The tremendous commercial breakthrough enjoyed by Pink Floyd in the last year can be traced to any number of factors, but the springboard for it all has unquestionably been the pomp and spectacle of their live performances. The photos in this spread, taken during Pink Floyd’s most recent stateside tour, should give the uninitiated some measure of insight into the nature of that presentation.

But Pink Floyd was the first English multi-media band to leap out of the split skull of psychedelia, and big production numbers are nothing new to these boys. Their forays into areas of extra-musical integration were always news in the conceptual stages, but several of their most heralded projects failed to reach the public in the manner they were originally intended.