Dark Side of the Spider

Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii is Scott Marsh's all-time-favorite rock movie. He'll be front-and-center at the Lime Spider tonight for a free screening of the film, which features the band in action at a 1972 concert. "There's one scene where you're staring down Roger Waters' throat, and it's intercut with shots of volcanoes spurting and magma cooling in the sea," says Marsh. "Then he's banging the crap out of a very large gong, and [David] Gilmour's guitar sounds like a seagull. They've got a dog onstage, and it's howling. It's pretty awesome, man."

For the new DVD cut of the movie, director Adrian Maben inserted computer-generated imagery of galaxies and planets to contrast with the live footage. The pre-Dark Side of the Moon set list ranges from "Echoes" and "One of These Days" to "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun." "Musically, the band seemed keyed-up to the surreal beauty of their surroundings," says Marsh. "There's this edge to their playing that would soon be lost in their transition to mega-stardom."

Then again, Marsh admits, he first saw the movie a couple of years ago, after a day of sniffing glue fumes while building a model airplane. But since then, he's been hyping Live at Pompeii to anyone who'll listen. "You're getting to see a legendary band, playing genuinely transcendent music in a strange environment," he says. "This is Floyd at their spaciest. But you might want to lay off the glue before watching."
Sun., May 7, 9:30 p.m.