Why didn't Pink Floyd play stuff from Animals later on?

I'm listening to a great performance of "Sheep" at

and it makes me wonder why they didn't do any of this material on their latter tours? At least, I saw them from Momentary onwards, and they never did. Or did they, and just not at any nights I saw them?

I particularly like "Sheep"-perhaps my favorite Floyd cut of all.

 

In their later tours, they tended to prefer material that was co-written by one or more members of the band at the time (David/Rick/Nick). They only played Roger Waters solo compositions if they were huge hits that they 'had' to play, like Money or Another Brick in the Wall pt 2.

Sheep, like most of Animals, was both written and sung by Roger Waters, so it probably figures that they didn't play it once he was out of the band. Dogs was co-written and co-sung by Waters and Gilmour, so it might have been a more likely choice, but it's very long and wasn't a 'hit'.

 

Sorry to ask a stupid question but were/are they allowed to play Floyd tracks that were solely composed by Waters?

 

The one they needed to do was "Dogs" as the strummed parts have so much of Gilmour's personality in them.

 

Because they thought the songs Dogs?

 

But as with pretty much all their material co-written by Gilmour, it's the best thing on the album. On a musical (if not conceptual) level, he was the best thing about that band. By far.

 

I think the 'saucerful of secrets ' book mentions that while 'dogs' was in contention for pf mark 2, they thought the animals co-written tracks were too negative / depressing lyrically (i'm paraphrasing here as i don't have the book handy), so chose not to play them

 

In 1980/81 they played nothing but The Wall. Without Roger Waters "Sheep", "Pigs" and "Pigs On The Wing" would have sounded ridiculous. "Dogs" could have been played since the first half was sung by Gilmour, but I can't imagine him singing the second half. Should they have used a backing singer to do that? Also, the song is very long and not that familiar for casual fans. I think it was an obvious choice not to perform that song.

Not true. "Hey You", "Brain Damage" and "Eclipse" all were never "hits they had to play" yet they were often performed during the 1994 shows.

 

I guess it's a matter of personal taste. These are my favourite songs from the band's classic albums:

Dark Side Of The Moon: Us And Them (and I'd also rank Brain Damage, Money and The Great Gig In The Sky over any song that has a Gilmour credit)
Wish You Were Here: Shine On You Crazy Diamond
Animals: Sheep
The Wall: Goodbye Blue Sky

Hardly any David Gimour credits there.