Pink Floyd pigs
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Pigs feature heavily in the artwork and stage shows of the progressive rock band Pink Floyd.
Inflatable Pink Floyd pigs are 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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[edit] Animals
The original Pink Floyd pig was designed by Roger Waters and built in December 1976 in preparation for shooting the cover of the Animals album. The 40 foot, helium- filled balloon was flown over Battersea Power Station on the first day's photo-shoot, with a marksman prepared to shoot the pig down if it broke free. The pig didn't escape, but none of the photos taken that day were considered usable.
On the second day, the marksman wasn't present and the pig supposedly "broke free" (gaining a lot of press coverage) after a huge gust of wind. It disappeared from sight, and was spotted by airline pilots at 40,000 feet in the air. Flights at Heathrow Airport were cancelled as the huge inflatable pig flew through the path of aircraft, eastwards from Britain, over the English Channel, finally landing on a rural farm in Kent that night. [1]
The pig was recovered and repaired for the resumption of photography for the album cover, but unfortunately the sky was cloudless and blue, and eventually the album cover was created using a composite of photos from the first and second day.
The pig that was originally floated above Battersea Power Station was called 'Algie'.
[edit] 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; appropriately during the performance 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. 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 towards the stage. The fan was not injured.
[edit] 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 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.
[edit] The post-Waters pig
After Roger Waters left the band in 1984, following the release of The Final Cut, he retained the copyright of the original design of the pig. He demanded $800 USD for every time the remaining members of Pink Floyd appeared with the pig. Not wanting to pay that, they changed the pig's gender, adding testicles.
In the two post-Waters tours, the pig was used many times; but two of the pigs were lost, both during the A Momentary Lapse of Reason tours:
- One 12-meter pig being used at a record company function on January 28, 1988 broke free before a concert.
- On May 6, 1988 one of the band's larger pigs descended towards the crowd and was ripped apart by fans during a concert in Foxboro, Massachusetts.
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. It took a total of 350 hours to create.
One inflatable pig, badly damaged and believed to be from the 1988 Pink Floyd tour, was repaired 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.
[edit] 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. Amusingly, it was the band's first performance with Roger Waters in twenty-four years, adding to the joke that pigs were flying now that the band had finally reunited.
[edit] Roger Waters Solo Tours
[edit] Dark Side of the Moon Tour 2006
On September 6, 2006 during a performance of Roger Waters performing his 'Dark Side of the Moon' tour, at the PNC Arts Center in Holmdel, New Jersey, he lost yet another pig. The pig was led around by a small group (four handlers and security), from what was witnessed it looked as if one of the cables used to guide the helium filled pig around the arena had broken when they reached the garden seating section. What looked like a planned launching of the pig, actually was unintended, this was confirmed by Waters' exclamation, "I lost my fucking pig" at the end of the show.
On September 9 in Mansfield, MA a helium filled pig was again brought out by handlers and walked around the Tweeter Center, but was then released intentionally during the last minute or two of the song Sheep. The timing was impeccable and the pig could be seen for some time as it floated in the sky towards the moon. According to newspaper reports, the pig was used in the same manner on September 8th in Mansfield, MA, as well as at the Jones Beach Theater on September 15,where another pig was adorned with graffiti and reports said it could be seen from the expressway nearby.
On September 16 at the Tweeter Center in Camden, NJ, a pig was again walked around during Sheep, and again was released at the end of the song. This pig had several lyrics to the song written on it, as well as "Don't be led to slaughter, Vote Nov. 2nd." "Impeach Bush Now" was written on the rear end.
On September 20 in Toronto, ON, the pig's bottom right hoof was decorated with the Mercedes-Benz symbol, which bears a close relation to the likely intended candidate, a peace symbol. This may have been the case at multiple shows.
On September 23 near Washington, DC, and on September 24 in Pittsburgh, PA, the pig was decorated once more with "Don't be led to slaughter, Vote Nov. 2nd" along with several other slogans, including "Habeas Corpus matters, a lot!" and "Kafka Rules OK!". The pig was set free during the song Sheep and was tracked by a searchlight.
On September 29 at First Midwest Bank Ampitheatre in Tinley Park, IL, the pig was decorated with "Don't be led to slaughter, Vote Nov. 2nd" along with several other slogans, including "Habeas Corpus matters, a lot!" and "Kafka Rules OK!". The pig was set free during the song Sheep.
On September 30 at Verizon Wireless Music Center in Indianapolis, IN, the pig was decorated with many of the slogans from September 29th's show, but also had "Impeach Bush Now" written on the pig's backside.
On October 5 at the Hollywood Bowl in Hollywood, CA, a pig was walked around and released. Some of the slogans decorating the pig were "Kafka Rules OK!" on the pig's side, "Impeach Bush Now" on the pig's backside, and "Free at Last", written on the pig's underbelly and visible only when it rose high in the air. As viewed from the Bowl, the pig seemed to head straight for the moon, which was a few nights away from being a perigee full moon.
On October 10 at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, CA, a pig was released into the crowd during a performance of "Sheep" from the "Animals" album. The slogans on the pig read, "Kafka rules ok," "Impeach Bush Now," "Don't Be Led To Slaughter," "Free At Last," "Vote Nov. 2nd," "Habeas Corpus Matters A Lot!." There was also a scrawl of an American flag with a hammer and sickle in place of the stars, as well as a peace symbol. The pig soon ascended into the atmosphere. Waters jokingly exclaimed after the song, "Has anybody seen my pig?"
On October 12 at Key Arena in Seattle, Washington, a remotely controlled version of the same pig was piloted around the arena during the song Sheep.
[edit] Trivia
- The Pig can be seen in many episodes of Nickelodeon's animated series Invader Zim. In the episode "Attack of the Saucer Morons", Zim disguises his Voot cruiser as a floating Pig. Zim gets caught by UFO watchers but escapes in the flying pig. After a bee hits his pig, it crashes into an extraterrestrial science convention. Zim's flight on this pig is based on the time the pig escaped the grasp of Pink Floyd.
- The Pig has also appeared on The Simpsons. It was featured in the episode "Homerpalooza" where it was used by Peter Frampton. Frampton mentions that he bought the pig at "Pink Floyd's yard sale". Another instance of The Pig appeared in Lisa the Vegetarian, where a roasted pig is jettisoned by a clogged dam and flies past the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant.
- The song "The Air is Getting Slippery" by Primus (from their Pork Soda album, whose cover features a pig's head), includes the lyrics "If you've studied your Floyd properly / You'd know that pigs could fly". Primus are known to be big Pink Floyd fans, and have covered several Pink Floyd songs, both on stage and on disc (including "Have a Cigar" on the Miscellaneous Debris album).
- In the film Children of Men, homage is paid to the cover of Animals in the scene where Theodore Faron (played by Clive Owen) first meets the character of Nigel (Danny Huston). This scene clearly shows a large scale replica of the pig, apparently overlooking Battersea Power Station.
- The B-side of the Leyton Buzzards' single "I'm Hanging Around" featured a track titled "No Dry Ice Or Flying Pigs
[edit] References
"The Work of Hipgnosis: Walk Away Rene" by Storm Thorgerson, (New York: A & W Visual Library, 1978), ISBN 0-89104-105-2.
