An introduction for legendary progressive rock band Pink Floyd saw the group called “a bit boring” before their performance.
The awkward yet hilarious moment came as the Syd Barrett-led band were being introduced on the BBC’s The Look of the Week programme. After Pink Floyd had played a few bars of Pow R Toch H, music critic Hans Keller was tasked with introducing the band to those watching at home. It was not long before Keller was asking why the band had to play “so terribly loud” and insisting to viewers at home that the band “are a bit boring.” It was not the best introduction viewers could have received to Pink Floyd, though it does make for an entertaining moment in hindsight.
Keller gets off to a great start by saying he would not say too much about the band before their performance so as “not to prejudice you” against them. He would continue with his introduction, which was more a list of what he did not like about the Piper at the Gates of Dawn masterminds than anything else.
He shared his four quick points, saying: “The first is that part you heard at the beginning, that short bit, those few seconds, really all I can hear in them, which is to say to my mind, there is continuous repetition and proportionally they are a bit boring.
“My second point is that they are terribly loud, you couldn’t quite hear that because, of course, from your sets, it isn’t as loud as it is here in the studio. I will ask them about that when they come to talk. My third point is that perhaps I’m a little bit too much of a musician to fully appreciate them, and the reason for that is four, they have an audience, and people who have an audience ought to be heard. Perhaps it’s my fault that I don’t appreciate them.”
The band would then sit down with Keller for a chat about their music and influences. He asks his first question of Roger Waters, at the time the bassist but soon to be frontman following Barrett’s departure from the band.
Keller asks: “Why has it all got to be so terribly loud? It’s too loud, I just can’t bear it. I happen to have grown up in the string quartet which is a bit softer. So why has it got to be loud, so amplified?”
Waters replied: “Well, I guess it doesn’t have to be, but that’s the way we like it, and we didn’t grow up with a string quartet, and I guess it could be one of the reasons why it is loud. It doesn’t sound terribly loud to us.”
Keller then replied their reasoning was “not altogether convincing,” but he did “accept” that the band “liked” playing loud. The music critic ended his interview by adding: “My verdict is that it is a little bit of a regression to childhood – but, after all, why not?”
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