Pigs are heavily featured in the artwork and stage shows of the progressive rock band Pink Floyd.
Inflatable Pink Floyd pigs were one of the staple props of their live shows. The first was a sow, but a very obviously male pig appeared in the 1980s. Pigs appeared numerous times in concerts by the band, promoting concerts and record releases, and on the cover of their 1977 album Animals.
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Animals
The original Pink Floyd pig was designed by Roger Waters and built in December 1976 by the artist Jeffrey Shaw with help of Designers team Hipgnosis[1], in preparation for shooting the cover of the Animals album. Plans were made to fly the forty-foot, helium-filled balloon over Battersea Power Station on the first day's photo-shoot, with a marksman prepared to shoot the pig down if it broke free. However, the pig was not launched.
On the second day, the marksman wasn't present because no one had told him to return, and the pig broke free due to a strong gust of wind on the third day, gaining a lot of press coverage. It disappeared from sight within five minutes, and was spotted by airline pilots at forty thousand feet in the air. Flights at Heathrow Airport were cancelled as the huge inflatable pig flew through the path of aircraft, eastwards from Britain and out over the English Channel, finally landing on a rural farm in Kent that night.
The pig was recovered and repaired for the resumption of photography for the album cover, but unfortunately the sky was cloudless and blue, thus "boring". However, the pictures of the sky from the first day were suitable; eventually, the album cover was created using a composite of photos from the first and third days.[2]
The pig that was originally floated above Battersea Power Station was called "Algie".[3]
In the Flesh
After the album Animals was released in 1977, Pink Floyd began their "In the Flesh" tour. During concerts, the pig appeared around the PA stacks in a cloud of black smoke during performances of "Pigs (Three Different Ones)".
The pig also went astray whilst suspended from the ceiling of the Pete Maravich Assembly Center in Baton Rouge Louisiana in 1977[citation needed]. It ran back and forth over the audience during the performance on some sort of track, and at the end of its travels across the arena struck a fan in the head as it turned to go back toward the stage[citation needed].
The Wall
The pig also appeared during each of Pink Floyd's The Wall concerts, black instead of pink, with a crossed hammers logo on its side. Waters would occasionally refer to it directly before "Run Like Hell" (the pig appeared during the end of the previous song, "In the Flesh"). A short speech in reference to either the pig or the song was given in every show, with each speech being different; this oddity is used by bootleggers to identify which date a recording of the Wall tour was made on. At the Berlin concert, it was only the head and it had fangs.
The post-Waters pig
The 1987/88/89 tour, the band added testicles to the pig to avoid legal action from departed band member Roger Waters who sued his bandmates from carrying on without him.
During the 1994 tour, two warthog-like pigs with protruding tongues were shown at the top of the stage side's speaker towers, sometimes just deflated, sometimes dropped on the ground after "One of These Days".
The pig made another appearance before the release of Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd, when Capitol Records flew a replica of the original pig from Animals over the Capitol Tower in Hollywood, California.
One inflatable pig, badly damaged and believed to be from the 1988 Pink Floyd tour, was repaired by Nga Keith and flown again over a concert by the band String Cheese Incident in Austin, Texas on September 20, 2003. Reportedly purchased by String Cheese Incident manager Mike Luba from a former Pink Floyd stagehand, the 40-foot pig flew again over the Austin City Limits Music Festival audience during a cover of Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)". The full story of the pig, its repair, and return to flight is detailed in this article at Austin360.com.
Reunion
During their Live 8 reunion with Waters, footage of the original pig, over Battersea Power Station, was shown on a giant video screen behind the band.
Roger Waters solo tours
Main Article: Inflatable pigs on Roger Waters' tours.
- During a concert in Summerfest 2006, The Pig had a message printed on it reading "Impeach George W. Bush"
- During Waters' performance at the 2008 Coachella Festival, one of the giant inflatable pigs being used as a prop became untethered and floated away into the California desert. Organizers of the festival have offered a $10,000 reward plus free lifetime tickets to the festival in return for the pig's recovery. The pig was found three days later at a nearby country club.[4]
- Likewise, during the concert in Dallas, TX on May 2, 2008, and Houston, TX on May 4, the pig floated away again. No news yet on its whereabouts.
References
- ^ "Jeffrey Shaw, «Pig for Pink Floyd»". medienkunstnetz.de. http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/pig-for-pink-floyd/. Retrieved 2009-05-21.
- ^ ""The Album Covers of Pink Floyd", By Storm Thorgerson, Hipgnosis Design, London.". superseventies.com. http://www.superseventies.com/floydcvr.html. Retrieved 2009-05-21.
- ^ "Austin Scaggs, A Pig's Tale: Roger Waters Traces the History of Rock's Most Famous Prop.". rollingstone.com. http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/20877304/a_pigs_tale_roger_waters_traces_the_history_of_rocks_most_famous_prop. Retrieved 2009-05-21.
- ^ Pig found in La Quinta country club
- "The Work of Hipgnosis: Walk Away Rene" by Storm Thorgerson, (New York: A & W Visual Library, 1978), ISBN 0-89104-105-2.
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