Here is Dave Gilmore playing Shine on You Crazy Diamond at the Syd Barrett concert in 2008. This was the first Pink Floyd song I ever heard. At least the first one I actually chose to listen to. I had probably heard Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2) on the radio a few times.

When I was you, between 11 and 13 ish I listened to pop music. I know that I owned some Madonna records, Whitney Houston, and some others, possibly Mel and Kim. I also had the “Now That’s What I Call Music” tapes (and LP’s) and the “Hits” ones too. There were some good songs back then. However, at some point I was introduced to my mate Max. This was when I was about 13 I think, possibly 3rd year at secondary school. Would have been about 1987 I guess. He lent me a tape which had Wish You Were Here on one side and possibly The Final Cut on the the other side. Then again, it may have been a short tape. But I remember the moment today very vividly.

I owned an Ingersol hifi at the time, which is still alive, just about, although now living in my loft. It had a record player, tape deck and radio clock. This was the best, as I could set tapes to wake me up in the morning instead of listening to the radio. Even to this day I do not like to wake up to the radio, unless it is Radio 4. Where was I?

Oh yeah, so it was after school, and I put the tape in the stereo. And pressed play. It was interesting. The introduction to Shine On You Crazy Diamond is just instrumental for about 3 minutes. I heard that the chord played at the beginning is still the longest continuous A chord ever recorded. A strange record for a strange band. Anyway, I was enjoying the music, thinking it was a pleasant change from the pop music I listened to before. Then Roger Waters started singing. OMG! What an awful noise. I was embarrased, and worried my brother would have heard it, so quickly switched it off. That was the end of Pink Floyd for me.

But something made me put it back on later, with the volume turned down a little. And it quickly grew on me. In a short while I was hooked. I listened to Pink Floyd pretty intensively for a good part of the next decade, really until I left Uni when I was 23. Here is a recent version.

According to the blurb on YouTube this is from Earl’s Court, London in October of 1994.