Pulse (1995) 


 

Disc One
  1. Shine on You Crazy Diamond
  2. Astronomy Domine
  3. What Do You Want From Me
  4. Learning to Fly
  5. Keep Talking
  6. Coming Back to Life
  7. Hey You
  8. A Great Day for Freedom
  9. Sorrow
  10.High Hopes
  11.Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. II
  
Disc Two
  1. Speak to Me
  2. Breathe
  3. On the Run
  4. Time
  5. The Great Gig in the Sky
  6. Money
  7. Us and Them
  8. Any Colour You Like
  9. Brain Damage
  10.Eclipse
  11.Wish You Were Here
  12.Comfortably Numb
  13.Run Like Hell

 

If you really want the full Pink Floyd experience, you're better off watching than just listening. That’s always been the case, and it certainly applies here. The band has long been about the total package—sight, sound, and everything in between—so Pulse, their sprawling live album from 1995, works best if you can catch the video version. (Granted, there were no DVDs back then, so unless you had the VHS box set, the CD had to do.) Still, even in audio-only form, this is as close to definitive as a Pink Floyd live record is likely to get.

Recorded during the stadium-filling tour for The Division Bell, the performances captured here feel far more alive and confident than their previous outing. The spectacle was still there—massive light shows, lasers, inflatable pigs, you name it—but this time, the setlist felt more considered, more varied. Unlike the A Momentary Lapse of Reason tour, where the band played that entire album front to back, here they mixed things up. In fact, on some legs of the tour (not the one I saw, unfortunately), they played all of The Dark Side of the Moon—a move that turned out to be as smart as it was satisfying. That complete performance is preserved here, and it’s a stunner.

The set still leans a bit heavily on post-Roger Waters material, which is understandable, but a few choices stand out. There’s still nothing from Animals or The Final Cut—the latter omission makes sense, the former not so much—but they do reach way back to include Astronomy Domine from The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. It’s an unexpected and welcome nod to the Syd Barrett era, and it’s played with genuine enthusiasm.

In the end, Pulse is a strong live document from a band that wasn’t known for doing many of them. And though no one knew it at the time, this would more or less mark the last time we’d see Pink Floyd functioning as a regular touring entity. As swan songs go, it’s a fitting one—graceful, polished, and unmistakably Floyd.

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