Interesting news…
Back on 31 August 1970, Pink Floyd headlined a free festival at Charlton Park in Bishopsbourne near Canterbury. They were last minute replacements for The Grateful Dead (also on the bill were Rod & the Faces, Caravan, Mott The Hoople, Edgar Broughton and others).
By all accounts the Floyd were fantastic that night (even Roger Waters said it was the best festival set they’d done up to that point).
Anyway, Bob Matthews, who co-founded and owned Alembic Sound Systems with Owesley Stanley and others, recorded the whole festival. Some of it was even released later (not the Floyd segment though), and Warner Bros filmed it with Panavision 35mm cameras.
The Floyd show was poorly attested, and nobody seems to remember what they played that night, and the set even escaped the attention of the bootleggers. However, when Matthews died in 2021, his tape vault found its way into the hands of Charlie Miller – a legend among Dead tapers (his tapes are sources for many a Dead live release).
In that haul were two reels containing a desk recording of Charlton Park on one-inch tape. Miller says that both the sound and musical quality of the show is spectacular, and that Sony are now looking to buy it (not sure about the film footage though).
ITKs also say that there is a lot of PF activity planned for next year (Animals 50 and Piper 60 will form a big part of that I guess) as Sony is keen to recoup the nearly half-billion dollars they shelled out for the Floyd’s masters, tape vault etc a couple of years ago.
Given the excellent quality, and commercial success of, the Pompeii and WYWH 50 releases, it looks like there is a lot to look forward to.