Pink Floyd: Delicate Sound of Thunder (1989) Poster

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9/10
Liked it NEAR as much as PULSE
Doogie-0122 May 1999
Great starting place for upcoming "Floydians." Music is terrific, lights are amazing - and the obvious chemistry between lead singer David Gilmour and backup singer Rachel Fury is tantamount. Later works may overwhelm this, but taking away the content of this production is useless.

My vote: 9.9 MUST SEE
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8/10
I was at this concert.
jettech728 August 2000
The movie was not too bad. The concert was real good the effects, lasers and pyros. The only problem is that it does not look nearly as good on the video as I remember them from the concert. The concert CD has much better sound than the video in VHS format.
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8/10
Rather Good
christianpinkfloyd26 December 2006
It is a great documentation of the Nassau 1988 Concerts but the filming is terrible, mostly dark and, virtually, everything moves too fast, thus, one does not get a clear picture of what is happening on stage at all times.

You should get this one if you are a collector or a Pink Floyd fan.

And one other low point, it is just one hour and 30 minutes of the concert, however, the original concert was about two hours and 20-30 minutes.

If you are looking for a Pink Floyd concert, PULSE or Live At Pompeii are far better.
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10/10
Although Without Roger Waters - the Creative Soul of the Band - aStunning and Spectacular Concert
claudio_carvalho7 September 2003
`The Delicate Sound of Thunder' is stunning. David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Richard Wright, supported by outstanding musicians and backing vocals, and a great selection of songs, give a marvelous 90 min. concert. Although without Roger Waters - the creative soul of the group, this show is stunning. It is difficult to highlight a song, but `The Great Gig in the Sky' in the voices of Margret Taylot, Durga McBroom and Rachel Fury and the saxophone of Scott Page in `Us and Them' are unforgettable. The light and choreography, together with the performance of the stars works perfectly in this video. `Comfortably Numb' is fantastic. My vote is ten.
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One of the best concert videos I've ever seen
Nick_Denife9 April 2003
I saw this show at Cleveland Stadium before they tore it down and put up the monkeyhouse they call Jacob's Field. I had seats WAAAY back in the stands, and, although they would be considered bad seats at any other concert, those seats are the only place to see a Floyd concert from. One of the things I really appreciate Pink Floyd for is the fact that they know if they give a concert, there are going to be several thousand people attending it, and only a handful of them will be able to really SEE them perform - for everyone else, it'll be a bunch of doll-sized (or smaller) images doing something that looks like playing instruments. Because of this, a Pink Floyd concert is a show in the true sense of the word - the lights, the movies shown on the round screen, the surround sound set-up, everything - is designed to be experienced from a distance. I enjoyed the show live and enjoyed it even more in this excellent video.

One of the great things about this concert is the inclusion of outside musicians. Pink Floyd does amazing things in the studio - lots of layering and overdubs that give their records a rich, unmistakable sound, and the fact that they go to the added expense and trouble of hiring other musicians and back-up singers to fill the sound out instead of relying on pre-recorded tapes is something I appreciate. When I go to a concert, I want to hear what I heard on the record re-created live, not a "Gee, that was close, but where is the such-and-such" live version.

This video is flawless - no cutaways to "psychedelic" footage of amoebas or such during solos, no "Hey, look at the neat effects we can do" - type transitions. The director used his multiple cameras very well, employing skycams, cranes, and handheld cameras perfectly and editing what he ended up with beautifully. He and his crew capture the essence of a Pink Floyd show expertly, employing dissolves, black and white footage, angles and camera movement with real care and deference to the music and the show itself. One of the hallmarks of a good concert film is not seeing the cameras or operators in the background, and you'd have to look very hard in this one to spot any. This video is about the music and the show, not about the style of the direction, and that's how it should be.

The audio is good for what it is - Hi-Fi VHS stereo - and was great before the advent of DVD and DTS and Dolby Digital, but now, like everyone else, I'm spoiled. I WANT THIS MOVIE ON DVD! NOW!!! I have no idea what the holdup on this is. The company that owns it HAS to know that there are millions of Pink Floyd fans that would snap this up the second it's released.
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10/10
Visually orgasmic!
rwfrench6624 January 2014
OK, so having been at this concert my opinion is slightly biased, but it was like being at Devil's Tower for the final scene of Close Encounters of The Third Kind FOR REAL! This was 1988 and no band or any multimedia presentation since has come close! The Olympics and Superbowl have had some good multimedia displays, and that video of the building in Germany I think when they used a projector to make some 3D images, the Tupac hologram, and some of the videos of Christmas lights are cool, but this was 2 hours of that stuff combined with the clearest 3D surround sound music you've ever heard at a live event! Tickets were $25 when most tickets were $15, but it was well worth it! The concert is on YouTube and if you haven't seen it check out "One of These Days" or "Run Like Hell" if you want to see why a light show is called a light show! I have no idea how promoters are getting people to pay $450 for floor seats now! $25 back then was 2 tanks of gas and now 2 tanks of gas is $100 and if a band isn't giving a multimedia presentation equal to this for $100 you're being financially raped! I bought like 8 copies of this on VHS back in the day. I had to replace them because the VCR ate them, or because friends borrowed/stole them, or because I played them so much they wore out. The CD doesn't have "One Slip" but the DVD doesn't have "Money"! Can you imagine releasing a Pink Floyd video and cutting out "Money"?
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10/10
Definitely the best live Floyd out there...
tedsmovies2 August 2005
Definitely the best live Floyd out there...

I saw this Tour in L.A. Ca., and it was the first and only time i got to see them live :-(.

I thought it was a great concert then, but now that i've seen it on video... it's even better.

I also have a few other videos of them live (dvds :-)_, including "Pulse". And a few David Gilmore dvds, but this tops'em all.

It's definitely a must have.

ps - can't wait for it to come out on DVD though. pss - I think that it was released on laserdisk at one time.

see ya, Ted.
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10/10
Pink Floyd Captivates
full_meddle_jacket12 February 2002
Though the legendary Pink Floyd's next concert film, "Pulse" (or "P.U.L.S.E.", 1995) was very poor, "Delicate Sound of Thunder" perfectly captures the band's exhilirating 'comeback' after their first studio album ("A Momentary Lapse of Reason") without principle songwriter Roger Waters, who left the band (officially) in 1985. Quite possibly one of the best collection of live concert footage in the past twenty-five years. Though the heavy dependance on extra session musicians (something Pink Floyd rarely did in the past, which was a foreshadowing of their decline in quality...in my opinion anyway) is kind of a downer, it doesn't distract too much from the quality of Pink Floyd's performance.
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10/10
Best Concert Video
pbrugalett26 November 2001
This (short of "The Wall") is the best Pink Floyd video experience. The long guitar and sax solos, along with eye-catching video and three luscious ladies singing backup, Money, Comfortably Numb, Us and Them, Wish You Were Here, Run Like Hell, plus more! What more could you want? Where's the DVD?
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9/10
2019 remaster, why butchering this concert ?
versluis29 January 2022
Yes, I gave this a 9.

But that's for the performance and how it's captured.

This is of course a registration of the Momentary Lapse of Reason tour.

I've attended it at the time and it was a grand experience.

There've been several releases over the years as laserdisc, VHS, DVD and now Blu-ray (and LP / CD). This time "Remastered" with better sound and image. OK, so far so good and logical as technology progresses.

But when will they finally release the complete concert ???

Each version omits some (different) songs.

And why in (whatever super being's) name did they cut the a capella part and the bass solo from the song Money ? The complete flow and feel of the (then great) performance of this highlight in the concert is ruined.

Luckily on Youtube you can find that version complete and even with the horrible image quality there I'll always prefer that over this butchered version in impaccable sound and image.
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6/10
Ehhhhhh......
mbatl0817 January 2008
Well it would have been a whole lot better if it was presented the same way as P.U.L.S.E. Just to name a few of the problems with this video: the solos are chopped, it doesn't focus as much attention to the band as it does the audience, at times it shows clips from other shows, the style of filming was absolutely horrible, I could go on and on. A few positives: David's guitar work is terrific, the light show was great, and the backup singers were AWESOME on The Great Gig in the Sky! Overall, though, it was a classic example of a concert video with great potential being ruined by poor directing and modification for MTV. However, the CD of this concert is awesome! If you want to enjoy Delicate Sound of Thunder, I highly recommend the CD over the video. If you want a good Pink Floyd concert on video/DVD, P.U.L.S.E. is the way to go.
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8/10
Roger Who?
NoDakTatum13 November 2023
Dave Gilmour, Nick Mason, Richard Wright, and a score of other musicians perform to a rabid crowd at Nassau Coliseum in Long Island, New York in this 1989 concert video. While many fans fuss about Roger Waters' absence from the band as if other great bands have never split up or lost members, Gilmour and company hold together some great songs despite some all too florid direction from music video icon Isham. Opening and closing with "Shine On," Isham's camera does find incredible backstage footage of the elaborate laser light show accompanying the music. A giant round screen in the middle of the stage plays host to laser light and various film and video incarnations of the Pink Floyd songs being performed. Isham's direction through the first nine or ten songs is fluid and interesting. His camera goes slow motion, capturing the audience's rapture and the band's expertise. Other songs featured and performed are: "Signs of Life," "Learning to Fly" (with a too short drum solo), "Sorrow," "The Dogs of War" (with a great accompanying video), "On the Turning Away" (the most subdued track), "One of These Days," "Time" (the strongest performance here), "On the Run," "The Great Gig in the Sky," "Wish You Were Here," "Us and Them" (which goes on way too long), "Money," "Comfortably Numb," "One Slip" (the second best sequence), and "Run Like Hell."

About an hour into this one hundred minute video, Isham's camera gets irritating. The songs are great, but he never strays from his directing formula until close to the end of the concert. He is a visualist without a vision, trying to mask unknown flaws or his lack of original ideas after an initial genius outpouring. On the positive side, there is nary a cameraman to be seen anywhere onstage, thanks to some expert editing. The musicians here enjoy the set as much as the audience. Gilmour is caught grinning on occasion, something I do not think he has done on camera since the late '60's. This is not the time to mourn and complain about Waters' departure, this is the time to listen to some truly great music. While any Pink Floyd fan should snatch this up, film fans in general might like the different take Isham gives to the concert film before becoming a victim to his own excess. Better than most concert films out there, "Delicate Sound of Thunder" booms and roars and provides enough eye-wow to last a while.
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6/10
'Light Show' Better Than The Music
ccthemovieman-15 May 2007
The concert included some of the most innovative "light shows" I've ever seen in a musical venue. I saw it on tape so I'm sure it looks even better on DVD. I think the visuals were better than the music, to be frank. I didn't find the songs to be anything special. They weren't bad, but nothing I would want to hear over and over. Perhaps being stoned would be the ticket but those days are long over.

Speaking of the "old days," I found some of the lyrics in here so '60s-ish with the irreverence of the period that it turned me off. Those ultra-Liberal days are over, too. It didn't inspire me to hear these songs again. "Hey, teacher....leave them kids alone!" should be changed to "Hey, guys, give those lyrics a rest! (or, "Hey, guys - learn some grammar!")
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Massively underrated performance
Dlp0711 February 2008
Having owned the Delicate Sound album for several years I've found it's always one you return to for the Momentary Lapse of Reason tracks- most of which weren't played live again on the Division Bell tour. Although I'm a fan of Roger Waters- era Pink Floyd and his solo work, being 25 my introduction to Floyd was through the David Gilmour- led last days of the band and I still count Momentary Lapse, Delicate Sound, Division Bell and Pulse among my favourite records.

This video should certainly be rereleased properly on DVD (it's currently only available on DVD in a very pricey and hard to find box set also including the CD's), perhaps remastered with some new extra features. Actually as I've just spent £30 on an 18- year old VHS tape EMI will probably release it next week!

Obviously, the main reason people will be interested in this title is for the tracks you can't get on video anywhere else (On The Turning Away, Dogs of War, etc.) but as with Pulse there are a few differences between the album and video tracklistings. The biggest disappointment is that Yet Another Movie and Round and Around are left off but instead you get Signs of Life and One Slip. Shine On is actually only the intro of the song rather then even the shortened "Concert Version" on Pulse but then it is a track Floyd played a lot and you can get it live anywhere (apparently Echoes was also occasionally used as the opener instead on this tour which would have made a much more interesting inclusion). Money is also absent but considering it's on the Pulse video as well as Waters' live In The Flesh DVD that's no great loss and the less overplayed On The Run replaces it anyway.

The style of the concert film (in an American arena rather than Earl's Court) is very different to Pulse too, directed as it is by Wayne Isham- anyone familiar with his flashy live DVD's for Metallica and Def Leppard will be familiar with the director's style- which is often more like watching a music video (some sounds and images intentionally don't match up- although that's not as bad as it sounds) than a live show. But at this point in their career Floyd seemed to be trying to get back to Meddle- era anonymity after The Wall tour so that's probably exactly what they were going for. There's no friendly talking to the audience like in the Pulse video, the band are backed by a massive cast of additional musicians (including a spectacularly mulleted saxophonist) and there's much more emphasis on the light show and some inspired Storm Thorgerson images on the video screen. It's also cool to see Gilmour, Rick Wright and Nick Mason looking so much younger. Also look out for the brilliant p*ss- take credit the band give an R. Waters for "Original Pig Concept" at the end!

Considering there is now a visual record of every other era of Pink Floyd (the '60's Syd Barrett days with the Live in London DVD, the experimental Meddle era with Live in Pompeii, the Waters years with The Wall film and Gilmour's version of the band with this and Pulse) it would be truly great if somebody could unearth some concert footage from the band's truly greatest (and democratic) years between Dark Side of the Moon in '73 and Animals in '77 when Waters and Gilmour worked so brilliantly together and even let the other two write the occasional song. Numerous sources have said over the years that at least audio recordings probably exist from that time so how about a massive, officially released CD/DVD live box of stuff from the golden age?
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8/10
Still A Spectacular Concert
schmidtp-542214 February 2023
Regardless of which side of the fence you sit on (Syd, Roger), there's no denying that Dave along with Rick and Nick put in one spectacular show for the time.

While I was familiar with Pink Floyd and some of their work, this was the first time (as many) had seen something in the scope of what a PF concert was. The spectacle, the huge screen....that fan exclaiming "It's a f@#$ing big pig!"

Roger thought they wouldn't survive without his input, however Dave was a prolific songwriter in his own right and lots of the hits for the band were penned by him. A Monetary Lapse Of Reason was a great follow up to Rogers less than stellar Final Cut. It's one of those albums that you can listen all the way through.

While it's a bit dated with the 80s cinematography, its still one of the best captured concerts of all time. Do yourself a favour and check it out.
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This concert-video is PERFECT
JesperA14 May 2003
The music aside - this is by far the best concert-video ever made, in my humble opinion. This is truly the work of a perfectionist. You see all the important parts, but not even once is there a cameraman or even a cable in sight to disturb the experience. And the light- and stageshow is as always with Pink Floyd magnificent. So too is the music. The concert was a promotion-tour for the "Momentary Lapse Of Reason" album, and about a third of the video is dedicated to numbers from that album. The rest is the good old stuff! Almost all of my favorites are there, and they are performed to perfection. Compared to the PULSE video, I think this is slightly better, due to the perfect editing.
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The Blu-ray is in one word "amazing"
franka_van_loon6 January 2020
Just watched the Blu-ray, amazing compared to the DVD. Recommendable great sound and picture quality.
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Another Buck in the Billfold
hillsack12 June 2007
Oh, dear! Roger Waters was mistaken if he thought Pink Floyd would dwindle and die without him, but this album represents all that was wrong with the post-Waters Floyd. First there's 'Shine On, You Crazy Diamond', one of the more amiable soporific Floyd opuses, but their inability to hit the right pacing means it's hiccupping all over the shop here. The numbers from 'A Momentary Lapse Of Reason' are leaden and laden with morose sentimentality, and Floyd's heightened obsession with making the maximum possible impact meant the loss of subtlety and surprise (a bugbear of symphonic rock at the best of times): the songs, like the ecstatic crowd, just thunder on indelicately somewhere in the background. The mechanical 'Learning To Fly' is a clumsily overproduced tune trying to sound spacey. And what is the point of a song like 'The Dogs Of War'? The musically superior 'Us and Them', also featured here, had already made the same point some fifteen years earlier in a much more poetically succinct manner. Even the excellent 'One Of These Days' is messed up; it certainly packs a punch, but there's a dreadfully peppy, stylised 80's sound to it, and that's the problem with the whole album. Rock groups, ever fearful of being labelled as passé, sometimes do the silliest things when pandering to the fickle tastes of the zeitgeist. By that time, Prozac Floyd had descended to the visual dork level of a Howard Jones, with the session men sporting ridiculous mullets and straining out jazzed up sax and guitar versions of the tunes which made Floyd great, accompanied by David Gilmour's silly and irksome growling. The point of this album? Another buck in the billfold.
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Not that good. Pulse is better.
pinkflyd27 September 1998
This concert video is badly edited and weak. Wayne Isham does not know how to film a concert. Everything seems to be in slow motion. And "Comfortably Numb" is horribly edited!! For a much better film of Pink Floyd in concert, get "Pulse" instead. Or even "Pink Floyd at Pompeii".
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Lots of change
shanfloyd12 February 2003
Well, "Delicate Sound of Thunder" is at least, a very provocative name. Actually this is Pink Floyd's first major concert since Waters left and I must say, lots of changes have occured for a typical Floyd show. Of them the good ones are- 1) Inclusion of other instrumental performers besides the original three, 2) The use of a round background screen for graphics; really excellent, this one. But what annoyed me is the use of three female background vocalists. They literally spoiled the show... completely destroying the psychedelic effect which was the trademark of the band.

Ultimately the heart and soul of the show became Gilmour's guitars. Brilliant... in one word. The best of the songs performed must be "Money" as it appeared to me a bit different from the original one in tunes. Wayne Isham directed the show quite well... though not as in the level of Metallica's S & M. But in all, this show is a must-see for all Floyd fans.
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Boring
El Guapo-230 September 2003
The director constantly uses a swooping camera, slow motion, and dissolves over and over and over... the result is the concert film gets very boring quickly. The documentary style that they used to film the concert, i.e. grainy, smoky footage doesn't match the visual style of slow motion and dissolves, especially when it's just repeated for every song. The backup singers were pretty hot! Pink Floyd here is really Pink Floyd version 3. Roger Waters sued Nick Mason, David Gilmour (guitar god) and Rick Wright over the use of the name "Pink Floyd" but the three remaining band members won the legal use of the name "Pink Floyd" but have to credit Waters where credit is due and pay him royalties, I think. Anyway, either the sound editing is horrible or their singing wasn't up to snuff on that day because it sounds really muffled, and along with the way the film was edited, I would not recommend this film unless you are a die hard Floydhead.
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