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Inflatable Pink Floyd pigs are one of the staple Prop s of their live shows. The first was a Sow but a very obviously male pig appeared in the 1980s. Pigs appeared numerous times in Concerts by the band, promoting concerts and record releases, and on the cover of their 1977 album '' Animals ''. ANIMALS , visible between the two front chimneys of Battersea Power Station .]] The original Pink Floyd pig was designed by Roger Waters and built in December 1976 in preparation for shooting the cover of the '' Animals '' album. The 40 foot, Helium - filled Balloon was flown over Battersea Power Station on the first day's photo-shoot, with a Marksman prepared to shoot the pig down if it broke free. The pig didn't escape, but none of the photos taken that day were considered usable. On the second day, the marksman wasn't present; but the pig supposedly "broke free" (gaining a lot of press coverage) after a huge gust of wind. It disappeared from sight, and was spotted by Airline Pilots at 40,000 feet in the air. Flights at Heathrow Airport were cancelled as the huge inflatable pig flew through the path of airplanes, eastwards from Britain, over the English Channel , finally landing on a rural farm in Kent that night. {Link without Title} The pig was recovered and repaired for the resumption of photography for the album cover, but unfortunately the sky was cloudless and blue, and eventually the album cover was created using a composite of photos from the first and second day. The pig that was originally floated above Battersea Power Station was called 'Algie'. IN THE FLESH After the album '' Animals '', featuring the sound of real pigs grunting, was released in 1977 , Pink Floyd began their "In The Flesh" tour. During concerts, the pig appeared around the PA stacks in a cloud of black smoke; appropriately during the performance of " Pigs (Three Different Ones) ". THE WALL The pig also appeared during each of Pink Floyd's The Wall concerts, black instead of pink, with a crossed hammers logo on its side. Waters would occasionally refer to it between songs: Do you like our pig? He's not a very nice pig, but he's a big pig! This may be an allusion to the style of rhyme in the early Pink Floyd song " Bike ". THE POST-WATERS PIG After Roger Waters quit the band in 1984 , following the release of '' The Final Cut '', he retained the copyright of the original design of the pig. He demanded $(US)800 for every time the remaining members of Pink Floyd appeared with the pig. Not wanting to pay that, they changed the pig's gender, adding Testicles . In the two post-Waters tours, the pig was used many times; but two of the pigs were lost, both during the A Momentary Lapse Of Reason tours.
During the 1994 tour, two pigs were shown at the top of the stage side's speaker towers, sometimes just deflated, sometimes dropped on the ground after One Of These Days. The pig made another appearance before the release of '''', when Capitol Records flew a replica of the original pig from ''Animals'' over the Capitol Tower in Hollywood , California . It took a total of 350 hours to create. One inflatable pig, badly damaged and believed to be from the 1988 '' manager Mike Luba from a former Pink Floyd stagehand, the 40-foot pig flew again over the '' Austin City Limits Music Festival '' audience during a cover of Floyd 's '' Another Brick In The Wall Part II ''. The full story of the pig, its repair, and return to flight is detailed in this article at Austin360.com . REUNION During their Live 8 reunion with Waters, footage of the original pig, over Battersea Power Station, was shown on a giant video screen behind the band. Amusingly, it was the band's first performance in twenty-four years, adding to the joke that pigs were flying now that the band had finally reunited. TRIVIA The Pig, like many celebrities in music, has appeared on '' The Simpsons ''. The pig featured in the episode " Homerpalooza " where it was used by Peter Frampton . Frampton mentions that he bought the pig at "Pink Floyd's Yard Sale ". The song "The Air is Getting Slippery" by Primus (from their '' Pork Soda '' album, whose cover features a pig's head), includes the lyrics "If you've studied your Floyd properly / You'd know that pigs could fly". Primus are known to be big Pink Floyd fans, and have covered several Pink Floyd songs, both on stage and on disc (including " Have A Cigar " on the '' Miscellaneous Debris '' album). |
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