Pink Floyd – Torino 1994

If you read through all of my reviews, you will probably have noticed that most of them are positive. It’s not that I’m trying to sell readers on anything, but because I usually have a good idea of what I’m getting before I get it. In other words, if I don’t think something is going to be good, I usually won’t buy it in the first place. In many cases, the things I review are releases of albums or shows that I’m already familiar with. Often times, the only thing in question is how the particular release is handled: pressing, packaging, quality, maybe a new mix, etc.

Today’s review is a good example of a release that should have been really great but has some major problems. The show in question is from the Italy stop on Pink Floyd’s 1994 Division Bell tour. The audio for Torino by Late Lunch Records is taken from a soundboard recording, and the show itself is amazing. If you want to know what this one sounds like, versions of the audio are available on YouTube and are worth looking up. This show has also been put on CD over the years (non-official) and can still be found if you look hard enough. Maybe it’s because I’ve heard Delicate Sound of Thunder so much over the years, but I honestly prefer this particular performance to that official release.

The mix of this show is probably completely raw, but was done very well by the engineer who worked the show that day. The overall soundstage is great considering that this is a bootleg version, with the drums being crisp and clear (especially noticeable on the roto-toms in Time), great instrument separation and crystal-clear vocals and samples. You can tell the guys in the band are having a lot of fun, with a bit of laughter and even some improvised lyrics in certain parts. Somebody is even playing what I believe is a kazoo on Money, which turns out to be a pretty fun listen. As you can see, the set-list is excellent:

Soundboard Recording – Stadio delle Alpi, Torino, Italy 1994-09-13

A1 Intro
A2 Astronomy Domine
A3 Learning to Fly
A4 What Do You Want From Me
A5 On The Turning Away
B6 Take It Back
B7 A Great Day For Freedom
B8 Sorrow
C9 Keep Talking
C10 One Of These Days
C11 Money
D12 Shine On You Crazy Diamond
D13 Breathe
D14 Time
E15 High Hopes
E16 The Great Gig In The Sky
E17 Wish You Were Here
E18 Us And Them
F19 Another Brick In The Wall
F20 Comfortably Numb
F21 Hey You

So, what is the problem? Well, the pressing itself gets in the way of the show in more ways than one. I wanted to have a nice copy of this on vinyl so much that I actually purchased two of these and tried to assemble a single acceptable set out of them. This is a 3 LP release, and it’s not cheap. Almost all copies of Torino can only be found in Europe, so if you want it, chances are you will either have to import it or seriously overpay if you get lucky enough to find a copy at all. With my two copies, I put together a set that I consider listenable, but it’s still not a great experience.

The outer packaging itself is a single record sleeve instead of a gatefold, which saves on costs, but doesn’t look that great. Each disc came inside the lowest quality paper sleeves available, so I’m sure this contributed somewhat to the records themselves being scratched and scuffed. The disc labels are cheaply printed and mine were pretty badly scuffed and torn on both copies. The vinyl itself is a dark green color but is very low quality. All of the discs are flecked with some kind of white material (could be vinyl, not sure) that’s melded into the wax, and there are quite a few deformities throughout that are easily visible under normal light. Nothing was scratched deep enough to skip, but it’s bad enough to cause obvious clicks and pops in these spots.


Even if the scratches and defects were not present, this is just not a very good pressing. I cleaned both sets of records several times before playing them, and the vinyl is bad even in the “clean” spots. If you have been around records as long as I have, you’ll know what I mean. This is one of those cases where you can audibly hear the low-quality vinyl in combination with the discs being pressed on probably dirty equipment. Take those records out of the press, chuck them into the cheapest sleeves available and you get Torino. Given the quality of this performance by Pink Floyd, this is a real shame.

Another issue that will be glaringly apparent when you hear this is the fade outs at the end of each side. Whoever put this on vinyl from the original audio source brutally and abruptly faded those tracks out every time. You might not think this is too big of a deal, but it really breaks the flow of things just as you start getting used to the vinyl noise and get into the music. Not as big of a problem as the physical problems with this set, but I think it’s worth mentioning.

With all of this being said, I have to say that I like the show so much that I would take the chance and buy this again, hoping to luck out with a better copy. Maybe I just got really unlucky twice, but given these specific problems, I seriously doubt it. This is also a case where since I bought these sets new and sealed, I can’t really send them back to the seller and complain. This is an interesting topic in itself that I think I’ll cover some other time, but obviously individual sellers are not Amazon or Walmart. When they sell you a new sealed item, it’s not really reasonable to return an open and used item to them expecting a full refund. Also, these are bootleg records, which means no one is accountable for returns or quality control. In this case, I just bit the bullet each time and tried to enjoy this set for what it is.

If you love this show as much as I do and decide to look for a copy of this, I wouldn’t blame you. After cobbling together a single set out of two copies, it’s not entirely unlistenable. Also, it’s possible that your threshold for bad sound might be a bit lower than mine. Maybe if Torino had been cheaper or easier for me to find, the whole thing would have felt a bit better. Before shipping, you should expect to pay between 75.00 to 90.00 US for this release based on the current market. It only came out in 2023, so there are still some of these around. Hopefully someone will eventually release a nicer, cleaner version of this show, but for now, this is all we have.

Performance quality is an easy 10/10. Source audio quality 9/10. Record pressing, packaging and overall quality and listening experience 4/10. Pretty bad, but I have seen worse, I suppose.