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Friday 12 March 2021

Treasures From The Attic No 7 : Pink Floyd's shortest gig


More than a year before the album came out, Pink Floyd were trialling Dark Side of the Moon with a quadraphonic PA.

What they hadn’t factored in was the miners’ strike which led to phased power outages across the nation.


We’d been warned before the gig at Manchester's Free Trade Hall started that there might be a power cut so the band ripped up the set list just in case.

They played One Of These Days and Careful With That Axe Eugene then the 10-minute warning came.


Floyd launched into a blues jam as the Free Trade Hall emptied and the lights went out in the Dark Side of Manchester.

They came back a month later to play the full mind-blowing show so we got two gigs for the £1.25 price of one!

From the attic came the gig ticket and the two photos I snapped with my Instamatic camera at the gig before the power cut.