure of lead guitarist Syd Barrett, would continue to haunt the bands live performances during 1968. Although many of his songs were dropped, the longer compositions performed by the band with Barrett continued to be a major part of their live performances up until 1971, with Interstellar Overdrive and Astronomy Domine the most popular. The latter track was doubled in length, with additional organ and verses included. Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun had been performed in late 1967 with Barrett, but increasingly the song was becoming extended, featuring more guitar and organ work. This song would be played at almost every concert until 1973. 1968 also marks the moment that the band introduced a gong, which became a characteristic part of their live set up.

The Waters led Careful With That Axe, Eugene, which at this time was known as Muderistic women and Keep Smiling people, would become a major part of the bands live performances up until 1973. The song was gradually extended as the year progressed, with original performances only lasting four minutes and then growing to around 8 minutes. At the latter end of 1968, Waters characteristic loud scream also started to emerge prominently.

Another increasingly regular addition to live performances was The Massed Gadgets of Hercules, and early, shorter version of A Saucerful of Secrets. Like Eugene, the song was gradually extended from 6 minutes up until around 11 minutes. Gilmour also took over vocal duties on the closing 'celestial voices' section of the song.