Password Reminder User Name: Password:
Concert Review Roger Waters performs The Wall
Author: Jeaux Smith, 11/21/2010 Attendees: Jeaux and Chito Venue: American Airlines Center
Recent Reviews
So you thought you might like to go to the show? When I made the financial decision to not see Pink Floyd in 1994's Division Bell tour, I had no idea that they would never tour again. One of few bands that remain on my concert bucket list, you can imagine my excitement when I heard that Roger Waters had decided to bring back his rock masterpiece, The Wall, as a tour across the U.S. and Europe. The original tour in 1979 only played a handful of shows before the band called it quits due to finances and creativity differences between Waters and Gilmour. Roger retained The Wall album (third best-selling album of all time) and the tour with all its props. He performed it much like he did the Berlin show in 1994 with oversized bricks being fit together as a puzzle until the complete Wall is formed by the end of side one. What made this show even more entertaining was the graphics being projected onto the bricks reenforcing the album's themes of loss, separation, pain and co-dependency. Many graphics were taken directly from the 1979 film, but Waters modernized many of the icons adding Jewish stars, crescent stars and Shell and Mercedes symbols to the crosses being dropped from the planes on Goodbye Blue Skies. Each scene was incredibly crisp, and brought to life by giant puppets, flying pigs and an incredible audio experience that made the helicopters in the opening sequence eerily realistic. The hightlight of the show for me was Vera, an often overlooked song on side two, with the somber plea to "Bring the Boys Back Home". The song pulled at the strings of each fan's heart as Waters portrayed family members being reunited with their returning soldiers. The final scene shows a little girl at school in shear disbelief as her dad shows up at her school in his fatigues, there were not many dry eyes in the crowd. The show did not change its lyrics at all, probably to the chagrin of many politically correct activists, but as the Wall tumbled down towards the audience, Waters returned to the stage amongst the rubble to expaln that his reference point for the album had changed. When he wrote the album as a young adult, he was very depressed, lost and tring to share his demons with the fans, while this current tour has allowed him to take a retrospective look at the music that helped him relate to his audience and form a community with people who mourned loss and separation in their own lives. Overall, the show was an incredible success creatively, visually and musically. Thanks Roger.
191,547 hits February 6, 2012 Calendar Add Birthday