The Wall (live)

If you like pink floyd, you'll love this. Also the quality of the recording is awesome for a live recording. They tried to stick as close to the studio version as they could, but a few things they tweaked are great. Also, don't you just love to hear the audience clapping and screaming when you really want to also?!

I was out there.

When Pink Floyd toured, they only performed The Wall in New York and Los Angeles. Through a ticket broker I bought two tickets that were seventh roll center on the floor. The tickets were $45 each!



I remember every nuance of the show and I still wonder if there is a video of this excellent concert lurking somewhere.



Even though the recording is excellent, it can't touch the sonic/visual bombast that the show was. To see Roger Waters just giving his emotional heart in the performance, the visuals projected on the Wall, and the sonic effects gave the performance a eerie/creepy vibe. Some audience members were actually crying at some portions. And when the wall came down in the end and the band came out spotlighted in a golden glow, it felt like a healing.



Waters and Mason elected to wear earphones. Waters was singing into a wireless microphone (a technological first) that he would stuff into his back pocket when it wasn't in use. Each band member had a supporting musician, so everyone was doubled, even Mick Mason. Plus there were supporting vocalist.



To me, The Wall touched on many layers. The show had all the themes that Waters likes to vent about, losing his father at a young age, confining English upbringing, divorce and unhappiness at seeing people acting like sheep. Waters also touches on war rallies as he withdraws into his internal mental hell.



Let me give you some of the visuals.



When the MC (Cynthia Fox from radio station KLOS) came out and did her shtick, the stage had lots of "technicians" walking around the stage and adjusting equipment. While she was talking, the technicians parted and the group was already on stage ready to go, surprise, surprise. And they cut her off in mid-sentence.



There were speakers on stage as well as the sides of the Sports Arena, just like the "Wish You Were Hear" tour. So when 'In the Flesh" started, I thought that the sound wasn't as full. Then the end came and as the band played the last long chord and the airplane came over the audience, symbolizing the death of Water's dad during the war, the side speakers and the true wrap-around sound kicked in. Quite a rush.



When the helicopter section played, on stage the lighting technicians sat on top of flying saucer that were on the stage floor. They took off into the air and lit up the band, following the musicians around the stage.



The puppets (you can see them on the Waters show at Berlin) were mind blowing. Quite a feat to control their movements, so a nod to the supporting cast/roadies that you never see or hear about.



The movies were being played on a round screen above the band. Seeing the intertwining flowers turning into monsters during sex and one snapping the head off the others to the song "Empty Spaces" was quite a wallop.



When Waters sang "One of my Turns", he was outside the under-construction wall. Next to him was a little Pink doll which he mimics as he sang. As he screamed "Oh No" and the band went into solo, he jumped back behind the wall, and the wall continues to close.



During "Don't Leave me Now, two giant puppets were on top of the wall and just glaring at Waters while he sang with all that creepy loud breathing flowing around the speakers just overpowering him. And the wall gets completed except the one brick where Waters sings "Goodbye Cruel World". I never forgot the music that was playing between "Another Brick in The Wall Part 3" and "Goodbye Cruel World" and it is so nice to hear it again after all these years. What was weird was that the band was playing behind the Wall and you could only see the top portion of the stage, with all the supporting lights and flying saucer pods doing their thing. Gave a strange visual vibe.



The second act was performed with the audience having to deal with the wall. The movie was projected on the Wall itself and was done using three interlocked projectors. It was perfection. Even though sometimes only the center projector was showing a scene, the side ones were still on and the side film was pristine, you wouldn't know that they were on.



"Nobody Home" was done with a portion of the Wall that opened up showing a hotel room with Waters reclining in a chair watching TV.



"Comfortably Numb" was a high point, with Gilmore singing and soloing from the top of the wall. You could see that he was really into it. Must have been a thrill for him to be so high up and overlooking the crowd as his guitar solo spun around the monitors.



When the MC came out again, the band was pushed onto stage in darkness on a platform on rollers. When they were illuminated, everyone was wearing the masks that are on the cover of this CD and acted like robots.



In "The Show must go on", as Waters sings 'Are there any queers in the audience", the flying saucer light technicians actually go out over the audience looking for offenders going as far as their supporting booms let them.



On the CD right before Waters introduces "Run Like Hell", you hear him let out a shout as a spacey guitar cord is hit. That is when the inflated pig breaks through the wall.



"Waiting for the Worms" of course had the hammers marching across the entire wall which made it look like the whole wall was moving. "Stop" and "The Trial" was just Waters solo in front of the wall just spilling his guts out.



Then the wall came down to the booming base notes that shook the seats. The whole audience just let out screams of relief as it came down. The musicians came out from the side of the stage as themselves with Waters leading and playing the clarinet while kicking debris out of the way. They stopped and sang "Outside the Wall", then continued the march off to the other side of the stage. During the applause, the four members of Pink Floyd came out, took a bow, and everybody went home knowing that they had witnessed something special and never to be duplicated again.

VASTLEY ..SUPERIOR .. to the studio CD of ...THE WALL!

There is this MYTH that ROGERS WATERS was all of , PINK FLOYD.



I guess those who say that NEVER heard of the CDS , WISH YOU WERE HERE and/or MEDDLE?



PINK FLOYD, was a BAND with a great ,unigue GUITAR and KEYBOARD sound. FLOYD , was NOT know for its lead SINGING or BASS playing [except for the song, MONEY]



While ROGERS wrote allot of the songs , many PINK FLOYD gems , were written by the rest of the band. DAVID GILMOUR , was a excellent song writer in his own right.



The 3 best songs on THE WALL were co-written by GILMOUR and WATERS.



COMFORTIBLY NUM , RUN LIKE HELL , ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL.



Another MYTH , is that , A MOMENTARY LAPSE of REASON , had allot of non FLOYD players on it.



Well didn't, THE WALL studio CD have other non FLOYD members on it , as well?



PINK FLOYD live has always used FILM , PUPPETS , SFX ... ect..that were made and shown by other people at their concerts. SO WHAT? Allot of bands do just that.



THE STONES add more musicians for their live act , as did THE WHO , and how about, THE BEATLES? Their studio CDS used all kinds of people.RIGHT?



ROGER had an EGO problem and acted very badly when he left.

He didn't handle his stardom well.Spitting on fans at concerts is not the best idea.







You didn't see PETER GABRIEL freak out after he left GENESIS.

He never said that the GROUP was no longer GENESIS ,with out him.



And GENESIS was not finished , as the critics said that they would be.



Neither was PINK FLOYD , as the CD , A.M.L.o.R. , proves beyond any dought.



ROGER , still gets the royalties from ALL PINK FLOYD product, after he left the band.



THE WALL live, is so much better than the dry , and depressing studio CD because THE WALL live has more heart and solos by WRIGHT/GILMOUR/MASON.... ect.....There are no bass solos, here.



You get most of the songs from the MOVIE [the ones that are not on the studio CD] , a fantastic "M C", a phony FLOYD band ,

and FLOYD at the peak of their POWER. An awesome OVERTURE that is not on the studio CD. Live , THE WALL , is actually FUN to listen to , brought to life by ALL of FLOYD'S band MEMBERS and ROADIES. NOT just by 1 band member or ROADIE, but by MANY.