Before Pink Floyd became one of the world’s biggest stadium acts from the 1970s through the 1990s, the band had some much smaller ― and far stranger ― public appearances.
One of its first U.S. television appearances was a surreal performance on Dick Clark’s “American Bandstand” in 1967, in which the band mimed its way though the song “Apples and Oranges.”
New restored footage by Swedish artist Alex Stubbe Teglbjærg, a.k.a. Artist on the border, shows how the band at the time ― Syd Barrett on guitar and vocals, Roger Waters on bass, Rick Wright on keyboards and Nick Mason on drums ― didn’t exactly crank up the enthusiasm.
But what most stood out was the indifferent appearance of Barrett, the band’s increasingly troubled leader who was slowly being consumed by his struggles with both drug use and mental illness:
With a full-time job and a family, Teglbjærg completed his work mostly at night, colorizing the video one frame at a time using a free AI tool called HotPot.ai, then correcting and sharpening each one, including hand-painted adjustments:
“It’s very meditative work,” he said via email.
Teglbjærg, who is a graphic designer and Pink Floyd fan, has posted a number of projects related to the band on YouTube. One of his efforts even received a thumbs-up from Pink Floyd’s drummer.
Teglbjærg also works locally with the Swedish Syd Barrett cover band Men on the Border. But his effort on the “Apple and Oranges” video was a labor of love after seeing the original low-quality black-and-white footage online and thinking: “This can be so much better.”
The result is a glimpse into one of the band’s biggest turning points. About a month after the “American Bandstand” appearance, Barrett would film a promotional video with the band for “Jugband Blues,” one of his final recorded acts with Pink Floyd:
Barrett, who became increasingly erratic and unreliable, made his last live appearance with the band in January 1968, and was out of the group by April of that year.
“He would lead the band to its first precarious fame and damage himself irreparably along the way,” the band’s website notes. “And though the Floyd’s Barrett era only lasted three years, it always informed what they became.”
Guitarist/vocalist David Gilmour would join the band in late 1967, working briefly alongside Barrett before ultimately replacing him.
Barrett died in 2006.