No. 693 – Hey You

Performer: Pink Floyd

Songwriters Roger Waters

Original Release: The Wall

Year: 1979

Definitive Version: P.U.L.S.E., 1995

If the headline act for Memorial Day Weekend 1994 was the Indy 500, then the show opener was Pink Floyd at Municipal Stadium in Cleveland.

Muni Stadium, may it rest in pieces at the bottom of Lake Erie, was not-always-lovingly called the Mistake By the Lake for a reason. It was right on the lake, so it was affected by wind, snow, fog and what-have-you. Although it was nothing like Candlestick Park in San Francisco, you never really knew what the weather was going to be until you got there.

Well, when Scott and his crew (John and Chris) and I met up south of Cleveland at the hotel at which we were going to stay, we had a pretty good idea. It was the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, but that day as the unofficial start of summer was in name only. The sky was November slate gray, and it was at least long pants and jacket weather. The Indiana contingent hadn’t prepared for this.

The good news was because I was beginning the move from Flint to Columbus my trunk was full of clothes, including long-sleeve shirts and sweatshirts. Everyone threw on extra layers, and we headed into town.

I had been to a concert at Muni Stadium, so I was well aware of the outright scariness of the hallways underneath. In short, they were way too narrow to shuttle 80,000 folks properly to their seats, so when enough people are there at once, which I would imagine would have been any Browns game or concert, everyone was shoulder to shoulder, and you had to ride the wave of humanity to get anywhere.

Fortunately, Scott had gotten choice seats about even with the sound and light truck/control center on the middle of the field—30 rows from center stage—so we didn’t have to be in the catacombs for long.

And loading up on the extra clothing was absolutely the right call. If it were chilly out in the hinterlands where we met up, it was downright miserable downtown. The clouds hung lower and the mercury in the thermometer rested lower. Occasionally, the sky spat drizzle, although—thankfully—it never fully opened up.

But who cared? We were about to see Pink Floyd. The concerts I had seen in Chicago in 1987 and 1988 made me a fan, so it could have been snowing and 10 below and I wouldn’t have rather been anywhere else.

Neither would most of the rest of the crowd. We started talking to this dude who was in front of us who had “prepared” for the concert very well. He said in a jovial if slightly slurred voice that he’d seen Pink Floyd back in 1969 when they were first getting started and couldn’t wait for this show.

The band hit the stage and fired up Astronomy Domine, which was from their first album in 1967, and lit up the video screen behind the stage with a quintessential Sixties colored pulsing amoeba under the microscope. Awesome! The dude roared, “Yeah, it’s just like when I saw them the first time!”

But the dude’s enthusiasm waned quickly. The second song was from the new album, The Division Bell, and he was soon on his butt on the seat. By the third song, which I think was Learning to Fly, he was slumped over in his chair fast asleep.

When I saw them the first two times, Pink Floyd neatly divided the show. They started with an oldie before playing almost all of Momentary Lapse of Reason in its entirety and in order. In the second half, they blew through a set of all their biggies. This time it was more mixed between older and newer stuff, although for the most part, they kept the newer stuff to the first half of the show.

The finale was Comfortably Numb, and, sure enough, our friend was living up to that title. He had seen, as far as I could tell, the first song and slept through the rest of the show. Dude, if you just wanted to get hammered to Pink Floyd, you could have stayed home and pocketed the $75. You know, $75 buys a lot of beer.

The first song of the encore was Hey You, which they hadn’t played in 1987-88, and it was great to hear. And I swear to God, at the chilly opening guitar notes, the dude in front of us awoke, stood straight up with clenched fist raised high while emitting a full-throated “YEEEEEEAAAAAHHHHHHHH!” as if he’d been alert the entire time … before promptly collapsing in his chair back to his blissful slumber. It was one of the most awesome things I’ve ever seen.

When the show ended, we had an easier time getting out of the stadium than we had getting in, although we had to dodge a few drunks keeled over looking for a good spot to relieve themselves of their over-preparation. As for our friend, he was hustled out as soon as the concert ended, and we saw no more of him.

But we had a good time on the drive back to our motel trying to imagine how his recounting of the show went for those not in the know. My hypothesis was the winner: “Oh man! You shudda been there! They played all of Dark Side, all of The Wall and even all of Wish You Were Here! The encore? Echoes! It was the most amazing concert I ever saw!”