The Delicate Sound of Thunder (1988) 


 

Disc One
  1. Shine on You Crazy Diamond
  2. Learning to Fly
  3. Yet Another Movie
  4. Round and Round
  5. Sorrow
  6. The Dogs of War
  7. On the Turning Away
  
Disc Two
  1. One of These Days
  2. Time
  3. Wish You Were Here
  4. Us and Them
  5. Money
  6. Another Brick in the Wall
  7. Comfortably Numb
  8. Run Like Hell

 

When Pink Floyd regrouped in 1987 without Roger Waters, it marked the beginning of a new era—and for the first time in over a decade, they actually hit the road again. This was no small thing. There was now a whole generation of fans who had never been given the chance to experience Pink Floyd live, and the band clearly intended to deliver. The spectacle was fully intact. Massive lights, film projections, lasers—everything you expected from a Floyd show was there. Everything, that is, except Waters himself. And while his absence was certainly felt by some (myself included), the packed stadiums suggested that most didn’t seem to mind. Ironically, Waters was touring at the same time to half-empty theaters.

Because of all the lingering animosity, the Waters-heavy material was mostly off the table. That was no easy task. Instead, the band leaned heavily into their newly released album A Momentary Lapse of Reason, performing most of it in the first set of the show. The second half was what most people came for—the big crowd-pleasing classics. This live album mirrors that same structure: a snapshot of the tour, with the songs sequenced more or less as they were played during the concerts.

The good news? This was technically the first official live album since Ummagumma, and that had been made during a very different version of Pink Floyd. The bad news? History wasn’t quite as kind to this one. A few years later, they would release Pulse, a much more complete and sonically superior live album that essentially made this release obsolete. When you compare the two tracklists, there’s only one real standout on this one that didn’t make it onto Pulse, and that’s One of These Days. As great as that song is, it probably doesn’t justify tracking this down if you already own the later live album.

So yes, it was meaningful at the time. It gave us a much-needed taste of Pink Floyd in a live setting again, and for that it deserves some credit. But in hindsight, this one feels more like a transitional relic than a lasting document. Pulse simply does it all better.

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