The Man and The Journey
The Man and The Journey are the names of two album-length suites of music performed in concert by Pink Floyd during their 1969 tour[1]. They consist of several of their early songs coupled with material that would appear on Soundtrack from the Film More and Ummagumma, as well as unreleased songs[1]. The concerts also featured visual performance elements such as the sawing and construction of a table and consumption of afternoon tea onstage[1].
The concept was first performed 14 April, 1969 at the Royal Festival Hall in a show billed as The Massed Gadgets of Auximenes - More Furious Madness from Pink Floyd[1]. A truncated version of the show was recorded 12 May, 1969 for the Top Gear radio programme[1]. The 17 September performance at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam is the most widely bootlegged of the shows on the tour because it was broadcast by radio station VPRO[1]. Plans for an official live album release of The Man and the Journey were considered, but abandoned due to overlap of material with Ummagumma.
The band members have seldom made reference to the suites in later interviews. Yet the unique combination of quadraphonic sound effects, abstract program music, and recursive themes — all of which can be traced to The Man and The Journey — were to become further developed in the band's most enduring music.
Example track list (from the Amsterdam show, 1969)
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
1. | "Daybreak, Pt. I" ("Grantchester Meadows", from Ummagumma) | 8:09 |
2. | "Work" (Percussion and vibraphone with musical sawing & hammering) | 3:50 |
3. | "Teatime" (Pink Floyd were served tea on stage at this point) | |
4. | "Afternoon" ("Biding My Time", from Relics) | 5:15 |
5. | "Doing It!" ("The Grand Vizier's Garden Party (Entertainment)" [6:12 onwards], from Ummagumma, or in some performances it was replaced by a unique combination of "Up the Khyber" [from More] and an early "Heart Beat Pig Meat" [from Zabriskie Point]) | 3:49 |
6. | "Sleep" ("Quicksilver", from Soundtrack from the Film More) | 4:40 |
7. | "Nightmare" ("Cymbaline", from More) | 8:57 |
8. | "Daybreak, Pt. II" ("Grantchester Meadows" instrumental reprise, with alarm clock sound effects) | 1:13 |
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
1. | "The Beginning" ("Green Is the Colour", from Soundtrack from the Film More) | 4:49 |
2. | "Beset By Creatures of the Deep" ("Careful with That Axe, Eugene") | 6:18 |
3. | "The Narrow Way" ("The Narrow Way, Part 3", from Ummagumma) | 5:09 |
4. | "The Pink Jungle" ("Pow R. Toc H.", from The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, or in some performances a unique instrumental, similar to "Nick's Boogie") | 4:49 |
5. | "The Labyrinths of Auximines" (Part of "Interstellar Overdrive", from The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, a riff commonly played during the middle, not the main riff) | 6:34 |
6. | "Behold the Temple of Light" (A few seconds of this piece is heard on Ummagumma just before "The Narrow Way, part 3", greatly expanded here) | 5:28 |
7. | "The End of the Beginning" ("A Saucerful of Secrets, Pt. IV - Celestial Voices" [8:38 onwards], from A Saucerful of Secrets) | 6:14 |
Note, this is an example track listing only. Often, "Doing It" is cited as being "Up the Khyber", "Syncopated Pandemoneum" (part 2 of "A Saucerful of Secrets" - the first show of the tour featured this) or "Party Sequence". Sometimes, "The End of the Beginning" is cited to also include "Storm Signal," another part of "A Saucerful of Secrets."
References
- "The Man and The Journey" Amsterdam-recording (Podcast)
- Discussion, Tracklist
- The Auximines Project, which gives instructions on how to recreate the set using tracks from various Floyd albums