Disc three (DVD / Blu-ray) Personnel: The Tea Set (The 1965 recordings): with: Production: Pink Floyd (1966 onwards):
Track 5 previously released on the Harvest Records sampler LP, Picnic – A Breath of Fresh Air (1970) and on the compilation album, Works (1983).
This disc actually comes packaged outside the set in a separate white slipcase, on the reverse of which it says "Replacement CD disc for Obfusc/ation [...] (Stereo 2016 mix of Pink Floyd 'Live at Pompeii' CD supplied in error)" The standalone edition of this volume, however, contains Live at Pompeii as CD2 of the set.
The Live at Pompeii CD was accidentally included in the 1972: Obfusc/ation set instead of the 2016 mix of the album Obscured by Clouds.
[12] The Live at Pompeii CD track listing is as follows: Arnold Layne Point Me at the Sky It Would Be So Nice See Emily Play Apples and Oranges
[38] Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic called it "a deep, multi-tiered portrait of the years when Pink Floyd were fumbling around trying to find their voice".
He praised the tracks "Vegetable Man", "In the Beechwoods", the band's collaboration with John Latham, the soundtracks they recorded for The Committee and Zabriskie Point, and "Moonhead".
"Because so much of this music is raw – it's alternately live, unfinished, and improvisatory – the box underscores how Pink Floyd were an underground band right up until Dark Side", he concludes.
"Decades later, these recordings still feel boundless: this was music made without a destination in mind and the journey remains thrilling.
Jesse Jarnow wrote that "[a]s career periods go, the seven years of Pink Floyd’s Early Years don’t exactly match other intense eras of classic rock creativity, like Bob Dylan from 1961 to 1968 or the Beatles from 1962 to 1969 [...] this set illustrates something about both Pink Floyd’s own path and the rewards of resilience."
He writes that "in the modern age of oversized vault-clearing and copyright-protecting box sets, there is something resoundingly human about The Early Years, which only makes the achievements more extraordinary".
He praised some of the material (noting, for example, the influence their "cyclical, hypnotic repetitions and weird, very un-rock-like atmosphere" of early improvisations like "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" had on "nascent" krautrock bands as well as their role in the development of space rock) but criticized the superfluousness of some of it (pointing out that the box-set contains "15 versions of Careful With That Axe, Eugene" and writing: "there comes a point where you suspect that even the most ardent fan of Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun [...] will heave a fairly weary sigh as its three-note bassline starts up for the umpteenth time").