Atom Heart Mother - Legacy

Legacy

Critical reaction to the suite has always been mixed, and all band members have expressed negativity toward it in recent times. For instance, Gilmour has said the album was "a load of rubbish. We were at a real down point ... I think we were scraping the barrel a bit at that period" and "a good idea but it was dreadful ... Atom Heart Mother sounds like we didn’t have any idea between us, but we became much more prolific after it." Similarly, in a 1984 interview on BBC Radio 1, Waters said "If somebody said to me now – right – here's a million pounds, go out and play Atom Heart Mother, I'd say you must be fucking joking."

The band were initially enthusiastic about performing the suite in the early 1970s. An early performance was taped for the San Francisco based television station KQED, featuring just the band, on 28 April 1970. Two memorable performances were at the Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music on 27 June and the "Blackhills Garden Party" in Hyde Park, London on 18 July. On both occasions the band were accompanied by the John Alldis Choir and the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble. Later, the band took a full brass section and choir on tour just for the purpose of performing this piece. However, this caused the tour to lose money, and the band found problems with the hired musicians, which changed from gig to gig as they simply took who was available, which, combined with lack of rehearsal and problems miking up the whole ensemble, made a full live performance more problematic. Reflecting on this, Gilmour said "some of the brass players have been really hopeless". According to Mason, the band arrived at one gig in Aachen, Germany, only to discover they had left the sheet music behind, forcing tour manager Tony Howard to go back to London and get it. Because of this, a later arrangement without brass or choir, and pared down from 25 minutes to fifteen by omitting the "collage" sections and closing reprise of the main theme, remained in their live repertoire into 1972. For instance, during the first concert of that year, halfway through the first ever public live performance of The Dark Side of the Moon in Brighton, technical problems resulted in the abandoning of that performance, replaced by Atom Heart Mother. The last documented live performance of the suite was on 22 May 1972 at the Olympisch Stadium, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Stanley Kubrick wanted to use the album's title track in A Clockwork Orange. The group refused permission, primarily because Kubrick was unsure of exactly which pieces of music he wanted and what he wished to do with them. In retrospect, Waters said "maybe it's just as well it wasn't used after all".

On 14 and 15 June 2008, Ron Geesin performed "Atom Heart Mother" with Italian tribute band Mun Floyd over two nights as part of the Chelsea Festival. Geesin introduced it with a history and slide show. The performances featured the chamber choir Canticum, brass and noted cellist Caroline Dale, who has worked with David Gilmour. The second night saw Gilmour join Geesin on stage for the performance, which was extended to 30 minutes.