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Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live 1980–81

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Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live 1980–81
Live album by
Pink Floyd
Released27 March 2000 (2000-03-27)
Recorded
  • 7–9 August 1980
  • 14–17 June 1981
VenueEarls Court Exhibition Centre, London, England
GenreProgressive rock, hard rock
Length105:21
LanguageEnglish
LabelEMI
ProducerJames Guthrie
Pink Floyd chronology
1967: The First Three Singles
(1997) 		Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live 1980–81
(2000) 		Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd
(2001)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic[1]
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music[2]
NME(5/10)[3]
Rolling Stone[4]

Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live 1980–81 is a live album released by Pink Floyd in 2000. It is a live rendition of The Wall, produced and engineered by James Guthrie, with tracks selected from the August 1980 and June 1981 performances at Earls Court in London. The album was first released in the United Kingdom on 27 March 2000,[5] and a US/Canadian release by Columbia Records on 18 April.

The shows involved the construction of a wall on stage throughout the first half of the show. Once complete, members of the band performed in small openings in, atop, in front of, or even behind the wall. The album artwork featured the life-masks of the four band members in front of a black wall; the masks were worn by the "surrogate band"[6] during the song "In the Flesh". "Goodbye Blue Sky" and parts of "Run Like Hell" were taken from the 17 June 1981 show, the very last performance by the four-man Pink Floyd until the 2005 Live 8 concert.

The album was remastered and re-released in February 2012 as part of The Wall’s ‘Immersion’ boxset. Despite this, it remained absent from most music streaming platforms—except for YouTube—until December 2024, when it was finally added to the Apple Music catalog. However, it continues to be unavailable on other major streaming services, including Spotify. The addition to Apple Music was likely due to Sony Music Entertainment’s acquisition of Pink Floyd’s music rights on October 2024, which may have facilitated the album’s availability on the platform.

Content

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Is There Anybody Out There? contains live versions of all the original songs along with two additional songs: "What Shall We Do Now?" and "The Last Few Bricks". "What Shall We Do Now?" was planned for the original album but removed just before release. (It remained on the lyric sheet for the original LP, but excised from future CD re-releases.) "The Last Few Bricks" was an instrumental bridge between "Another Brick in the Wall (Part III)" and "Goodbye Cruel World", and contained themes from "The Happiest Days of Our Lives", "Don't Leave Me Now", "Young Lust", "Empty Spaces" and "What Shall We Do Now?", all transposed to D minor. It was played to allow the bricklayers to almost completely seal off the stage before Roger Waters appeared in the last brick-wide space in the wall to sing "Goodbye Cruel World", ending the first set of the show. This music never had an official title before the release of the live album. Fans named the track "Almost Gone" on some bootleg albums of the shows, but the official name was suggested by producer James Guthrie during the mixing of the live album. The album also contained two spoken tracks titled "MC: Atmos" ("Master of Ceremonies" for the first North American release), which served as introductions to the songs "In the Flesh?" and "In the Flesh", respectively. These were performed by Gary Yudman, MC for the Earls Court and Nassau Coliseum shows. The second version was a section of a recording of his speech from the first version, played at slower speed to parody the frustration ("The band is about ready to begin, I think ... No, not quite yet") of waiting for the band to start.[7]

The tracks differed slightly from the studio album, primarily in terms of longer intros and extended solos. Due to the constraints of vinyl records, the band had been forced to severely edit many songs for the album, removing whole sections, many of which were restored in concert. For example, "The Show Must Go On" had an extra verse that was deleted from the original studio recording (but included in the lyric sheet, even on the latest[when?] CD releases.) "Outside the Wall" was longer and re-arranged with mandolin, accordion, clarinet, acoustic guitars, tambourines and more natural-sounding vocal harmonies from the quartet of Joe Chemay, Jim Farber, Jim Haas, and Jon Joyce. (This would be the third official version of "Outside the Wall" available to the listener, following the extended orchestral version from the 1982 film.)

Release

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The album was released to commemorate the 20th anniversary of The Wall and The Wall Tour.

Is There Anybody Out There? was re-issued in the US and Canada in July 2005, remastered by James Guthrie, Joel Plante and Kim Richards. The booklet features some songwriting updates and mentions that the MC: Atmos on disc one used a sample of "We'll Meet Again" by Vera Lynn.

Track listing

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All lyrics are written by Roger Waters; all music is composed by Roger Waters except where noted

Disc one
No.TitleMusicVocalsLength
1."Master of Ceremonies" (9 August 1980; includes excerpt from "We'll Meet Again")N/AYudman1:13
2."In the Flesh?" (7 August 1980/8 August 1980/9 August 1980) Waters3:00
3."The Thin Ice" (9 August 1980) David Gilmour, Waters2:49
4."Another Brick in the Wall - Pt 1" (7 August 1980/8 August 1980/9 August 1980) Waters, Gilmour4:13
5."The Happiest Days of Our Lives" (7 August 1980/8 August 1980/9 August 1980) Waters, Gilmour1:40
6."Another Brick in the Wall - Pt 2" (7 August 1980/8 August 1980/9 August 1980/14 June 1981) Gilmour, Waters6:19
7."Mother" (16 June 1981/17 June 1981) Waters, Gilmour7:54
8."Goodbye Blue Sky" (17 June 1981) Gilmour3:15
9."Empty Spaces" (14 June 1981) Waters2:14
10."What Shall We Do Now?" (14 June 1981/17 June 1981) Waters1:40
11."Young Lust" (7 August 1980/8 August 1980/9 August 1980)Waters, GilmourGilmour, Waters5:17
12."One of My Turns" (7 August 1980/8 August 1980/9 August 1980) Waters3:41
13."Don't Leave Me Now" (7 August 1980/8 August 1980/9 August 1980/17 June 1981) Waters4:08
14."Another Brick in the Wall - Pt 3" (7 August 1980/8 August 1980/9 August 1980) Waters1:15
15."The Last Few Bricks" (7 August 1980/8 August 1980)Waters, GilmourInstrumental3:26
16."Goodbye Cruel World" (8 August 1980) Waters1:41
Total length:53:50
Disc two
No.TitleMusicVocalsLength
1."Hey You" (16 June 1981/17 June 1981) Gilmour, Waters4:55
2."Is There Anybody Out There?" (15 June 1981) Waters, Gilmour3:09
3."Nobody Home" (14 June 1981/16 June 1981/17 June 1981) Waters3:15
4."Vera" (15 June 1981) Waters1:27
5."Bring the Boys Back Home" (15 June 1981) Waters1:20
6."Comfortably Numb" (14 June 1981/15 June 1981/16 June 1981/17 June 1981)Gilmour, WatersGilmour, Waters7:26
7."The Show Must Go On" (16 June 1981) Gilmour2:35
8."MC: Atmos" (16 June 1981)N/AYudman0:37
9."In the Flesh" (7 August 1980/8 August 1980) Waters4:23
10."Run Like Hell" (14 June 1981/15 June 1981/16 June 1981/17 June 1981)Gilmour, WatersGilmour, Waters7:05
11."Waiting for the Worms" (14 June 1981/15 June 1981/16 June 1981) Waters, Gilmour4:14
12."Stop" (9 August 1980) Waters0:30
13."The Trial" (9 August 1980)Waters, Bob EzrinWaters6:01
14."Outside the Wall" (8 August 1980) Waters4:27
Total length:51:31

Personnel

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Pink Floyd

Additional personnel

Charts and certifications

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References

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  1. ^ Erlewine, Stephen Thomas (2011). "Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall: Live 1980-1981 - Pink Floyd | AllMusic". AllMusic. Retrieved 9 July 2011.
  2. ^ Larkin, Colin (2007). The Encyclopedia of Popular Music (4th ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195313734.
  3. ^ "NME Album Reviews - Is There Anybody Out There?: The Wall Live, 1980-81 - NME.COM". NME. 2011. Retrieved 9 July 2011.
  4. ^ Wolk, Douglas (2011). "Pink Floyd: Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live: 1980-81 : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 12 April 2009. Retrieved 9 July 2011.
  5. ^ "BPI".
  6. ^ Pete Woods on bass, Willy Wilson on drums, Andy Bown playing keyboards, Andy Roberts on guitar
  7. ^ Information on live performances of The Wall Archived 11 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine. Other performances featured Jim Ladd and his then fellow KMET disc jockey Cynthia Fox.
  8. ^ "Los Discos Más Vendicos En Iberoamérica y Estados Unidos". El Siglo de Torreón (in Spanish). 29 May 2000. Archived from the original on 17 March 2022. Retrieved 22 March 2023.
  9. ^ "Austriancharts.at – Pink Floyd – Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live 1980-81" (in German). Hung Medien. Retrieved 9 June 2016.
  10. ^ "Ultratop.be – Pink Floyd – Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live 1980-81" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved 9 June 2016.
  11. ^ "Ultratop.be – Pink Floyd – Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live 1980-81" (in French). Hung Medien. Retrieved 9 June 2016.
  12. ^ "Pink Floyd Chart History (Canadian Albums)". Billboard. Retrieved 9 June 2016.
  13. ^ "Top RPM Albums: Issue 9828". RPM. Library and Archives Canada. Retrieved 9 June 2016.
  14. ^ "Dutchcharts.nl – Pink Floyd – Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live 1980-81" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved 9 June 2016.
  15. ^ "Lescharts.com – Pink Floyd – Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live 1980-81". Hung Medien. Retrieved 9 June 2016.
  16. ^ "Offiziellecharts.de – Pink Floyd – Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live 1980-81" (in German). GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved 9 June 2016.
  17. ^ "GFK Chart-Track Albums: Week 14, 2000". Chart-Track. IRMA. Retrieved 23 June 2016.
  18. ^ "Italiancharts.com – Pink Floyd – Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live 1980-81". Hung Medien. Retrieved 9 June 2016.
  19. ^ "Charts.nz – Pink Floyd – Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live 1980-81". Hung Medien. Retrieved 9 June 2016.
  20. ^ "Norwegiancharts.com – Pink Floyd – Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live 1980-81". Hung Medien. Retrieved 9 June 2016.
  21. ^ "Music & Media, vol. 17, issue 16" (PDF). 15 April 2000. Retrieved 21 April 2021.
  22. ^ "Official Scottish Albums Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 19 November 2021.
  23. ^ "Swedishcharts.com – Pink Floyd – Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live 1980-81". Hung Medien. Retrieved 9 June 2016.
  24. ^ "Swisscharts.com – Pink Floyd – Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live 1980-81". Hung Medien. Retrieved 9 June 2016.
  25. ^ "Official Albums Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 19 November 2021.
  26. ^ a b "Pink Floyd Chart History (Billboard 200)". Billboard. Retrieved 9 June 2016.
  27. ^ "The Top 200 Artist Albums of 2000" (PDF). Chartwatch: 2000 Chart Booklet. Zobbel.de. pp. 39–40. Retrieved 25 January 2021.
  28. ^ "British album certifications – Pink Floyd – Is There Anybody Out There - Live". British Phonographic Industry. Retrieved 9 June 2016.
  29. ^ "American album certifications – Pink Floyd – Is There Anybody Out There". Recording Industry Association of America. Retrieved 9 June 2016.
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