Review of Gimme Shelter (2013) by Curtis W — 09 May 2004

The Pink Floyd era I enjoy most is around Meddle (or earlier - Saucerful of Secrets?), Ummagumma and Dark Side of the Moon, which is what this 1972 documentary captures.

Here's the track listing:

Echoes Part I.

Careful With That Axe Eugene.

A Saucerful of Secrets.

Us and Them.

One of these Days.

Mademoiselle Nobs.

Brain Damage.

Set the Controls of the Heart of the Sun.

Echoes Part II.

This while the four members of the group were contributing pretty much equally, long before it became the Roger Waters Band.

The title is misleading, as there isn't much of a concert that I can see. It looks like the filmmaker, Adrian Maben, had a crazy idea - Pink Floyd should set up and play in the ancient Roman amphitheatre amid the ruins of the volcano-trashed Pompeii. There's no crowd, just the band and the crew. There's also some shots of the boys wandering around, checking out the bubbling mud of the volcano.

It's more of a music video, with footage of a NASA rocket blasting off and volcanic action, linked up with Floyd's tunes.

The director does some interviews, centering on their use of equipment. Seems like he kept asking the same question: Are you in control of your equipment or does the gadgetry control you?

The line of questioning implies that while the director thinks the band is cool, he wants to counter the criticism that they depended too much on electronics and that they were linked to the drug culture. I think he achieved that goal, even if his video is something you'd wanna watch on acid.

This is the director's cut, something he redid around 2002 I think. This isn't apparent until Echoes Part II, when some video-game graphics of the destruction of Pompeii is inserted with amongst the original footage.

For purists, the original concert film also is included, as well as a documentary.

Whatever. For Pink Floyd fans, this is essential viewing. For rock fans in general, it's a good documentary.

I enjoyed it. It's a monument to rock excess. The whole idea that a band can set up all its equipment in an ancient Roman amphitheatre and play to no one is absurd. Think of all the money it cost. But they did it anyway. Reminded me of the Stonehenge set in This is Spinal Tap.

I also watched Gimme Shelter, which I've seen before. This was the first viewing of the new Criterion DVD I purchased recently. This run-through I was more impressed by the Stones sound, though Ike and Tina Turner and the Flying Burrito Brothers still blew me away. But the music isn't really the point of this movie. The point was to just document the event, which just happened to turn into a disaster. It wasn't planned that way. If things hadn't gone wrong, with the concert, the out-of-control crowds and the Hell's Angels, I wonder what this film would've been like?