Is There Anybody Out There: which shows were used?

[ILuvHoney]

Which shows were used on the Is There Anybody Out There album? I found this list on Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is_The...ll_Live_1980%E 2%80%9381

Set 1:
1. MC: Atmos: 9 August 1980
2. In the Flesh: 7/8/9 August 1980
3. The Thin Ice: 9 August 1980
4. Another Brick Pt. 1: 7/8/9 August 1980
5. Happiest Days: same
6. Another Brick Pt. 2: same + 14 June 1981
7. Mother: 16/17 June 1981
8. Goodbye Blue Sky: 17 June 1981
9. Empty Spaces: 14 June 1981
10. What Shall We Do Now: 14/17 June 1981
11. Young Lust: 7/8/9 August 1980
12. One of My Turns: same
13. Don't Leave Me Now: same + 17 June 1981
14. Another Brick Pt. 3: 7/8/9 August 1980
15. The Last Few Bricks: same
16. Goodbye Cruel World: 8 August 1980

Set 2:
1. Hey You: 16/17 June 1981
2. Is There Anybody Out There?: 15 June 1981
3. Nobody Home: 14/16/17 June 1981
4. Vera: 15 June 1981
5. Bring the Boys Back Home: same
6. Comfortably Numb: 14/15/16/17 June 1981
7. The Show Must Go On: 16 June 1981
8. MC: Atmos: same
9. In the Flesh: 7/8 August 1980
10. Run Like Hell: 14/15/16/17 June 1981
11. Waiting for the Worms: 14/15/16 June 1981
12. Stop: 9 August 1980
13. The Trial: 9 August 1980
14. Outside the Wall: 8 August 1980



However, no source is given for this so I can't confirm that these are correct. Furthermore, most of the songs are a mix of several songs. Can anyone with more knowledge elaborate about this? Which parts of which songs were taken from which show? Is there anyone here who has investigated this more closely?

[ruben77]

This page is from Vernon Fitch's 2006 book on The Wall ( http://www.pinkfloydarchives.com/PFAPub/ ) As you can see there are some slight differences. He doesn't say where this list comes from, but he's been known for being a great collector and Floyd historian, and the credits of the book list not only the members of the band, but also acknowledge the help and contribution of material and information from Guthrie, Ezrin, Jackson, and basically everyone involved in the production of the studio and live abums. So his source may be quite valid and is probably the basis of the Wikipedia list.

[TheMoebLoop]

I did a list of this with audio files a while back, but I suspect it would be time to do it again; as I admit I was quite careless with some sections then. One thing I can guarantee is that Fitch's list is quite simplistic in some respects, as certain "lead" parts were lifted from different dates than those of the backing tracks (e.g. "ABITW2 features at least a line from White's solo lifted from August 9th; the solo on "Hey You" has bits of other performances thrown into it, and Waters's last verse is from 1980).

[ruben77]

I did a list of this with audio files a while back, but I suspect it would be time to do it again; as I admit I was quite careless with some sections then. One thing I can guarantee is that Fitch's list is quite simplistic in some respects, as certain "lead" parts were lifted from different dates than those of the backing tracks (e.g. "ABITW2 features at least a line from White's solo lifted from August 9th; the solo on "Hey You" has bits of other performances thrown into it, and the final Waters' part is from 1980).

From what you say, then ITAOT was a more frenkensteined live album than the Pulse CD?

[TheMoebLoop]

Yes, I suspect so. Watch this space.

[Kit Rae]

Below is a source list I copied from Yeeshkul back in 2017, but I can't remember who compiled it.

__________________________________________

Is There Anybody Out There Sources

Pink Floyd
Is There Anybody Out There? Bootleg Representative
London, 1980-1981

Disc 01
1. Master Of Ceremonies
 August 9th 1980 (first half)
 August 7th 1980 (second half)
2. In The Flesh?
 August 7th 1980 (beginning/second half of vocals/ending)
 August 8th 1980 (“Lights”)
 August 9th 1980 (first half of vocals/”Roll the sound effects”-“Drop it on them”)
3. The Thin Ice
 August 9th 1980
4. Another Brick In The Wall (Part 1)
 August 7th 1980
5. The Happiest Days Of Our Lives
 August 7th 1980 (main)
 August 8th 1980 (fragment)
6. Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2)
 August 8th 1980 (main, David Gilmour’s solo first phrase, Snowy White’s and Richard Wright’s solos)
 June 14th 1981 (David Gilmour’s solo excerpt, a small fragment of which gets repeated)
 Unknown (David Gilmour’s solo excerpt)
 August 9th 1980 (excerpt from Snowy White’s solo)
7. Mother
 June 16th 1981
8. Goodbye Blue Sky
 June 17th 1981
9. Empty Spaces
10. What Shall We Do Now?
 June 14th 1981 (main song)
 June 17th 1981 (ending)
11. Young Lust
 August 7th 1980 (introduction/vocal fragment/guitar solo/last chorus)
 August 8th 1980 (main instrumental/most vocals)
 August 9th 1980 (vocal fragment/organ solo/outroduction)
 Unknown (“Get down, baby!”)
12. One Of My Turns
 August 7th 1980 (instrumental/most vocals)
 August 8th 1980 (vocal fragments)
 August 9th 1980 (vocal fragments)
13. Don’t Leave Me Now
 August 7th 1980 (most vocals/main instrumental)
 August 8th 1980 (vocal fragments)
 June 17th 1981 (coda)
14. Another Brick In The Wall (Part 3)
 August 7th 1980 (keyboard textures/some vocals)
 August 8th 1980 (main instrumental/most vocals)
 August 9th 1980 (vocal fragment)
15. The Last Few Bricks
 August 8th 1980 (main)
 August 7th 1980 (introductory textures)
16. Goodbye Cruel World
 August 8th 1980

Disc 02
1. Hey You
 June 16th 1981 (instrumental/most vocals)
 August 8th 1980 (coda vocals)
 June 17th 1981 (last note)
2. Is There Anybody Out There?
 June 15th 1981
3. Nobody Home
 June 17th 1981 (most vocals)
 June 16th 1981 (some vocals)
 June 14th 1981 (vocal fragment)
4. Vera
 June 15th 1981 (most)
 June 16th 1981 (vocal fragment)
5. Bring The Boys Back Home
 June 15th 1981 (most/vocal fragment)
 June 16th 1981 (most vocals)
6. Comfortably Numb
 June 14th 1981 (main instrumental/most first verse/first solo/some Roger vocals/some solo parts/second solo extracts)
 June 16th 1981 (most Roger vocals/Gilmour vocal fragments/second solo extracts)
 June 17th 1981 (some Roger vocals/second solo extracts)
 June 15th 1981 (second solo fragment)
 Unknown (fragments of second solo)
7. The Show Must Go On
 June 16th 1981 (most)
 August 8th 1980 (vocal fragment)
8. Master Of Ceremonies
 June 16th 1981 (instrumental/most vocals)
8. In The Flesh
 August 7th 1980 (most)
 August 9th 1980 (vocal fragments)
 August 8th 1980 (vocal fragments)
10. Run Like Hell
 June 17th 1981 (main/most vocals)
 June 15th 1981 (introduction fragment/Gilmour vocal fragment on 1st verse)
 June 14th 1981 (introduction fragment)
 June 16th 1981 (bass guitar fill/all Gilmour vocals on 2nd verse)
11. Waiting For The Worms
 June 15th 1981 (instrumental/some vocals)
 June 16th 1981 (banter/some vocals)
 August 8th 1980 (some vocals)
 August 9th 1980 (vocal fragment)
 June 14th 1981 (vocal fragment)
12. Stop
 August 8th 1980
13. The Trial
 August 9th 1980
14. Outside The Wall
 August 8th 1980 (song)
 Unknown (goodbyes)

I really would like to know what Pink Floyd has against listing dates and being clear about their documentation. In my view, this aspect is really important from a historical perspective, and perhaps even for some of us to have an idea as to how they take care about their archives. Sometimes it is nice to be open about it and engage those of us who take interest, just like Robert Fripp, Alex “Stormy” Mundy and David Singleton do with King Crimson-related affairs.
Once again, a Floyd release has none of these: “Is There Anybody Out There?” is a mystery as far as compilation efforts go, and we don’t even have any help with exact dates, London 1980-1981 being the only clue to what’s inside. So I went on a listening measure again, and, needless to say, or perhaps not, this one is even more uncomfortable listening. But remember I’m sharing with you who are also interested in these aspects so many bands forego.
And yes, I know Wikipedia also has sketchy info on this, but we shouldn’t trust it, should we? I’m pretty sure we should not, because it was I who edited it first to add those dates, doing only tentative listening in hopes someone would join me in the discussion… Well, I guess I just had to do it way more carefully, and am not surprised about how much seems to be wrong there. I hope you agree with me if you join together.
It is interesting to listen to bootlegs and realise how much was taken from a particular night and how much was left out. On this one, the official version, everything is pretty much honest-to-performance, but sometimes it jumps from so many sources that it is hard to keep track of. It is funny how Disc 1 seems to be mainly composed of 1980 and Disc 02 is equal for 1981, and, of some interest, I couldn’t identify anything from June 13th – it is AWOL from the whole thing, in my opinion.
After my slight misstep with Immersion Bootleg Representative, on this one I chose to list unknown sources as such, part also of trying not to pretend to be putting an end to things, but to further the dialog between us. Here we have a few, and most during David’s celebrated solos.

Sources I used:
All Wallweeds remasters for each respective date, except one of two for August 9th 1980, which is the raw Recorder 3, and the only one for June 16th 1981, which is G. R. 311/312 – “Watching The World Upon The Wall”.

[Rupert Pupkin]

Thanks a lot Kit Rae; I think that when Is There Anybody Out There came out the first ID of this Wall composite show where posted on the echoes mailing digest. I still have archived it, but not under my thumb.

[Chorale]

Below is a source list I copied from Yeeshkul back in 2017, but I can't remember who compiled it.

That's from TheMoebLoop's "Pink Floyd - Is There Anybody Out There Bootleg Representative" torrent in May 2016.

[TheMoebLoop]

Thanks, Kit Rae; as Chorale pointed out, that was indeed from me back in 2013 - this time, I am being more careful to point out where the evidence gets messy, so you can check it out for yourselves and cross check the official release with the sources: all time stamps are from ITAOT? Live.

Here's how I've already been able to break down the ABITW2 solo section:
8^th August 1980; 16^th June 1981 (DG solo, 02:09.706-02:12.814; 02:18.792-2:21.418); 14^th June 1981 (DG solo, 02:31.034-03:12.345 [notes at 03:07 “fixed” and duplicated to 03:09]); unknown (DG solo, 02:12.814-02:18.792; 02:21.418-02:31.034; 03:12.345-3:19.671); 9^th August 1980 (SW solo, 04:06.578-04:14-233)

The solo section of the official release is very complex, editing-wise, and I’d love for others to help parse it. I’ve made progress in identifying the fragments that more or less happened in “real time”, but, as can be seen, a lot still remains unknown to me.

[TheMoebLoop]

DG solo 2: 14^th June 1981 (04:30.282-04:38.710; 04:41.574-04:46.632; 04:52.016-05:11.094; 05:19.309-05:49.546; 06:44.596-07:15.172); 15^th June 1981 (04:38.710-04:41.574; 05:11.094-05:16.205; 06:38.011-06:39.444); 16^th June 1981 (04:49.133-04:52.016; 05:50.985-06:00.308; 06:19.265-06:21.598; 06:33.952-06:38.011); 17^th June 1981 (04:46.632-04:49.133; 05:16.205-05:19.309; 06:30.200-06:33.952; 6:42.578-06:44.596); unknown (05:49.546-05:50.985; 06:00.308-06:19.265; 06:21.598-06:30.200)

Gilmour's solo on "Comfortably Numb" features an extreme example of editing. Though the bulk of it comes from 14th June, it also contains a large amount of sections made up of fragments from the other 1981 dates, with single phrases sometimes jumping all over the place in a matter of seconds; even the June 14th fragments themselves sometimes are rearranged, as is the case of its middle section, which has been repositioned on the official release to be the last.

Even after hours of researching the recordings, I still couldn't pin the date of at least 30 seconds; so I left them as unknown. Could those passages still be from any of the 1981 dates? I guess so, but I couldn't detect any reminiscent enough moments on the recordings to explain them. Could they be from the 1980 shows instead? It is both possible and not - if affirmative, they are as minced as the 1981 ones that are not the 14th. Could they be sourced from elsewhere? Yes, but if so, whence?

[TheMoebLoop]

"Master of Ceremonies"

• 8^th August 1980 (tune up sounds at 00:48.250-0:48.834)
• 9^th August 1980 (mostly everything, but, from the incomplete state of the extant recordings from this date during this section, only the latter part of it can be compared.)
• unknown (tune up sounds at 00:51.101-0:52.242, 01:00.070-1:02.698)

This has been heavily edited from the original performance, which, using recordings from performances of the same series (6^th-8^th August 1980), can be inferred to clock to about 2 minutes. Strangely enough, tune up sounds were introduced that do not come from the occasion from which the take is sourced, and could literally be from anywhere.

"In the Flesh?"

• Backing track:

• 7^th or 8^th August 1980 (fixed SW chord: 00:37:788-00:39.880);
• 8^th August 1980 (00:00.000-00:11.110; 01:21.833-);
• 9^th August 1980 (00:11.110-01:21.833; 01:44.046-3:00.466)

• Lead tracks:

• 7^th August 1980 (Voice: 01:41.680-01:52.271)
• 7^th or 8^th August 1980 (SW phrase 1, two notes fixed: 00:19.362-0:19.702)
• 8^th August 1980 (SW phrase 1, two notes fixed: 00:19.362-0:19.702; Voice: 01:29.361-01:31.366; 2:06.312-2:07.527)
• 9^th August 1980 (Voice: 01:27.342-01:29.361; 01:31.366-01:41.680; 01:52.271-02:01.602; 02:14.731-02:35.784)

There is very little which I’ve found hard to parse from the recordings about this track as released, but mention needs to be made to the “rock band finale” of this performance: Snowy White’s seems to be present in it, and the drums mostly seem to correspond to the 9^th August concert, but, if that is so, the final beat of slowing down snare roll was removed to better accentuate the ending, making it resemble the more precise (in this respect) 1981 performances.

"The Thin Ice"

• 8^th August 1980 (02:31.979-02:49.533)
• 9^th August 1980 (00:00.000-02:31.979)
• “blue”: unknown (16^th June 1981?) (00:34.120-00:34.886)

There is hardly anything here that cannot be closely matched with the 9^th August performance, save for the very last part of the instrumental theme, which the fair SBD of the 1980 VHS helps to identify with the previous concert (check Mason’s drum fills, and his cymbal stylings as the last chord is played).

I must thank Ello_Guvner for bringing Gilmour’s phrasing of the word “blue” at the given timestamp, which does not correspond to the way he sang it on 9^th August – he suggested that it could be an artifact of auto tune, but never having used that software/algorithm/whatever, and not being able to hear those sorts of things unless it is rather heavy, I chose to compare it to other recordings. In most performances, Gilmour enunciates the vowel as [ʉ/u], with what sounds like a glide towards the consonant [w], but he does not on two occasions, August 8^th 1980 and June 16^th 1981; both times, he realises it as something close to [blʊː], but, on the former, he finishes it with an audible glottal stop [ʔ], whereas, on the latter, a voiced glottal fricative tail is heard [ɦ], which sounds very similar to what’s on ITAOT?.

Mind you, I’m not saying that it also wasn’t processed with auto tune; nor am I saying that the mystery is solved (which is why I used an “?”); but I do suggest that the vocal line may have been transferred from the 16^th June 1981 performance out of preference for its styling (it sounds very fragile and sweet, doesn’t it?), at least.

"Another Brick in the Wall - Pt 1"

• Backing track:
  • 7^th August 1980 (00:10.288-00:58.287; 01:03.125-04:12.508)
  • 8^th August 1980 (00:00.000-00:10.288)
  • 17^th June 1981 (00:58.287-01:03.125)
• Voice:
  • 7^th August 1980 (00:29.777-00:39.208)
  • 15^th June 1981 (01:18.280-01:32.996)
  • 16^th June 1981 (00:39.208-00:51.277)
  • 17^th June 1981 (00:51.277-00:53.790)

Though this track seems to come mostly from 7^th August, its beginning was elongated with a guitar link from the previous track from 8^th August, and at least synthesizer elements, if not a whole chunk from 17^th June 1981 was inserted into the backing track at a certain spot. Some elements that can be very clearly heard on ITAOT?, such as the tom roll at 01:43.812-01:45.758, the congas at 02:06.994-02:11.294, and the synthesizer elements at 2:26.120-2:45.906 seem to be absent from the two recorders from this date, which suggest that, either they were sourced from some other performance, or, at the very least, given prominence in the mix.

Vocal excerpts from other performances also used to substitute parts of the original 7^th August rendition.

"The Happiest Days of Our Lives"

• Backing track: 7^th August 1980
• Voice:
  • 8^th August 1980 (01:14.768-01:24.610)
  • 9^th August 1980 (00:45.850-01:07.657)

The vocals from 7^th August don’t go beyond the helicopter introduction. Listen closely before the beginning of the third verse, and you can hear Waters’s original growling.

The poor recording from the following day does not allow for making out Gilmour’s harmony on the third verse, and the SBD seems to have him completely removed as well, but Waters’s phrasing during the 8^th August is verbatim that of ITAOT?; the fourth recorder of 9^th August, on the other hand, has Gilmour well mixed and allows one to easily identify the date for the first two verses by comparison with the official release.

"Another Brick in the Wall - Pt 2"

• Backing track and voice: 8^th August 1980
• Solos: 8^th August 1980, except:
  • 9^th August 1980 (SW solo, 04:06.578-04:14-233)
  • 14^th June 1981 (DG solo, 02:31.034-03:12.345 [notes at 03:07 “fixed” and duplicated to 03:09])
  • 16^th June 1981 (DG solo, 02:09.706-02:12.814; 02:18.792-2:21.418)
  • unknown (DG solo, 02:12.814-02:18.792; 02:21.418-02:31.034; 03:12.345-3:19.671)

I did not examine the sound effect section at the end.

[RoyTagliaferro]

As far as I know, the Wikipedia page is fairly accurate. A few friends of mine analyzed the whole album down to the second, and let me tell you it is Frankenstein like you've never seen or heard before
The Brick 2 solo is pieced together from so many different sections. The worst part is David's ending lick, it's a chopped up version of a lick that already appeared in the middle of the solo. He never actually played the solo like that

[ruben77]

While I admire and deeply respect the skills required to create a previously non-existent performance from small bits of many different recordings, I also feel sad that the result is so dry and antiseptic, devoid of all its original fire. Ever since its release I've felt ITAOT was too cold (despite sounding really good), and have always preferred the audience recordings that really capture the raw energy. Just like Frankenstein indeed: a puzzle of a body without a soul.

[TheMoebLoop]

I agree. Frankly, I think it's a fairly bad release in terms of energy; they could have done much better just releasing 16th June 1981 as a standalone and call it a day. What interests me about it is not the quality of the music, as strange as it may sound, but the task of actually documenting the production.

RoyTagliaferro, do you happen to have that analysis at hand? I'd love to see it!

[UnwoundBob'85]

The only track I am 100% certain on is The Trial, which was taken from August 9th, 1980 as listed earlier. David's voice shouting "Call the Schoolmaster!" and "Call the Wife!" are the indicator. Trial was only sung live all the way through on one or two nights in LA, and both Roger and David have their hand at singing parts of it throughout the rest of the tour.