While I haven’t seen any brand-new Casino Records releases floating around lately, here’s one that’s still relatively new. Pink Floyd – Newcastle 1974 was a big deal when it was originally announced a few months ago. People were hyped about this release, and it seemed to be an immediate sellout in collector’s circles as far as I could tell. With only 400 copies pressed worldwide, it’s not hard to see why. As regular readers will know, Casino is my favorite unofficial label, and I try to keep track of everything they put out. When they do a Floyd title, which seems to be a couple of times a year, it’s certainly a special occasion.
Casino releases are generally top quality, and this one is no exception. The blue and green color scheme is excellent, and visually, I think this may be my favorite release of the year so far. The jacket itself is a gatefold and is an extremely high-quality print job on heavy, glossy stock. The colors are clear and crisp, and the photo choices are excellent. It’s got some promotional shots, pictures from the comic book, live action shots and caricatures. The labels feature cartoon drawings of all the band members and are also high quality. The color of the records themselves is sort of a transparent blue/green sea sort of color. Everything is tied together quite nicely with a short write-up on the inside of the jacket itself that outlines the highlights of the tour. Each copy comes with numbered, matching hype sticker on the resealable outer plastic sleeve.
The pressing itself is pretty outstanding. I cleaned the discs, but they looked spotless right out of the package. This is a triple LP, and each one of the discs was perfectly flat with no visible warps or defects. Over the entire set, there were a few clicks and pops, but honestly, they were very mild and hardly worth mentioning. There isn’t really any surface noise to speak of, but there is a touch of sound from the tape transfer itself. For me, this isn’t a deal breaker, and is just a reality of the format.
In my opinion, 1974 was a fantastic year to be a Pink Floyd fan. The show presented on this record set captures The Dark Side of the Moon in full, while also presenting bits from Meddle, Wish You Were Here, and the then still in the works Animals. The first thing I should mention about the audio is that it’s an audience recording. The quality isn’t going to be as high as the soundboards many of us might be used to hearing from other releases. Additionally, the recording is in mono, which is something the listener will certainly notice right away. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it’s obviously going to make things sound a bit “flat”.
As audience recordings go, this is still one of the better ones. The crowd noise is present, but it’s minimal. Honestly, it’s at just the right level to capture the atmosphere of the show while not being overwhelming. At one point on Side B, Roger gets into some kind of discussion/argument with a screaming fan, but it’s hard to tell how serious it is. As far as unique things that happen during this show are concerned, that’s probably the highlight. I imagine that this interaction is why they decided to leave the “Tune Up” section on here in its entirety.
Audience Recording – The Odeon – Newcastle, England 9th November, 1974
A1 Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts 1-9)
B1 Raving And Drooling (Early Version Of Sheep)
B2 Tune Up
C1 You’ve Gotta Be Crazy (Early Version Of Dogs)
D1 Speak To Me
D2 Breathe
D3 On The Run
D4 Time
D5 Breathe (Reprise)
D6 The Great Gig In The Sky
E1 Money
E2 Us And Them
E3 Any Colour You Like
E4 Brain Damage
E5 Eclipse
F1 Echoes
As far as the performance itself goes, this is certainly a great one. “Shine On” has a very unique intro and may have you a bit confused when you spin the first disc. For me though, the real standout numbers are the early versions of the Animals tracks. “Raving and Drooling” and “Gotta Be Crazy” (which would later become “Sheep” and “Dogs” respectively, of course) are both really cool to hear in this raw, unfinished form. Both tracks are somehow much more “haunting” than they would sound on the finished album, and in my opinion, it’s worth getting a copy of this set just for these. The ending of “Gotta Be Crazy” is a really straight forward jam that I found to be a bit unusual sounding for Floyd. Sadly, the track fades out before they get to the end.
The DSOTM section takes up almost the rest of the discs, and it’s pretty much just what you would expect. There are some interesting nuances here and there, but if you are mainly looking for a live performance of Dark Side, you can do much better with other bootlegs. That’s not to say this version isn’t good, but I feel like what sets it apart is mainly the performance by the band rather than sound quality. A mono version of this album taped on a recorder underneath someone’s wheelchair doesn’t exactly do the mix justice. But then again, sound quality isn’t normally why we buy these things, is it?
So, in the end, I can recommend this set to other collectors without hesitation. The pressing and packaging are both great, coming in at a solid 10/10 as far as I’m concerned. The audio itself (and I’m scoring the source tape here) is about a 6/10. It’s hardly the worst audience recording I’ve ever heard, but there are obviously better ones out there. I think it’s more than good enough to justify this release and getting a great looking physical version out there. Newcastle 1974 might be a bit hard to find at this point, but if you have read this far and you are still on board, I really think the search will be worth the effort.