Pink, Eyed

If Memory Swerves™, 'twas on this day in music history — May 12, 1967 — that velveteen-panted surrealists The Pink Floyd® performed at the first-ever surround-sound concert. Dubbed the “Games For May®,” the event featured the art school noisemakers’ Quadrophonic™ sound system, which consisted of four chest-high, wood-veneer Marantz® cabinet speakers placed strategically at opposing ends of London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall — two on the stage facing the audience and two in the rear — giving the impression of a veritable book-ended orchestra of unwashed long hairs in residence, earnestly banging away on their keytars, strings and gongs to curious, cosmic fare such as “Interstellar Kallifragilistic Overdrive,” “Set The Controls To Blast Off” and “Ummagumma,” with its trademark choral chant, “Ooga-Ooga-Ooga, Chaka Ooga-Ooga.” Audiophiles and fashionistas alike were mesmerized as the high frequency, encoded signalry bounced haphazard, 4-channel sound from one speaker to another, the echoing effect controlled from the stage with a “ joy stick” dubbed the “Azimuth Thinga-majigger®,” or possibly "The Flux Capacitor." The soap bubble-machine was chug-a-lugging, the kaleidoscopic light show was a-flashing and the roadies were tossing daffodils and chemically-laced Charm® Pops into the crowd, making for an altogether sinfully intoxicating scene. The show was a high-water mark for "The Floyd" and pointed the way to future shenanigans; in time, Quadrophonics gave way to Ocotophonics, as they upped their aural ante with alarm clocks ringing, cash registers chiming, hearts thumping, ladybirds shrieking, dogs barking, pigs squealing and giraffes bleating in an infernal racket that made the "Games For May" seem like a bloody Zamfir pan flute show. Sadly, the group’s leader Syd Barrett (pictured, as best we can determine, second from right) would fall prey to a mysterious shape-shifting malady, but for that one night in '67, he and the lads were all comfortably numb, shining on like crazy pink diamonds.