David Gilmour: Live at Pompeii Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		5.0
Video		5.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		5.0
Overall		5.0

David Gilmour: Live at Pompeii Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 6, 2017

It’s perhaps indicative of the enduring popularity of Pink Floyd and/or David Gilmour that Columbia is releasing two editions of Live at Pompeii (this one and a standard edition). Pink Floyd has been at the forefront of some really beautiful Blu-ray releases, including Pink Floyd: The Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd: Wish You Were Here, Pink Floyd: The Division Bell and Pink Floyd: The Endless River (there’s also Pink Floyd: The Early Years for those who don’t go into sticker shock at the sight of the price), though at least some of those releases tended to skimp a bit on video quality (often due to the source). One thing that has not made it to Blu-ray yet, at least that I’ve been able to find, is the 1972 documentary film Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii (culled from an October 1971 series of concerts the band gave), though evidently a CD of the concert is included in the massive Early Years set (reportedly initially due to an accidental release which was intended to be another CD). One of the interesting things about the Pink Floyd performances is that they were done (largely) without an audience (a few hangers on were in attendance, as is mentioned in a supplement included with this current release), something that made this particular “concert film” a bit of an anomaly in the general era of Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music and Monterey Pop. That salient fact meant that when David Gilmour returned to the Pompeii Amphitheater in July 2016, this time with a smallish (for “arena rock” venues, anyway) audience in the low thousands in attendance, he became the first public performance at the venue in literally thousands of years.

There’s something incredibly evocative, maybe even mystically and magically mysterious, about the Pompeii Amphitheater, especially since the erstwhile “seats” are now more or less overgrown with grass, and the audience for this concert stands in the center of the arena, exactly where I imagine gladiators once fought to the death there (though historian Mary Beard makes it clear that some of our more fanciful ideas about gladiators and amphitheaters may be just that — fanciful). With a huge video array behind him which looks for all the world like a Stargate, Gilmour and his band offer a somewhat spacy set that tends to traffic in an almost quasi-ambient feeling a lot of the time, something that suits the setting perhaps surprisingly well.

This is as much a kind of performance art as it is a concert, and that may account at least in part for why as musically nuanced as much of the concert footage is, there's very little "grandstanding" in terms of over the top solos and the like. The band is incredibly unified, moving through an appealing wide assortment of material from both Pink Floyd and solo Gilmour efforts, and director Gavin Elder commendably shies away from quick cuts and manic editing to provide a really flowing account of the performances.

The main concert Blu-ray disc contains the following tracks:

Part 1

5 A.M.
Rattle That Lock
Faces of Stone
What Do You Want From Me
The Blue
The Great Gig in the Sky
A Boat Lies Waiting
Wish You Were Here
Money
In Any Tongue
High Hopes

Part 2

One of These Days
Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts 1 - 5)
Fat Old Sun
Coming Back to Life
On an Island
Today
Sorrow
Run Like Hell
Time / Breathe (In the Air) (Reprise)
Comfortably Numb

David Gilmour: Live at Pompeii Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

David Gilmour: Live at Pompeii is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Sony Music with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This was reportedly shot in 4K, but I have no authoritative data on what resolution the DI was finished at, but one way or the other, this is one of the more stunning live concert videos I've had the pleasure of watching and reviewing. Despite a shadowy environment, and various "masking" techniques that include some pretty aggressive lighting regimens as well as incidental elements like smoke from some huge torchlit fires surrounding the amphitheater, detail levels remain remarkably intact throughout the presentation. There are moments bathed in deep blues that might have produced posterizing in other releases, but here, while there's some slight "glowing" quality to skin tones at times due to the lighting choices, there really aren't any artifacts to speak of. Even the pixellated display behind Gilmour and the band looks relatively sharp, though it seems like some of the source video projected there may have been interlaced, as some very brief but unintrusive combing artifacts may be noticed by the most eagle eyed.

Screenshots 1 - 10 are from the concert, while screenshots 11 -18 are from the various supplements found on the second bonus Blu-ray disc included in this Deluxe Edition.

David Gilmour: Live at Pompeii Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Both the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and LPCM 2.0 tracks are 96/24, and as expected they both sound fantastic. I personally was a little surprised that even with the wider soundstage and spatial separation on the surround track, the vocals were still mixed nicely forward (something that I haven't always experienced on live concert Blu-rays). Gilmour's love of massed synth pads and guitar beds never sounds "crowded", even in the stereo mix, and there's really appealing clarity throughout all frequency ranges. Balance is typically very good between the instrumentalists, and even the great backup singers aren't ever buried in the mix.

David Gilmour: Live at Pompeii Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Disc One

• Pompeii Then and Now (1080p; 7:16) finds Gilmour and company touring the amphitheater, which has copious photo documentation of Pink Floyd's 1971 appearance there. Gilmour also receives an honored citizen award.

Disc Two is exclusive to this set and consists entirely of additional bonus material.

• Music


• South America 2015 (1080p; 35:38) includes:

  Astronomy Domine

  Us and Them

  Today

  Time / Breathe (In the Air) (Reprise)

  Comfortably Numb

• Wroclaw 2016 (1080p; 29:43) includes:

  5 A.M.

  Rattle That Lock

  Dancing Right in Front of Me

  The Girl in the Yellow Dress (with Lester Mozdzer)

  In Any Tongue

  Note: There's a kind of odd authoring decision on this submenu, with a "Play All" option that actually only plays the South America 2015 tracks. To start the Wroclaw 2016 concert, it's necessary to click on the 5 A.M. listing. Both concerts have LPCM 2.0 or DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 audio.

• Documentaries


• Europe 2015 (1080p; 12:33)
• South America 2015 (1080p; 14:58)
• North America 2016 (1080p; 15:27)
• Europe 2016 (1080p; 16:57)
• David Gilmour: Wider Horizons (1080p; 1:11:35)

Note: All of the "continental" documentaries have lots of candid footage, along with interviews. David Gilmour: Wider Horizons is a much more in depth piece and kind of ironically reminded me of some elements of Roger Waters: The Wall in terms of providing some biographical background information. All of the documentaries feature LPCM 2.0 audio.

Additionally, this Deluxe Edition comes housed in an attractive slipbox which also contains 4 heavy cardstock postcards, a (folded) poster, an interesting booklet called The Amphitheater at Pompeii which features an interview with historian Mary Beard (also seen in the featurette on disc one), a hardback book with some brief text and lots of pictures of the event, and 2 CDs featuring audio of the entire concert.

David Gilmour: Live at Pompeii Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

David Gilmour: Live at Pompeii is one of the more gorgeous looking and sounding concert Blu-ray releases I've had the pleasure of reviewing recently, and it certainly should appeal to Gilmour and Pink Floyd fans. This Deluxe Edition is handsomely packaged and comes with some excellent supplements. Technical merits are first rate and David Gilmour: Live at Pompeii comes Highly recommended.