My first rock concert was a little known Pink Floyd playing a run down 1200 seat hall when I was still 15. That same night, Creedence Clearwater Revival was playing a new, 18,000 seat hockey arena at the same entertainment complex. Of my gang, I was the only Floyd disciple, but I managed to persuade two of my friends to skip Creedence and go to Floyd with me. During the preceding year, since I discovered Floyd, I would play them constantly at home, and, over others’ objections, at parties. While I was confident that this band was destined to world dominance, they were still too weird for other kids’ everyday tastes. So Floyd was not only a taste but a cause.
On the evening of the concert my friends and I secured three tablets of LSD, which the underground newspaper assured was strong and unadulturated. Pink Floyd on LSD was guaranteed to be an experience ultimately unique and mind-alterring. The bus ride to the hall was filled with apprehension and suspense. Part of it was waiting for the Lsd to kick in, and part was the suspense of seeing my demigods. We filed through the ticket lineup and secured seats on the floor, about half-way from the stage. The sound engineers were setting up the acoutic system and the crowd was laid back, smoking doping, with someone calling out impatiently for Pink Floyd to appear. I noticed I was one of the youngest members in the audience, Floyd’s fan base being made up of a mature crowd.
My friend lit up a fat joint and we passed it among the audience. Pretty soon joints were passing freely. Time seemed to dissipate and then the appointed moment arrived as the band took up their instruments and launched into one on their intergalactic evoking compositions. The power and precision of the performance was forceful and swept me away in an array of sensations from visual, aural and physical. Every composition ignited the senses and imagination further than the one before as the band played for over two hours.
By the end of the concert I felt scrambled but exhaulted and was speaking nonsensically in sentences only I might have understood. Before leaving I checked into the restroom, which, in the primitive premises were shared with the performers. As I pulled up to the urinal I was telling everyone within earshot what an extraordinary band Pink Floyd was and asking them if they had appreciated the concerted and shared my opinion of the band.
When I reached the sink to wash my hands I was praising Pink Floyd to a long-haired man of about 25, when my friend, who was at the exit, silently began mouthing something that I failed to pick up.The dude next to me said something like,“Far out, I’m gad you dug it”, and winked and left. When I left, my friend furiously told me, “That was them! That was Pink Floyd!” It turn out I had been urging the virtues and recommending Pink Floyd to members of Pink Floyd!
On Monday the Underground rag gave a rave review to Pink Floyd and ended the review with, “Oh yeah. Creedence Clearwater Revival also played town this Saturday.”