Featured Essay: A Ghost Among the Ruins: Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii

by Vincent T. Ciaramella

PART 1: SET THE CONTROLS FOR THE HEART OF THIS ARTICLE

Memory and music walk hand-and-hand. Don’t believe me? Just ask the next ten people you run into if there is a song or album that reminds them of a particular time and/or place in their lives. I bet you’ll get ten different answers and ten unique stories. If you read my last article on Captain Beyond and rare 70’s vinyl, you might remember that I am a psychology teacher and an area that really fascinates me is memory. When it comes to memory formation, music can play a powerful role in that process. It’s the sounds of our autobiography. Music can also help us retrieve memories, especially those from long ago, lost in the deep archives of our brain. While this piece isn’t meant to be a dissertation on memory in the classroom sense, I want to share with you a piece of music that transports me across time and space to summers long ago and a quest to a find a legendary concert played in a city of the dead, Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii.

PART 2: THE ECHOES OF A DISTANT TIME

This story begins back in the spring of 1993. I was about to finish my freshman year of high school and was looking forward to summer break. I was at my buddy Bob’s house, and we were listening to Pink Floyd. While I can’t remember all the fine details (memory after all is a physical thing that decays), his older brother came into the room and mentioned that Pink Floyd played a concert in the ruins of Pompeii, and they filmed it. THEY FILMED IT?! As soon as I heard that my brain went into overdrive. Oh my God, how do I see this? Remember, this was a time before Netflix, Prime, heck, even home internet was in its infancy, and I wasn’t yet plugged into the World Wide Web. I needed to find this a.s.a.p. But how? It wasn’t like I could order it on Amazon. Well, the story ends there for now and picks back up a few months later on a barrier island just off the coast of North Carolina.

That summer, like every summer, my family went on vacation to the Outer Banks, just off the coast of North Carolina. Ever heard of them? Most likely you have if you’ve ever heard the names Orville and Wilbur Wright. If you don’t know who they are or what they have to do with the Outer Banks, stop reading now and go look it up. But for those of you that know about the history of flight, we can move forward. Let’s see, where was I? Yes, ok. I am on the island of Kill Devil Hills with my family and my buddy, Mike (my parents let me bring a friend). Both of us were really into music and collecting CD’s. Yes, I am aware this is a vinyl blog, but it was 1993 after all and vinyl was a moldy oldie in your grandparents’ basement that nobody wanted.  Anyway, we decided one afternoon to walk up to a local record store called Lit Records and Snowboards. The shop was located upstairs on the second floor of a wooden building that looked like a set piece from the 1980’s film, Popeye. The guy who owned Lit was super nice. He talked to us about music, showed us some of his favorites, and said if there was something that we wanted that wasn’t in stock, he could get it by the next day as he had to go to the distributor to pick up some orders. Well, I figured it was a long shot, but I asked him if he could get a copy of Pink Floyd: Life at Pompeii? I was waiting for a “nope” but instead he said he’d look. Fast forward to the next day and there was a brand-new VHS copy of the concert waiting for me. What luck! But the house we were staying in had no VCR…damn it! I would have to wait until I got home to see this legendary show.

PART III: CAREFUL WITH THAT DESCRIPTION, EUGENE.

In short, Live at Pompeii is Pink Floyd and a sound crew playing in the amphitheater to the ghosts of the dead. The setlist is composed of all pre-Darkside of the Moon material. The film itself also contains interviews with members of the band, spliced in with shots of the ruins with the band exploring the landscape, and Pink Floyd in the studio recording Darkside of the Moon. It’s something that needs to be seen by everyone that calls themselves a Pink Floyd fan. You will not be disappointed. But what does that have to do with vinyl? Well…

PART IV: A SAUCERFUL OF MEMORY

Over the following years, Live at Pompeii was the soundtrack to my summers at the beach. I found a bootleg CD and it became my travel companion. At night, after everyone went to bed, I would sit in a chair out on the deck of the house and watch the heat lightning dance on the horizon as the thunderous bass of One of These Days rumbled from the crappy speakers of my cheap headphones. As the era of MP3’s dawned, I converted the CD and was able to take it with me, along with ten thousand other things that I most likely would never listen to. Then, it was finally given an official CD/digital release with Pink Floyd box set The Early Years 1965-1972. Yet, a proper vinyl release was not on the horizon. Fast forward to 2025 and the vinyl release of Live at Pompeii is finally here! As soon as it was announced, I told my 9-year-old son and vinyl collecting partner, Enzo, and he agreed that it needed to be a part of our collection. On April 27, 2025, we even went to the theater to see Live at Pompeii on the big screen in all its glory. Now, after decades, I finally hold a true physical copy of the greatest concert of all time on vinyl in my hands. What new memories will this record help create? Only time will tell. However, I can safely say that the ghost of my youth will forever walk among the ruins, stopping by to visit memories frozen in time, much like the people of Pompeii.

Track Listing:

Side A

1. Pompeii Intro
2. Echoes - Part 1
3. Careful With That Axe, Eugene

Side B

1. A Saucerful of Secrets
2. Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun

Side C

1. One of These Days
2. Mademoiselle Nobs
3. Echoes - Part 2

Side D

1. Careful With that Axe, Eugene - Alternate take
2. A Saucerful of Secrets - Unedited

Vincent T. Ciaramella is a high school Psychology teacher by trade, Vince is also a published author with ten books and multiple articles under his belt including published works through SABR (Society for American Baseball Research), IBRO (International Boxing Research Organization), and History Magazine. His latest book is “A Shooting Star Across the Silver Screen- Olive Thomas: A Biography. When not writing or teaching, Vince and his vinyl hunting partner and vinyl collector himself, Enzo Ciaramella are out looking for some more titles to add to their collections.