Pink Floyd were no strangers to the live spectacle. They’d pioneered the rock light show in the late 1960s, played in the ruins of Pompeii in 1971, and famously built – and then knocked down – a giant wall on stage in 1980. But their free performance on a barge floating on Venice’s Grand Canal on July 15,1989 took things to another level.
What the 200,000 fans gathered in the Italian city, and the 100 million people watching on satellite TV didn’t know was that this Floydian extravaganza risked damaging the sinking city’s foundations – and provoking the ire of an army of gondoliers.
