Hangar Rehearsals
AKA 'Rehearsals - Canada 8.87'
Recorded in Air Canada Hangar
Pearson International Airport - Toronto, Ontario
August 7, 1987

Despite the omnipresent murky darkness that tends to swallow up all of the beams of light despite the best efforts of the dry ice machines, 'Rehearsals - Canada 8.87' allows us a look at Pink Floyd and their technical crew giving their mammoth new production a dry run to see what was working and what still needed to be improved.

Apparently shot by the band's sound / light techs over two nights (judging by costume changes on the two (!) woo-woo chyx in attendance), some of this rehearsal footage was leaked to sundry media outlets during the early weeks of the 'Momentary Lapse Of Reason' tour in order to give audiences a taste of what kind of show lay in store for them. Now, far be it from me to rain down sarcasm on someone else's best intentions, but I sure hope this footage looked a hell of a lot snazzier on 'Entertainment Tonight' than it does here. To give you a rough idea what this footage looks like, imagine 'Delicate Sound Of Thunder' being played to an empty hall with far less available light on hand and no James Guthrie around to wipe away those pesky bum notes.

Aside from the darkness of the picture, there are a few other points to keep in mind on this VoIO...

* As I mentioned previously under the "Tracks" listing, this tape is made up almost entirely of snippets and chunks of songs and is *not* an entire show in itself (though, when added together, these song bits cover just about every single selection from the 1987-88 set lists with the exception of "The Great Gig In The Sky" and "Shine On You Crazy Diamond").

* With no audience in attendance save for some a few technicians in sunglasses (and possibly a lucky few outsiders), it should be rather obvious from the get-go that this isn't quite Pink Floyd at the peak of their powers. If you're looking to hear missed notes, blown lines and some just plain terrible singing (Gilmour's voice sounds damn near toasted during some of these run-throughs), then 'Rehearsals...' will certainly not disappoint.

* From watching, it's quickly apparent at this point in time that the band had not yet mastered the click tracks and visual cues in the film footage (see "Signs Of Life").

* We also get to hear "Terminal Frost" suffer from obnoxiously- mulleted Scott Page's utter mauling of Tom Scott's original alto work (while clenching and unclenching his legs in such a fashion as to suggest he had an urgent need to visit the nearest PortaSan).

You want more? Hmmm, well, "Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2)" just looks and sounds silly, a startlingly shaggy and scrappy-looking Gilmour fucks up the lyrics to "Us And Them" and "Welcome To The Machine" enough to induce a groan of exasperation . . . and in an interesting side note, "A New Machine (Part 1)" is heard while we are shown a field of color bars (you know, the kind you used to see when TV stations were shut down for the night). Draw whatever conclusions you wish from this.

While all of this may sound a little shady so far, 'Rehearsals...' *does* have a few saving graces to make it an attractive acquisition, nearly all of them musical. "Wish You Were Here" opens the collection on a strong note (Gilmour's spoken comments to the techs aside), "Money" uses just about the entire 1974 film (which didn't last very long on the road, apparently), "On The Turning Away" packs some nicepyrotechnics, "One Slip" is strangely more stripped-down than usual (and, unsurprisingly, all the better for it), "Time" features a close- in look at the band from stage-left, focusing in particular on Rick Wright, and "Run Like Hell" is played harsh, loud and fast, with little of the air of self-parody it attained over two hundred subsequent live performances.

Then there's "Echoes," which, IMO, is reason enough to seek this title out in the first place. Shown in glorious near-entirety (well, the near-entirety of it's shortened 1987 incarnation, that is) "Echoes" kicks ass largely due to its comparatively elegant simplicity, which is in stark contrast to the trudging, sequencer-dominated epics that surround it here. Performed with the same lazily twirling green-and- orange lasers on Mr. Screen (and bare-bones use of stage lighting) that were later cannibalized for "Shine On You Crazy Diamond," this pre-'Dark Side Of The Moon' warhorse (which was criminally dropped only a few weeks into the year-long tour) leaves the viewer pole axed in ways that "The Dogs Of War" and "Learning To Fly" never could -- even with all the films, lasers and VariLites in the world.

'Wish You Were Here'	'Terminal Frost'
'Echoes'	'Learning to Fly'