There are several reviews of Roger Waters’s live staging of The Wall already populating the web. Some can’t stop fawning over
None of them seem to get what’s actually happening at all.
It’s very easy for many journalists to not see what’s happening right under their noses. Many of them can’t be blamed, really. When confronted with a show of this magnitude - such as on November 13, the first of a two-night stand in Sunrise, FL at the Bank Atlantic Center - it’s difficult to see the forest for the trees. The show even starts without many people realizing it - there’s a “homeless” man out in the audience. Shopping cart and all. With a sign reading, “No thought control.” His “belongings” consist of a big, pink doll. One that looks a lot like the representation of the main character, Pink, during “The Trial”.
There are several reviews of Roger Waters’s live staging of The Wall already populating the web. Some can’t stop fawning over
None of them seem to get what’s actually happening at all.
But that’s fast-forwarding a great deal. The lights go out and the opening number, “In The Flesh?”, starts out with full pyro regalia. Right then and there, the sensory overload machine has taken off, ready to take the audience on one hell of a ride.
For 67 years old, Waters seemed spry and ready for action himself. He was also much more jovial than die-hard fans would expect. For a man who has given the finger to fans and (especially) journalists alike, Waters was in great spirits during the show. Almost like he was hiding a little secret. The same one that many have missed in writing about the show, but again, that’s fast-forwarding.
Still, for a performer in a terrific mood, he was still flipping the bird to anyone who noticed. Like during “Hey You”, when the audience saw a single graphic projected on to the styrofoam wall built during Act One that now completely hid the performers themselves. Save for the bare minimum amount of animation during the center of the song, the audience still cheered for the fact that the band could have been in the back drinking for all they knew.
There were several moments and moves that could be read that way. The band didn’t start playing in front of the Wall - where they could be seen - until the reprise of “In The Flesh”. More than halfway through Act Two - and more than three-quarters of the way through the entire show. In addition, at the end of that song, Waters played along with the machine gun sounds at the end of the track by taking out a prop machine gun and shooting the audience. Yet another middle finger delivered.
Even if those were deliberate gesture, the main thing to take away here is that it could all be forgiven for what Waters and company presented. When the show was first staged thirty years ago, it was seen as a blow-away presentation, and that was way before technology could catch up with Waters put together for this tour. There was the trademark projection screen behind Waters and the band but, as intimated before, the entire Wall was now being used as a projection screen as well. Never once overlapping or out-of-sync with which portions of the Wall had been built up to any given point, the projections not only fit perfectly, but looked great.
The greatest example of this was during “Bring The Boys Back Home”. Originally an outburst of longing for a father - and many others - lost during World War II (in the context of the album’s story), the song became arguably the best anti-war message that’s ever been delivered on stage. Among images of impoverished, injured, and murdered children all over the world, a quote showed on the screen from Dwight D Eisenhower:
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.
After that, the song title: Bring The Boys Back Home.
Not a dry eye was left in the house.
And that’s just an example of how expertly the show was played and staged. The inflatable puppets of the Teacher and the Wife were now six-story-tall animatronics. The graphics were crystal clear and updated for today’s times (including symbols of a Cross and the Star of David mixed with logos for Shell and BMW during “Goodbye Blue Sky”). Each and every aspect of the show was not only a technical marvel, but used to maximum emotional impact, just as the album did for millions of listeners did upon its release despite having one of the most confusing stories for a concept album in history.
Aside from the production wizardry, the band played their parts well. Singer Robbie Wyckoff, used as a stand-in for David Gilmour’s vocal parts, kept up with not only Waters, but the entire production. The band knew their parts as well as the James Brown Revue and performed them equally as well.
Everything about the show was expertly staged. Instead of re-treading what had come before (despite how many people had not seen it), many of the album’s themes were seemlessly brought in to modern times, updating The Wall for a modern audience without losing a shred of anything that made the album great to begin with. It was a perfect reading of an album presented in such a way that the audience left shell-shocked and thoroughly pleased - something many Broadway shows and multi-million dollar films can’t seem to accomplish.
And that is what many reviewers and journalists seem to have missed. In looking to make some grand statement about Waters’s career, the themes that have permeated his work, the greatness of Pink Floyd that many younger audiences missed out on, or even the cynicism of seeing this “old dinosaur” of a piece brought out to the masses in such dramatic fashion, many have missed a very obvious possibility.
Roger Waters is 67 years old. The rumors of this being his last run have been mentioned, but glossed over in favor of political ramblings or attempts at shrewd observations. The rumors of this being his last run may need to be given more credence, because there may never be another stage show that tops what Waters has accomplished with the 2010 tour of The Wall. And really, why should he try? He has no reason to.
It would make perfect sense that, as slyly as he has picked and chose his shots at journalists and audiences over a career that has lasted over 40 years, that an effort like this would be his last grand statement. The amazing music, political statements and thematic cohesiveness that have made The Wall what it is have always been a part of the equation, and they were all given equal attention not only in Sunrise, but on this entire tour. They’ve all come together in one final act by Waters to leave the game on top of his game. No other rock extravaganza will top what Waters has accomplished with this show, and Waters knows it. That accomplishment, while overlooked by many, could very well be what Waters had in mind when he decided to re-build the Wall and tear it down again, perhaps for the final time.
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