When was the last time you sat in total silence to immerse yourself in what’s commonly described as one of the greatest albums ever released, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon? 

For me, having played the album hundreds of times over the decades, too often as mood or background music, there’s no way I was going to miss a special celebration experience at UOW’s Science Space to mark 50 years since the release of the classic album. And hundreds of mainly baby boomers have taken a psychedelic step back in time and listened in total silence to relive those ground-breaking musical memories from the Seventies.

The band decided to celebrate Dark Side’s golden anniversary by recreating the album’s famous 1973 press launch at the London Planetarium and to date more than 100 planetariums across the world have presented a truly immersive convergence of sights and sounds befitting the remarkable 42 minutes of magic produced on the album. 

As such, the Fairy Meadow planetarium has hosted sold-out performances for months and can now proudly claim to share the global Pink Floyd stage with planetariums in Las Vegas, Paris, Glasgow, Chicago, Brussels and Hamburg, to name a few. 

Record-breaking album

For those who know nothing of Pink Floyd, and specifically Dark Side of the Moon, five decades on it remains one of the best-selling albums of all time. While it held the no. 1 spot in the US charts for only a week, it remained on the Billboard album chart for a total of 778 weeks (nearly 14 years). This is the longest any album has spent on the Billboard charts. It frequently places in the top five on lists of the greatest albums of all time by rock music authorities. Its eye-catching album cover featuring a ray of light going through a prism, coming through as a rainbow is one of the most famous album covers of all time. 

While the shows at UOW have been consistently selling out, staff told me they planned to continue adding new shows so long as there’s continuing demand for tickets.

So, you’ll likely know what you’ll be hearing under the UOW Science Space dome but it’s the visuals that give the Dark Side of the Moon a whole new perspective. 

A futuristic experience

Each of the 10 songs has a different theme, some futuristically looking forward and some a retro acknowledgement to Pink Floyd’s visual history, all relating to a time and place experience, embracing up-to-the-minute technology that only a planetarium can offer.

In the modern parlance, it’s truly immersive, an all-encompassing surround sound and visual treat that takes you way beyond the realms of 2D experience.

While my experience was fabulous, it would have been further enhanced with a bit more volume (us baby boomers can still deal with noise and this album deserves to be heard loud) and we were unfortunate on our night that a pesky moth decided to make the occasional (unwanted) guest appearance across the lens of the projector. 

The local season has already been extended more than once, so don’t despair if you find a SOLD OUT sign at the door.

For future bookings, head to www.sciencespace.com.au