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Some of THE earliest Pink Floyd performance footage & promotional films!

Throughout the ‘60s as England followed San Francisco in the wave of peace rallies, beatniks and LSD, people such as John “Hoppy” Hopkins helped lead the underground revolution with newsletters that upset the righteous politicians and law officials, produced fundraising events with a gathering known as UFO (not the band) & staged concert events to also help raise money to aid in publishing their paper and fund their freedom school in the infamous Notting Hill district of London. A lot of these concerts featured many bands, some who gained a bit of notoriety and a lot that disappeared into the cosmos. “A Technicolor Dream” was one such event, 14-hours with two stages that promoted nearly 50 bands, poets and performance artists on the bill.

The band that rose to superstardom, and whose birth and growth is witnessed through a lot of old film in A Technicolor Dream, (the title of the DVD that is the primary subject of this documentary) is the one and only Pink Floyd. This DVD, filled with two-and-a-half hours of interviews and rare footage, includes Pink Floyd back before Syd burned out and Gilmour joined.  Besides interviewing some of Floyd’s managers, one of their recording engineers, Hoppy, Phil May of The Pretty Things and a few other people important to “A Technicolor Dream,” the disc includes quite a few interviews with founding members of Pink Floyd, drummer Nick Mason and bassist Roger Waters. There are even a couple of pieces with Paul McCartney & Ringo Starr as well as footage of John Lennon attending the show. Although Lennon wasn’t dating Yoko Ono at the time, he knew her and she was a guest artist on the bill with an interesting performance piece that involved many people cutting the clothes off of a woman.

The documentary covers the early beginnings of what would become the Summer of Love, the underground and shows just how important these countercultural events lead up to some important changes in Britain and even the world. These people, like their contemporaries in North America, would help to change some of the ways that young people were treated and regarded as well as some social and political changes. True, neither country was able to change the mind of their respective governments when it came to “Peace” and “No Nukes,” but the teens and young adults did make a difference.

In addition, there are some great interviews not only about how Pink Floyd came into being and a great amount of insight into what Syd Barret was all about, but the performance footage is really quite amazing considering the age of the footage and the medium on which it was shot and recorded. Some of the footage is live from “A Technicolor Dream” event and some of it is from the early promotional films (before they were called music videos) by the band.

The extras in the Bonus Material section includes a handful of extended interviews that are quite entertaining. The portions of live performances and videos are also seen in their entirety. These include “Astronomy Domine,” “Scarecrow” and “Arnold Layne.”

The DVD is widescreen, has English and French subtitles and can be heard in Dolby Digital Stereo. There is some nudity and obscene language, but it is very minimal.

A Technicolor Dream is a significant look at an era an an informative collection of Pink Floyd history.  At the very least, I would say that this is a must-have for any true Pink Floyd fan.

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