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The Division Bell Tour

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The Division Bell Tour
Tour by Pink Floyd
Image
Promotional poster for the London concerts
Location
  • Europe
  • North America
Associated albumThe Division Bell
Start date30 March 1994
End date29 October 1994
Legs2
No. of shows110
Pink Floyd concert chronology

The Division Bell Tour was the final concert tour by the English rock band Pink Floyd, held in 1994 to support their album The Division Bell. Pink Floyd went on indefinite hiatus after the tour eventually disbanding officially in 2008 with the death of Richard Wright. Recordings were released on the 1995 live album Pulse.

History

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Pink Floyd spent most of March 1994 rehearsing in a hangar at Norton Air Force Base in California and a soundstage at Universal Studios Florida.[1] The Division Bell Tour was promoted by the Canadian musician Michael Cohl and became the highest-grossing tour in rock music history to that date. Pink Floyd played the entirety of their 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon in some shows. They first played the whole of The Dark Side of the Moon on 15 July at the Pontiac Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan, which was the first time since 1975 it was played.

The concerts featured even more special effects than the previous tour, including two custom designed airships.[2] Three stages leapfrogged around North America and Europe, each 180 feet (55 m) long and featuring a 130-foot (40 m) arch resembling the Hollywood Bowl venue. All in all, the tour required 700 tons of steel carried by 53 articulated trucks, a crew of 161 people and an initial investment of US$4 million plus US$25 million of running costs just to stage. This tour played to over 5 million people in 68 cities; each concert gathered an average audience of 45,000.

The shows are documented by the Pulse album, video and DVD. The final concert of the tour on 29 October 1994 turned out to be the final full-length Pink Floyd performance, and the last time Pink Floyd played live before their one-off 18-minute reunion with Roger Waters at Live 8 on 2 July 2005, their first live appearance as a quartet in 24 years since The Wall Tour (1980–1981), as well as their last before Richard Wright's death in 2008.

Sponsorship

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Image
A Volkswagen Golf Pink Floyd Edition

The tour was sponsored in Europe by Volkswagen, which also issued a commemorative version of its top-selling car, the Golf Pink Floyd, one of which was given as a prize at each concert. It was a standard Golf with Pink Floyd decals and a premium stereo, and had Volkswagen's most environmentally friendly engine, at Gilmour's insistence.[3] In 1995, Gilmour said he had donated the money he had made from the sponsorship to charity, and was uncomfortable with it: "I don't want [Volkswagen] to be able to say they have a connection with Pink Floyd, that they're part of our success. We will not do it again."[4]

Sales

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At the end of the year, the Division Bell Tour was announced as the biggest tour ever, with worldwide gross of over £150 million (about US$250 million). In the U.S. alone, it grossed US$103.5 million from 59 concerts. Less than a year later, the Rolling Stones' Voodoo Lounge Tour finished with a worldwide gross of over US$300 million. The Rolling Stones, AC/DC, Metallica, U2, the Police, Bon Jovi, Madonna and the former Pink Floyd member Roger Waters are the only acts to achieve a higher worldwide gross from a tour, even when adjusting for inflation. The stage set was designed by Stufish Entertainment Architecture, led by the architect Mark Fisher.[citation needed]

Personnel

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Pink Floyd:

Additional musicians:

  • Guy Pratt – bass, co-lead vocals on "Comfortably Numb" and "Run Like Hell", backing vocals
  • Jon Carin – keyboards, co-lead vocals on "Comfortably Numb" and "Hey You", backing vocals
  • Gary Wallis – percussion, additional drums
  • Tim Renwick – guitars, backing vocals
  • Dick Parry – saxophones
  • Sam Brown – backing vocals, co-lead vocals on "The Great Gig in the Sky"
  • Claudia Fontaine – backing vocals, co-lead vocals on "The Great Gig in the Sky"
  • Durga McBroom – backing vocals, co-lead vocals on "The Great Gig in the Sky"
  • Douglas Adams – guitars, special guest for 28 October 1994 concert[5][6]

Tour dates

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List of 1994 concerts
Date City Country Venue Attendance Revenue
30 March Miami Gardens United States Joe Robbie Stadium 54,738 / 54,738 $1,975,665
3 April San Antonio Alamodome 44,331 / 44,331 $1,499,188
5 April Houston Rice Stadium 45,021 / 47,000 $1,502,047
9 April Mexico City Mexico Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez 90,476 / 90,476 $5,235,862
10 April
14 April San Diego United States Jack Murphy Stadium 51,610 / 51,610 $1,594,069
16 April Pasadena Rose Bowl 129,060 / 129,060 $4,703,290
17 April
20 April Oakland Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum 155,662 / 155,662 $5,249,778
21 April
22 April
24 April Tempe Sun Devil Stadium 63,827 / 63,827 $2,259,833
26 April El Paso Sun Bowl Stadium 34,945 / 37,000 $1,148,228
28 April Irving Texas Stadium 87,400 / 87,400 $2,944,618
29 April
1 May Birmingham Legion Field 55,169 / 55,169 $2,944,618
3 May Atlanta Bobby Dodd Stadium 71,272 / 80,000 $2,426,720
4 May
6 May Tampa Tampa Stadium 55,987 / 55,987 $2,038,815
8 May Nashville Vanderbilt Stadium 41,169 / 41,169 $1,348,505
10 May Raleigh Carter–Finley Stadium 46,656 / 48,000 $1,597,283
12 May Clemson Memorial Stadium 50,569 / 50,569 $1,733,619
14 May New Orleans Louisiana Superdome 41,475 / 41,475 $1,401,445
18 May Foxborough Foxboro Stadium 137,175 / 137,175 $4,975,365
19 May
20 May
22 May Montreal Canada Olympic Stadium 187,302 / 187,302 $5,301,117
23 May
24 May
26 May 1994 Cleveland United States Cleveland Stadium 108,205 / 110,000 $3,807,153
27 May
29 May Columbus Ohio Stadium 75,250 / 75,250 $2,406,920
31 May Pittsburgh Three Rivers Stadium 55,054 / 55,054 $1,879,330
2 June Philadelphia Veterans Stadium 152,264 / 152,264 $5,091,120
3 June
4 June
6 June Syracuse Carrier Dome 38,901 / 38,901 $1,338,073
10 June New York City Yankee Stadium 103,690 / 103,690 $3,765,090
11 June
14 June Indianapolis Hoosier Dome 44,762 / 44,762 $1,487,448
16 June Ames Cyclone Stadium 46,273 / 46,273 $1,514,838
18 June Denver Mile High Stadium 69,788 / 69,788 $2,375,714
20 June Kansas City Arrowhead Stadium 57,003 / 57,003 $1,914,318
22 June Minneapolis Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome N/A N/A
25 June Vancouver Canada BC Place
26 June
28 June Edmonton Commonwealth Stadium 57,701 / 57,701 $1,834,004
1 July Winnipeg Winnipeg Stadium 42,616 / 42,616 $1,234,117
3 July Madison United States Camp Randall Stadium 60,960 / 60,960 $1,942,780
5 July Toronto Canada Exhibition Stadium 158,593 / 158,593 $4,431,108
6 July
7 July
9 July Washington, D.C. United States Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium 98,570 / 98,570 $3,313,378
10 July
12 July Chicago Soldier Field 51,981 / 51,981 $2,056,105
14 July Pontiac Pontiac Silverdome 111,355 / 111,355 $3,772,950
15 July
17 July East Rutherford Giants Stadium 118,554 / 118,554 $4,474,220
18 July
22 July Lisbon Portugal Estádio José Alvalade
23 July
25 July San Sebastián Spain Anoeta
27 July Barcelona Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys
30 July Chantilly France Hippodrome de Chantilly
31 July
2 August Cologne Germany Müngersdorfer Stadion
4 August Munich Olympiastadion
6 August Basel Switzerland St. Jakob Stadium
7 August
9 August Montpellier France Parc du Château de Grammont
11 August Bordeaux Esplanade des Quinconces
13 August Hockenheim Germany Hockenheimring
16 August Hanover Niedersachsenstadion
17 August
19 August Vienna Austria Flughafen, Wiener Neustadt
21 August Berlin Germany Maifeld am Glockenturm
23 August Gelsenkirchen Parkstadion
25 August Copenhagen Denmark Parken Stadium
27 August Gothenburg Sweden Ullevi
29 August Oslo Norway Valle Hovin
30 August
2 September Werchter Belgium Werchter festival ground
3 September Rotterdam Netherlands Stadion Feijenoord
4 September
5 September
7 September Prague Czech Republic Strahov Stadium
9 September Strasbourg France Stade de la Meinau
11 September Lyon Stade de Gerland
13 September Turin Italy Stadio delle Alpi
15 September Udine Stadio Friuli
17 September Modena Festa de l'Unità
19 September Rome Cinecittà
20 September
21 September
23 September Lyon France Stade de Gerland
25 September Lausanne Switzerland Stade Olympique de la Pontaise
13 October London England Earls Court Exhibition Centre 273,474 / 273,474 $9,188,726
14 October
15 October
16 October
17 October[a]
19 October
20 October
21 October
22 October
23 October
26 October
27 October
28 October
29 October

Cancelled shows

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List of cancelled shows
Date City Country Venue Reason
1 September 1994 Helsinki Finland Olympiastadion Poor sales[8]
Notes
  1. ↑ The concert in London on 17 October 1994 originally took place on 12 October, but it was cancelled and rescheduled after a seating stand collapse during the concert.[7]

See also

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References

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  1. ↑ "Pink Floyd - The Official Site". pinkfloyd.com. Archived from the original on 19 September 2015. Retrieved 11 April 2018.
  2. ↑ VOLA Archive TIME TO BREATHE - A Tribute to the Classic Sound of Pink Floyd at the Wayback Machine (archived 10 April 2005)
  3. ↑ "The Spiegel-Translation". Archived from the original on 31 May 2013. Retrieved 11 July 2014.
  4. ↑ "The 30-Year Technicolor Dream". Mojo. July 1995.
  5. ↑ Sale, Jonathan (6 March 2012). "Douglas Adams's 60th birthday marked with liff, the universe and Pink Floyd". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on 17 November 2020. Retrieved 5 July 2026.
  6. ↑ "Pink Floyd news :: Brain Damage - Pink Floyd - 1994 Earls Court show reviews". www.brain-damage.co.uk. Retrieved 5 July 2026.
  7. ↑ "Pink Floyd 'very angry and upset' over accident: Human error could". The Independent. 14 October 1994. Archived from the original on 18 June 2022. Retrieved 11 April 2018.
  8. ↑ Mattila, Ilkka (29 August 1994). "Pink Floyd tekee jättishown valoilla". Helsingin Sanomat (in Finnish). p. D 10.
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