Box Set Review Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here 50: Deluxe Edition (Part 2 of 2)

Continued from Part One…

LP4: Live at Wembley 1974
In June 1974 – more than a year before Wish You Were Here was released, and in fact more than six months before recording sessions even commenced – Pink Floyd played seven dates in France. And while the then-new The Dark Side of the Moon was the centerpiece of those shows, the performances opened with three epic pieces. “Echoes” from 1970’s Meddle was part of that set, but it was preceded by a pair of new extended pieces. “Raving and Drooling” would surface, re-titled as “Sheep” on Pink Floyd’s 1977 Animals, but the group debuted an embryonic version of it two and a half years earlier. Those shows also featured the premiere of “Shine On You Crazy Diamond,” again well before its studio recording sessions.

In November 1974, Pink Floyd commenced a longer run of dates in England, Wales and Scotland, playing 20 shows in 40 days. Those performances dropped the encore of “Careful With That Axe, Eugene,” moving “Echoes” to that spot. And the opening set added another future Animals piece, “You’ve Got to Be Crazy” (later re-titled “Dogs”) to the set. At least 11 of those 20 shows were recorded by fans and circulate among collectors. BBC Radio 1 recorded two of the November dates at London’s Wembley pool, broadcasting a compiled The Dark Side of the Moon live set in January 1975.

For those without access to those bootleg recordings, hearing an entire ‘74 Pink Floyd show remains a confusing challenge. An entire concert’s worth of music from the Wembley shows has been released officially, but at present, interested parties must reconstruct it from multiple sources. The second set (Pink Floyd performing The Dark Side of the Moon) was released as part of the 2011 Experience and Immersion reissues of DSOTM. The Wembley “Echoes” appears only on the 2016 box set The Early Years 1965-1972, within that collection’s Volume 7: 1967-1972 Continu/ation. While Volumes 1 through 6 have been released as standalone sets, the only way to acquire Continu/ation would be to purchase the entire box set, now out of print.

The Wembley live recordings of “Shine on You Crazy Diamond” and “You’ve Got to Be Crazy” (the latter in its sixth-ever public performance) were first released on the 2011 Wish You Were Here Experience and Immersion CD sets, and make their first-ever appearance on vinyl as part of this new box set. (Those out-of-print 2011 releases also included “Raving and Drooling,” re-titled for Animals as “Pigs,” but that track is not included on Wish You Were Here 50.)

CDs 1 and 2
Wish You Were Here 50: Deluxe Edition features all of the material from the first three vinyl LPs, spread across a pair of CDs. However, and adding to the frustration surrounding the Wembley recordings, those live versions of “Shine on You Crazy Diamond” and “You’ve Got to Be Crazy” are not included on the CDs, nor on the Blu-Ray disc (discussed below).

Blu-Ray
A Blu-Ray disc brings together much of what is on the set’s vinyl records and CDs, but it adds so much more, making it the centerpiece of the entire box set. The graphics are top-notch, the menu is organized and straightforward, and photos from the accompanying book (see below) are cleverly worked into the onscreen images that play along with the audio.

Speaking of audio: The original Wish You Were Here album is featured in no less than four configurations: its original 1975 mix, a quadraphonic mix from that same year, James Guthrie’s 2009 5.1 Surround Mix created for the Immersion set; and a brand-new Dolby Atmos mix (again by Guthrie). The latter has the expansive, multidimensional feel one expects from an Atmos mix, while maintaining the integrity of the source material.

Concert screen films that were projected during Pink Floyd’s tours of the era are included on the Blu-Ray as well, along with a short film from 2000 by Storm Thorgeson, the artist/designer whose Hipgnosis was responsible for much of Pink Floyd’s distinctive visuals. The entirety of the Rarities material found on the LPs and CDs is duplicated on the Blu-Ray, but (as noted above) the Wembley tracks are not included.

What is included, however, is something that will be of great value to ardent Pink Floyd fans. The idea of giving sanctioned release to bootlegs or ROIOs (Recording of Illegitimate/Indeterminate Origin) is not new: Frank Zappa famously did so with his Beat the Boots series in 1991. And the Pink Floyd camp hinted at doing something along those lines twice in recent years, posting without advance notice or comment – and then just as quickly removing – complete concert recordings from across their career on streaming services. It was widely understood that the motive behind such a gambit was to assert copyright on those fan recordings, laying the groundwork for future above-ground release.

Live Bootleg: Los Angeles Sports Arena, April 26, 1975 is the first sign that such a larger program may have commenced. Sourced from low-generation copies of tapes made by legendary bootlegger Mike Millard, the performance is captured in fidelity remarkable for the era. Using a stereo reel-to-reel deck concealed below the seat of his wheelchair, Millard (who could walk just fine, thank you) recorded many high-profile rock concerts of the era. And his document of one of Pink Floyd’s L.A shows is among his best.

Unlike Zappa’s method of merely reproducing the bootleg audio and putting it out for release, Pink Floyd have undertaken a more creative approach. When rock fans began to hear the remarkable remix/remaster work done by Steven Wilson on some of rock’s best recordings (including the works of King Crimson, Genesis, Gentle Giant, Tears for Fears and others), many will have wished that Wilson be granted access to the Pink Floyd catalog, perhaps working his particular brand of magic on those already-superb master recordings.

While that wasn’t to be – James Guthrie seemingly has an iron grip on those duties – Wilson was tapped to remix the audio for an item long existing just outside the official Pink Floyd canon: Pink Floyd at Pompeii. His work – released in 2025 on vinyl, CD and on a new theatrical print of the film – reveals heretofore unheard depth and nuance to what was already a pretty fair audiovisual document.

And while there are no multi-track masters of Millard’s tapes (he was working with a bulky “portable” Nakamichi two-track deck), Steven Wilson has done an excellent job of tidying up, re-EQing and otherwise subtly improving the Los Angeles Sports Arena recordings.

Ephemera
Somewhat amusingly, the Wish You Were Here 50: Deluxe Edition includes a sleeve – designed to duplicate the look and feel of an LP jacket – titled Ephemera. Within the sleeve is a faithful reproduction of the Pink Floyd “comic book” music program from 1975 tour dates. There’s also a full-size poster, and a hard-back sleeve containing a reproduction of the Japan-only 7” single “Have a Cigar” b/w “Welcome to the Machine.” The A-side features a shorter edit of the song.

Packaging
As is customary where Pink Floyd collector’s reissues are concerned, the packaging on Wish You Were Here 50: Deluxe Edition is impeccable. The LP sleeves each feature beautiful full-color art. And the heavy duty case – all black, no lettering or graphics – is nicely constructed. An LP-sized hardback book features illuminating essays, graphics and photos that help tell the story of the original album’s making, the design and photo sessions for its distinctive sleeve, and the provenance/genesis of the bonus material. Of particular interest are some heretofore unseen images documenting the unexpected visit to EMI Studios by Pink Floyd founder Syd Barrett.

Taken as a whole – and with a price tag of more than $230 – Wish You Were Here 50: Deluxe Edition is clearly aimed at serious fans of Pink Floyd and/or collectors. A great deal of care has been put into the release’s development, and the new bonus material (the Atmos mix, the Millard bootleg by way of Steven Wilson, the 45 r.p.m. record, the book) and the first-ever vinyl appearance of much of the music come together to make it a very worthwhile purchase, one that adds to the experience, enjoyment, appreciation and understanding of Pink Floyd’s landmark ninth studio album.