FIRST OFF . . .

A Pink Floyd concert in Venice, Italy, turned into a fiasco Saturday night when police moved in on about 200,000 youths who had packed into St. Mark’s Square and broken through barriers. Eighty people were reportedly hurt. The band played a 90-minute show from a barge the size of a football field anchored in a lagoon in front of St. Mark’s Square. (Venice has no stadium.) Fans who had camped out for as long as 14 hours for the free concert crammed into the Piazzetta, a rectangular extension outside St. Mark’s Square before they were chased away, leaving the group with only an elite local audience in private boats--and the claimed 200 million worldwide television audience. During the TV transmission of the 90-minute show, however, not one of the 15 cameras was ever aimed at the deserted Piazzetta, empty except for debris. The show’s producer, the state-owned RAI network, and Granada, sold the concert on the basis of the unusual setting. The group’s normal performance was hampered by orders to keep their amplified sound down to 60 decibels--a fraction of their usual volume. This was a last-minute demand from city officials based on concerns that higher sound levels could damage the historic buildings.