On its 50th anniversary as a concert and entertainment venue, London's Roundhouse has interviewed Nick Mason about Pink Floyd's appearance as part of the legendary 1966 opening night.

The event was an 'All Night Rave' - the official launch of 'underground' newspaper the International Times, on October 15th that year, and amongst the performers were the Floyd and The Soft Machine, alongside steel bands, a drag ball, costumes, jelly and much more. Attendees were urged to "Bring your own poison, bring flowers & gass filled balloons". There was also a "SurPRIZE for shortest & barest"...

The event quickly became a thing of legend, although Nick was able to dispel some of the rumours, despite quipping "Well obviously I can't remember a thing, so I'll have to invent it for you." Despite the well-maintained, modern concert venue it has become today, back then things weren't quite so luxurious. "It had fallen into disuse. There was no lighting and no power as far as I remember. We actually had to bring in a 13-amp extension lead from some building just outside. Every now and again the power would overload and all sound would be lost while someone went to reset the fuse."

As events go, it dramatically exceeded expectations. "It was one of those things where they expected a hundred people and a thousand turned up. Certainly [Blow-Up director] Michelangelo Antonioni was there and a number of other luminaries of the time. I think Paul [McCartney] was there. There's a bit of confusion because the more likely candidate would have been John [Lennon], but yes, Paul did come down."

Nick also tries to recall Joel Brown's light show projected over the band and the stage backdrop. "Whatever we did would have been unbelievably small time. This was our first actual real gig to more than 50 people. Apart from anything else the power coming in wouldn't have been sufficient to do very much more than a couple of amplifiers and a very modest PA system… almost any band now would have far more."

To read the full interview, visit 50.Roundhouse.org.uk.

Currently in stores across Germany are a couple of new magazines, which feature rather similar names. One of these - Classic Rock - is a monthly publication, and the other - Rock Classics - is a special edition.

The first of these (Classic Rock) is the German edition of the magazine which originated from the UK, and has a December 2016 cover date. The main feature is an exclusive look at The Rolling Stones' Blue & Lonesome album, and the cover therefore has the new blue tongue logo. However, one of the other lead stories on the front is Pink Floyd – Die besten Songs der Prog-Urgiganten (Pink Floyd – The best songs of the ancient prog giants). The article covers 14 pages, and is an album by album analysis of the band, with comments written by various contributors about many of the songs.

You can get this in stores now, or order online through shop.pmedia.de.

The other magazine - shown here to the left (click the thumbnail) is Rock Classics Magazine, special edition number 17, cover date December 2016/January/February 2017. Pink Floyd - Legenden Des Rock: Genie und Wahnsinn – Mythen und Fakten (Pink Floyd - Legends of Rock: Genius and Insanity – Myths and Facts) is a 116 page publication, an updated version (inspired by The Early Years box set) of a magazine which originally came out in 2011. It's an edition very similar to the special issues of "The Ultimate Collector's Edition" of Uncut. It looks at Pink Floyd from the beginning to the end – album by album and of course many side features. There's also a lot of rarely seen pictures, not the normal Getty Images material.

There's also a free CD: "Sons & Daughters of Pink Floyd", with a cover version of "Careful With That Axe Eugene" from “The Electric Family” on it (as a bonus track). You can get it in German stores now, or order online via slam-zine.de.

Our thanks to Michael Nickel for the information about these current German publications.

To celebrate the 35th anniversary of its original release, The Prince Charles Cinema in central London has six showings of the 70mm print of Alan Parker's Pink Floyd The Wall coming up on various dates in January. Most of these are in the evenings, although there is one lunchtime/early afternoon screening on a Sunday at the end of the month.

The movie of The Wall will be presented from a 70mm 6 Track Dolby print. Please note: the 70mm print has suffered light colour fading. The screens take place at the following times/dates:

• Saturday 7th January 2017, 8:45pm
• Monday 9th January 2017, 8:45pm
• Sunday 15th January 2017, 8:45pm
• Thursday 19th January 2017, 8:45pm
• Sunday 29th January 2017, 12:45pm
• Tuesday 31st January 2017, 8:45pm

Click here for tickets: PrinceCharlesCinema.com. For those who want to attend but haven't been there before, the Prince Charles Cinema is located at 7 Leicester Place, London WC2H 7BY (map here). Our thanks to Jason Pyke and David Haddock for the information about these screenings.

Published on May 13th, 2017, is Pink Floyd: Their Mortal Remains, the official book (planned to be 304 fully illustrated pages) to accompany the exhibition of the same name, which opens at London's Victoria & Albert museum on the same day.

It's the first book ever produced with full access to the Pink Floyd archive. Published to accompany the V&A's major summer exhibition, Pink Floyd: Their Mortal Remains celebrates 50 years of one of the greatest bands of all time. Five essays tackle different aspects of their far-reaching legacy in music and the visual arts.

Authors including Jon Savage, Howard Goodall and Rob Young examine what makes the band truly special, from the mythology underpinning their output, through to their experimentation with technology to create new sounds. Their epic staging and performance impact will also be explored, along with the anti-authoritarianism that infuses their lyrics.

The book is heavily illustrated throughout, emphasizing the essential role that visual material played in supporting the music and creating the lasting Pink Floyd phenomenon.

The book has been put together by Victoria Broackes and Anna Landreth Strong. Broackes is Senior Curator and Head of Exhibitions for the Department of Theatre and Performance at the V&A. She has produced a number of successful touring exhibitions, including You Say You Want a Revolution? and David Bowie Is. Landreth Strong is Curator of Modern and Contemporary Performance at the V&A.

UPDATE: the hardback features a wonderful, lenticular cover - featuring a very dynamic, moving picture of the Dark Side prism. It needs to be seen in the flesh! 

You can place your order for this undoubtably essential addition to the Floydian bookshelf, through the following links: Amazon UK, Amazon.com, Amazon Canada, Amazon France, Amazon Germany, Amazon Spain and Amazon Italy. Orders placed before publication will benefit from Amazon's pre-order price guarantee - if the price drops at any point between your order, and the publication date, they automatically will charge you the lowest price.