Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
Wish You Were Here, released in September 1975, was the follow up album to the globally successful The Dark Side Of The Moon and is cited by many fans, as well as band members Richard Wright and David Gilmour, as their favorite Pink Floyd album. On release it went straight to Number One in both the UK and the US and topped the charts in many other countries around the world. This program tells the story of the making of this landmark release through new interviews with Roger Waters, David Gilmour and Nick Mason and archive interviews with the late Richard Wright. Also featured are sleeve designer Storm Thorgerson, guest vocalist Roy Harper, front cover burning man Ronnie Rondell and others involved in the creation of the album. In addition, original recording engineer Brian Humphries revisits the master tapes at Abbey Road Studios to illustrate aspects of the songs construction.
A solid documentary covering one of rock's most beloved albums, featuring rare interviews with all surviving members plus archival footage of Wright. The revisiting of master tapes at Abbey Road is a genuine highlight for audiophiles. However, it follows a fairly conventional music documentary format—talking heads, archive clips, and linear album narrative—without the cinematic ambition of something like 'The Last Waltz' or the structural inventiveness of some modern music docs. The ending offers little reflective payoff beyond the standard retrospective wrap-up. Competent and satisfying for Pink Floyd devotees, but not a documentary that reinvents the form.