Just announced as a special edition, being sold only in Japan (presumably due to licensing/release agreement), is a very interesting package celebrating the 50th anniversary of Pink Floyd's pair of concerts at Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park, Hakone, Japan - the band's first in that country.
The background to the release is this: an original 16mm film of Atom Heart Mother from the 1971 Hakone Aphrodite shows was recently discovered. A long time was spent digitizing, restoring and remastering, and to mark the 50th anniversary of the '71 Hakone Aphrodite event, a special edition (a two disc set of a CD and Blu-ray) of Atom Heart Mother will be released on August 4, 2021 in Japan.
The Blu-ray disc contains the restored footage of Atom Heart Mother, showing the band on stage performing the song, and travelling around Japan, together with some additional bonus footage of Pink Floyd's crew, setting up the show, dealing with issues, etc., which hasn't been seen before.
The pack comes with a 60-page photo book with never-seen-before photos, a reproduction programme, flyer, poster and ticket reprint which all looks great! More details can be found at PinkFloyd.jp, although if you can't read Japanese you'll need to use Google Translate or similar. Orders can now be placed through various links found at sonymusicjapan.lnk.to/PF_gjb including Amazon Japan, HMV, Sony Music Store, and others. We suspect that most, if not all, of these retailers will happily ship the item worldwide, although in certain countries customs duties or import taxes will be levied, so please be aware of this and check before ordering.
If you want to see a quick comparison of a short part of the footage, comparing the newly restored film with what many of us will have been familiar with for many years, here's something that Sony Music Japan have put together:
Some great news for a number of you - Nick Mason's Saucerful Of Secrets have just revealed more dates for their 2022 Echoes Tour. There are three of the dates that some of you will have been waiting for the revised dates for (they were going to happen this year, but obviously were postponed), along with nine brand new dates, taking place in Ireland and mainland Europe.
Tickets for the newly announced shows have just gone on sale through the normal agents - direct links below - and for the rescheduled shows, the existing tickets remain valid for the new dates so you don't need to contact the ticket agents or the venues.
As part of the announcement was the sad news that despite their best efforts, they weren't able to include the two postponed shows that were due to take place in Freiburg, Germany, and Sete, France, in the 2022 schedule as venues weren't available when the band would have been able to play those locations. Ticket holders can get a refund from their point of purchase.
Just published in Japan (on May 28th) is a very interesting book about Pink Floyd, with masses to offer those of us who don't speak/read Japanese!
Pink Floyd Live Tour In Japan 1971-1988 is a large format (roughly A4 sized, or 11.7 inches by 8.3 inches, and almost an inch thick) book of more than 300 pages, which majors on photos of the band, principally when they were in that country at various points.
The book is part of the publisher's Live Tour In Japan series, which has already focused on Rainbow, Van Halen, Queen, and Led Zeppelin, and continues the tradition of those books with many pictures of Pink Floyd which are great, and have never been published before (including multiple shots from the same session). They've also included unseen pictures from outside Japan too, reprinted live reports (in Japanese) and suchlike.
The list of contents gives a good idea of what to expect, visually:
■ August 1971 Press Conference - Hakone Aphrodite
■ Reprint Live Report (August 6, 1971)
■ March 1972 Haneda Airport - Press Conference - Tokyo Gymnasium
■ 1971 & 1972 Osaka Festival Hall - Performance Retrospective
■ August 1974 London Hyde Park - Roy Harper & Heavy Friends (David Gilmour)
■ November 1974 London Empire Pool - British Winter Tour 1974
■ March 18, 1977 London Empire Pool - In The Flesh UK Tour
■ July 1977 New York Madison Square Garden - In The Flesh US Tour
■ May 1984 New York - About Face US Tour
■ October 1987 New York Madison Square Garden - A Momentary Lapse Of Reason US Tour
■ March 1988 Press Conference - Nippon Budokan - A Momentary Lapse Of Reason Japan Tour
■ Reprint Live Report (March 4, 1988)
■ Japanese concert Hakone Aphrodite performance of Pink Floyd
■ Testimony 1 - Hakone Day 2 Contribution from experienced people
■ Testimony 2 - Daiji Okai [Yonin Bayashi] Long Interview
The book is now available from Japanese retailers, including Amazon Japan who will ship the book worldwide (and as we found, very quickly too!).
Today we have some more new music from respected guitarist Chester Kamen. We know that a good number of you have been enjoying these songs. Amongst many other artists, Chester has toured with Roger Waters, joining his band in 2002 and playing on subsequent tours, and with David Gilmour on his 2016 Rattle That Lock tour. He first played with David back in 1985 during the Live Aid show - David and Chester were both part of Bryan Ferry's band for that show (as was Jon Carin).
Chester has, like many musicians, kept himself busy whilst lockdowns and restrictions due to Covid-19 have called a halt to many things - in particular, live performance. In October, he shared his new piece of music called Take This, that runs for over 23 minutes. Chester told us that Take This is the first side of an album he is currently working on - following, or inspired by, the old Floyd blueprint of one long piece and several songs on the flip side. Since then we've seen the first songs on the second side of the album: Brand New Day, Swimming, I'd Love To Turn You, Lover's Lane, Come The Revolution, and Child Of The Damned.
The new song from Chester - Stories - is now here, and as he notes on YouTube, the song is "Dedicated to the memory of my two beloved little brothers, Nick and Barry." Chester tells us that it was recorded with his trio, The Twins, comprising himself, Dale Davis (Amy Winehouse’s bass player and Musical Director) and Hugo Degenhardt on drums and backing vocals. They also had a guest on piano: Barima Asante.
He also noted that "the basic track was recorded some time ago in Battersea on an eight track tape machine so it hopefully has that analog feel. The video has a cameo appearance from my old and dear friend Jon [Carin]" who you can spot toward the end of the song.
We'll update you as he progresses with the rest of the album, as we know from feedback we've had that the songs are proving popular.
Latest News 
Just announced as a special edition, being sold only in Japan (presumably due to licensing/release agreement), is a very interesting package celebrating the 50th anniversary of Pink Floyd's pair of concerts at Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park, Hakone, Japan - the band's first in that country.
Some great news for a number of you - Nick Mason's Saucerful Of Secrets have just revealed more dates for their 2022 Echoes Tour. There are three of the dates that some of you will have been waiting for the revised dates for (they were going to happen this year, but obviously were postponed), along with nine brand new dates, taking place in Ireland and mainland Europe.
