From R&B Covers to Space Rock: How Pink Floyd’s Early Setlist Evolved

The shift didn’t happen overnight. In 1965, Pink Floyd (then called the Tea Set, later the Pink Floyd Sound) were playing covers like Slim Harpo’s “I’m a King Bee” and their own early R&B-flavored original “Lucy Leave” at small college gigs and the Countdown Club. They sounded like a blues-rock band—Syd Barrett singing through a cheap microphone, the other three barely holding it together.

What flipped the setlist was the London underground scene. By mid-1966, they became the house band at the UFO Club and started swapping out R&B tunes for originals like “Interstellar Overdrive” and “Astronomy Domine.” The crowd wanted something weird, not another twelve-bar blues. Syd’s songwriting grew faster than the band could keep up, so covers faded naturally as he brought in songs built around extended jams, bizarre lyrics, and tape-loop effects.

By the time they recorded The Piper at the Gates of Dawn in 1967, the R&B material was practically dead. Only a handful of early bootlegs survive to show that Pink Floyd ever played a simple shuffle. The switch from bluesman to space cadet took about eighteen months—and it was Syd’s vision that made the transition