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From Times Online
April 30, 2008

'That's my pig' says Pink Floyd singer as giant swine drifts off into night

A pig-shaped balloon is seen in the sky as Roger Waters performs at the Coachella Music Festival in Indio

Alexi Mostrous

A huge inflatable pig, featuring the word “Obama”, is flying somewhere over the California desert.

Surprisingly, the gigantic swine is not the latest campaign advert from Hillary Clinton. It was released by Pink Floyd’s frontman Roger Waters on Sunday during his headlining set at the Coachella music festival.

Now organisers want the pig back – and are offering a $10,000 reward and four lifetime tickets for the music festival in exchange for its safe return.

As tall as a two-storey house and as wide as two school buses, the pig was released into the sky as Waters played a version of Pink Floyd’s Pigs, from the 1977 anti-capitalist album Animals.

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“It wasn’t really supposed to happen that way. I don’t have the details,” Marcee Rondan, a festival spokesman said.

The pig displays the slogans “Don’t be led to the slaughter” and “Fear builds walls”. It also sports a cartoon of Uncle Sam holding two bloody cleavers.

Its belly has the word “Obama” written on it, with a checked ballot box for the US democratic hopeful.

“That’s my pig,” Waters told the crowd, as the huge swine drifted off into the night, accompanied by flames exploding from the side of the stage.

It was not clear whether the singer intended to part company with his fake pet.

The enormity of the pig has led to concerns that it might destroy anything it crashes into. But Ms Rondan speculated that “because it’s inflatable, as it loses air it becomes less and less dangerous.”

She did not know how much the blowup animal weighed, however.

It is not the first time that Pink Floyd shows have used blowup pigs. The Obama pig is “the same prototype as past pigs,” Ms Rondan said.

“People are putting search teams together to find this pig,” she said. “But it may float in the night sky, never to be seen again.”

The festival have not yet been able to contact Waters, the Pink Floyd co-founder and writer of albums such as Animals and The Dark Side of the Moon.

Anyone with information on the pig should e-mail lostpig@coachella.com.

jayil from London: you do need education if you think pink floyd is a "Mr" !

charlie, los angeles, us

Hardly news as he's been letting the pig go on purpose at every one of his outdoor concerts on this tour that started in 2006. He was even warned with police action in LA when he did it at the Hollywood Bowl in LA.

Its all part of the act folks and brings some nice publicity for the festival.

jce, sunshine coast, australia

Mr Floyd... "we dont need no education"

jayil, london, uk

Poor pig - it must be bacon hot in that desert.

I hope none of the roadies get the chop as punishment.

Chris, Liverpool, England

“Don’t be led to the slaughter” and “Fear builds walls”.

Very true statements!
Dont be led to slaughter in Iraq and our nation of fear (terrorism) we now live in, builds walls, walls that our ancestors fought wars to break down!

Dont be scared to be Free, thats what we were born to be!

Andrew T, England, UK,

The pig (in shreds) landed in the yards of two homes in the Hideaway Golf Club in La Quinta.

Jane Joukovsky, La Quinta, California, USA

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