Few concert films are as distinctive as Pink Floyd‘s 1972 opus Pink Floyd at Pompeii – MCMLXXII, which chronicled the group’s pre-The Dark Side of the Moon audience-free performance in October 1971 amid the Italian city’s ancient ruins. On April 24, a digitally remastered version of the movie will be beamed into standard and IMAX theaters around the world, featuring enhanced audio mixed by Steven Wilson.
Meanwhile, the accompanying soundtrack album will be released for the first time on vinyl and in Dolby Atmos on May 2 via Legacy Recordings. A clip of Pink Floyd performing “Echoes” is out now.
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Originally directed by Adrian Maben, At Pompeii also boasts performances of “A Saucerful of Secrets,” “One of These Days” and “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun,” capturing Pink Floyd on the cusp of the superstardom that followed The Dark Side of the Moon in 1973. The film captures rare footage of the band beginning to record that material at London’s Abbey Road Studios.
Via a team lead by Pink Floyd director of restoration Lana Topham, it was restored frame-by-frame from the original 35mm negative, which was discovered in film cans amid the band’s archive.
“Since 1994, I have searched for the elusive film rushes of Pink Floyd at Pompeii, so the recent discovery of the 1972 original 35mm cut negative was a very special moment,” she says. “The newly restored version presents the first full 90-minute cut, combining the 60-minute source edit of the performance with the additional Abbey Road Studios documentary segments filmed shortly after.”
Adds Wilson, “ever since my dad brainwashed me as a kid by playing The Dark Side of the Moon on repeat, Pink Floyd has been my favorite band. They are my ‘Beatles’ — deeply ingrained in my musical DNA. I first saw Pompeii from a grainy print at a local cinema. It made an incredible impression on me with its untethered and exploratory rock music made by four musicians that seemed to epitomize the notion of intellectual cool. It was an honor to remix the soundtrack to accompany Lana Topham’s incredible restoration of the film, which looks like it could’ve been filmed yesterday.”
Tickets for the upcoming screenings go on sale March 5.
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