Roger Waters: The Wall Live - Concert Recap


BACKGROUND: I remember how I first got into Pink Floyd. It was the summer leading into my 8th grade school year. I was spending a week at a camp in Hocking Hills, as I had done the past few years. While I was there, my cabin went to a large field once the sun had gone down to see the night sky without any light pollution. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The stars and full moon were burning. It was beautiful, and something I’ll never forget. It was while I was gazing up at the sky that I somehow got the famous line from Brain Damage that gave the album its on its title, “I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon”, stuck in my head. It played in my head the rest of the week, so I decided to listen to Dark Side Of The Moon when I got home. Throughout 8th grade, my interest in them kept expanding. It was around this time that Roger Waters had started touring The Wall. He came through Columbus, but I didn’t go since we couldn’t really justify getting the tickets at that time. I wasn’t upset or anything. Actually, in retrospect, I’m glad I didn’t see it that time around because I really only knew 2 songs off the album; “Another Brick 2” and of course, “Comfortably Numb”. However, during my freshman year of high school, Waters announced another leg of the tour in North America. While he wasn’t playing anywhere in Ohio, he was playing a few cities close enough to drive to. I was obsessed with The Wall at that point, so this time I really wanted to go. After a long time of asking my parents to go, it paid off. One my birthday that year, my parents got me a few things related to The Wall. After an unnecessary fake-out from my parents, I was given one more thing. It was exactly what you’re probably thinking, because otherwise we wouldn't be here right now - tickets to see Roger Waters - The Wall Live. Which brings us to this post…

Date/City: July 3rd, 2012 - Pittsburgh, PA

Venue: CONSOL Energy Center (now PPG Paints Arena)
Concert Capacity: 14,536 (http://www.ppgpaintsarena.com/ppg-paints-arena/faqs)

When I was looking at the cities around Columbus that Waters was playing, there were a few options. However, Pittsburgh ended up being the most practical to go to. I’m glad we went to Pittsburgh, because the CONSOL Energy Center was my first choice place to see it at. The arena itself was only a couple years old at that point, so it really hadn’t done any aging. The first time my dad and I walked in was only to find a restroom, but I was impressed by how much space there was on the main floor concourse. When we walked in to stay for the show, we went to a different entrance than before, but it still had plenty of space. The seating of the arena is comfortable, and the sight lines are fantastic. It was really well kept, with the cleanliness of the place being quite noticeable. One of the things that I really like about the arena is that while it holds ~19,000 people in total, it didn’t feel cavernous like some other arenas of that size do. Even though my dad and I were in the upper bowl, it didn’t feel like we were a mile away from the stage. Well, it didn’t to me, at least. The acoustics were also really good. We didn’t hear sound bouncing off the arena walls or anything like that. Of course, good sound engineering probably had something to do with that, but a FOH (front of house) engineer can only be as good as the venue will let them be.

Photo Credit: Rudi Riet, Flickr

Technicalities:

Given how unique and uniquely sophisticated The Wall Live was, I want to go into a couple of the technical aspects of it because they were essential for the success of the show. The show was basically an updated version of the original Wall tour that Pink Floyd did in 1980-81. The original show was very advanced for its time. Pink Floyd was always about more than just playing through a setlist on stage and then being done. They always liked to provide some kind of visual aspect to the shows that they gave in order to keep audiences more captivated. For the original tour, they built a 35’ wall across the stage that extended into the arena seating using fire-retardant materials. During the show, projections were shown on the wall to compliment the music. Everything from the original tour was brought back for this show. The only differences being that this time, the technology was far more advanced.

Projectors:

The projections shown on the wall were one of the most important parts of the show, along with the music and the physical wall itself. While the projections on the original tour were usable, they were dim, and the band wasn’t able to do anything too fancy with the projectors. For this tour, Waters went all out. Several extremely high-end projection systems were used throughout the tour. Some of the projectors used were FLM HD20 projectors, FLM R22+ projectors, and PT-DZ21KE and PT-DS20KE projectors. These provided a clear, bright, high definition picture of the animations that were being thrown onto the wall. I’m not going to go be specific, as I’m not familiar with this kind of stuff, but I’ll leave a few websites that go into greater detail explaining how it all worked:

-https://panasonic.net/cns/projector/casestudies/043.html
-https://business.panasonic.co.uk/visual-system/xl-video-roger-waters-the-wall-live-concert-tour#
-https://www.barco.com/en/News/Post/2011/4/13/Roger-Waters-The-Wall-comes-alive-with-Barco
-http://articles.triplewidemedia.com/the-wall-of-projection/

Sound:

Photo Credit: McGabe, Wikimedia Commons
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The sound system that Waters used for the show was also very high tech. A lot of bands that tour just use a PA system that is suspended at the stage, and that’s it. For stadium shows, as well as shows at other kinds of large venues, bands will use delay towers in order to reenforce the sound to the people in the back of the crowd. Roger Waters utilized a surround sound system for each show so that the sound would be more evenly distributed among the crowd. There were the main PA speakers at the stage, as well as surround speakers placed at various places throughout the venue. Two soundboards were used for this show. One was for all the back stage where the main instrument setup was, and the other was for all the instruments on the front stage during the part of the show when all the band is playing in front of the wall in the second half.

-https://www.soundonsound.com/people/trip-khalaf-behind-wall-engineering-roger-waters-world-tour

When it comes to the sound itself, I thought that it was really well done. There was really only one part of the show where I thought something was off, and that was during that part of “Waiting For The Worms” where Roger is shouting into a megaphone at the end of the song. The shouting from Roger through the megaphone (which was actually just a recording being overlaid on the live music) got to be pretty loud, and it could have been turned down. Other than that, the blend of all the vocals and instruments was done really well, and the master volume was at an enjoyable level.

Political Undertones:

Each song was played in a way that was very similar to the original studio recordings of the songs, yet still had a unique Roger Waters spin put onto it. It’s kind of hard to explain, but each song had a much different kind of life to it than in any previous recordings of them while still staying true to the original. Part of that might of had something to do with how different in nature this show was compared to the original. The original show just told the story of a worn out rock star spiraling into a mental breakdown and shutting himself out from society. The onstage wall being built was a metaphor for the increasing distance between the main character, Pink Floyd (because of course that’s his name), and the rest of the world. As the wall came closer to being completed throughout the first half of the show, the more distant Pink was from society.

Photo Credit: Filiberto Strazzari
The modern show still told the same story, but with the addition of a new, very obvious and intentionally placed political charge to it. To be fair, the original album and show did have a noticeable share of political undertones. Waters has a history of politically charged lyrics and themes (i.e. the entire Animals album), and has never backed down or had second thoughts about it. In the updated version of it though, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind. It could be felt, heard, and seen throughout the entire show. Where there were no political drives in the original album and show, there were in this show. Where there were political drives in the original album and show, they were even more prominent in this version. Some of the most obvious political messages throughout the show include projections of different company logos and religious and political symbols (ex. the Shell logo, the Star of David, Hammer and Sickle, etc.) being dropped like bombs from a plane during “Goodbye Blue Sky”, videos of children being reunited with their military parents being shown during “Vera”, and parts of the leaked footage of the July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike being used during “Run Like Hell”. There were even costumes made to mimic fascist uniforms for certain parts of the concert. Some other prominent examples of political themes involved with the show include the kids Waters had dancing on stage during “Another Brick (Pt. 2)” with shirts saying “Fear Builds Walls” in large block letters written on them as well as on the wall, the words “No F--king Way” shown on the wall (because, ya know, Roger Waters) after the words “Mother, should I trust the government” were sung during “Mother”, and Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Chance for Peace speech being shown on the wall during “Bring The Boys Back Home”.

 https://www.guitarworld.com/magazine/roger-waters-explains-imagery-and-symbolism-behind-wall-live-his-update-pink-floyd-classic
Photo Credit: Jimmy Baikovicius, Flickr
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The Show:

Photo Credit: Jimmy Baikovicius, Flickr
The start of the show was quite something. It’s best summed up by someone in Waters’ touring crew in a behind-the-scenes video of the tour in Cardiff, Wales. The man, who’s name and role I could not find, said of the show - “We start our show like most bands end their show” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMREkyaPdu4). A lot of bands end their shows with fireworks, flames, and other pyrotechnics. Well, that’s exactly how the show started. After the intro to “In The Flesh?” was played on a trumpet, the band exploded into the song, with sparks flying into the air with each beat, and projections thrown onto the unfinished wall. Soldiers dressed in fascist-style uniforms marched onto the stage carrying red flags with the signature crossed hammers insignia on them, then were hoisted into the air by platforms rising from the stage. After a couple moments, Waters emerged onto the stage to greet the crowd, then went on to put on a uniform mimicking that of a fascist dictator, before going on to sing. At the end of the song, sparks were shot non-stop from the top and bottom of the stage in a fashion that would make Seamus Finnegan from Harry Potter envious of the fact that he wasn’t the one creating the explosions. There was even a replica of a WWII Stuka Dive Bomber that flew across the arena on a zipline, of course with sparks coming out of the wings, that crashed into the upper righthand part of the wall. I have yet to see a concert opening that epic.

The band was in great shape, and really did justice and put a new kind of life into each song. Obviously, David Gilmour wasn’t there to play and sing his parts. The person who sang Gilmour’s parts was Robbie Wykoff, and the main person who played his guitar parts was Dave Kilminster. While they definitely weren’t David Gilmour, they did a good job of playing/singing their respective parts. The other members of the band also did a great job of filling their parts, and blended together really well. Some of the other musicians included Snowy White, who toured with Pink Floyd on the original Wall Tour, and Jon Carin, who collaborated and toured with Pink Floyd during the David Gilmour Lead era, and still continues to work with both Gilmour and Waters today. Other notable members of the band included G.E. Smith, the third guitar player, Roger Waters’ son, Harry Waters, and Graham Broad on drums (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wall_Live_(2010%E2%80%9313)).

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Throughout the first half of the show, the wall itself was built up. The bricks didn’t start being put into place until the first time “All in all your just another brick in the wall” was sung during “Another Brick (Pt. 2)”. Each song saw the laying of more and more bricks, until it was finally completely built up, and the last brick was put into place at the end of “Goodbye Cruel World”. The wall was built between the audience and the band to provide a sense of separation between the band and audience. It was used as a metaphor for the main character, Pink, as his isolation from the rest of the world grew stronger. The more he shut himself off, the closer to being complete the wall was. Even though the wall separated the band and the audience, there were a times throughout the second half of the show that [part of] the band could be seen. During “Is There Anybody Out There”, two bricks were removed to reveal Dave Kilminster and Snowy White playing the second half of the song. The next song, “Nobody Home”, saw Roger Waters sitting in a chair in a part of the wall that had opened up to reveal a hotel room setup. From “Bring The Boys Back Home” through the rest of the show, Roger was in front of the wall singing his parts. That’s not to say that he wasn’t joined by other members of the band for some of that time. During “Comfortably Numb”, Dave Kilminster and Robbie Wykoff appeared on top of the wall to sing and play their parts. From “In The Flesh” through “Waiting For The Worms”, the entire band was out in front of the wall to accompany Waters. Other theatrical high points for the show were before "In The Flesh?" started, when two fascist characters came out on stage holding a doll representing Pink while an audio clip from the movie "Spartacus" played, at the end of "In The Flesh" when Waters, in character as Pink as a fascist dictator, fired a fake machine gun into the audience (because, ya know, Roger Waters), and at the end of "The Trial" when the wall was knocked down.

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As mentioned before, the projections on the wall were an extremely important part of the show. As early as the first song, you were able to tell just how much work was put into making what the audience saw, and how much care the people that made them took to ensure that no mistakes were made. The projections consisted of original and recycled animations. The bulk of the animations were original, and made specifically for this version of the show. However, some of Gerald Scarfe's animations for the original Wall tour, and later The Wall movie, made a comeback for this show. Scarfe's animations were cleverly and seamlessly intertwined with the original animations throughout the show. This was most noticeable during two songs. The first was "Waiting For The Worms", when the new animations effortlessly segued to Scarfe's toward the end of the song. The second was during "The Trial", where Scarfe's original animations played during the entire song, but was interrupted once by the wall rotating to reveal a distraught and deranged Pink flipping the audience off (because, ya know, Roger Waters), and again to show Scarfe's animation showing Pink floating through the sky, but the wall rotates again while this happens and Pink crashes through it. Something that I really liked about the projections wasn't even the projections themselves, but their pacing. I think one of the biggest mistakes that this show had the potential to make, but didn't, was putting the wrong projections in different parts of the show. The people that designed the animations did a perfect job of balancing when to have intense animations versus having more still ones. For example - "Run Like Hell" is arguably the most intense song on the album; it has a fast tempo, and talks about running and hiding from a fascist government taking over (because, ya know, Roger Waters). Therefore, the animations during that song matched the atmosphere of the song - they were flashy, quick, and they kept perfect pace with the song. In contrast, the song "Is There Anybody Out There" is a sombre acoustic piece dealing with seclusion and trying but failing to make contact with the outside world. The only animation during that song was a pair of eyes that would move and occasionally blink overlaid on the gray wall from "Hey You". With the amount of room I think there was for the people that designed the animations, they did a perfect job of it. Some of the highlights of original animation for me were during the second half of the second solo of "Comfortably Numb", when the wall (the animated wall, not the physical wall) shatters and pillars rise against a colorful and dramatic background, the entirety of "Goodbye Blue Sky", and the entirety of "Run Like Hell".


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Even though the animations on the wall and circular screen behind the stage provided plenty of visuals for the entire show, there was another way that Waters incorporated visuals into the show. He did this by adding giant inflatable puppets to the show. Three to be precise. And to answer your question, yes this was also another thing that was from the original Pink Floyd tour. While they weren’t exact replicas of the original puppets, there was still the same idea behind them. The first puppet that we see appears during “The Happiest Days of Our Lives” and “Another Brick (Pt. 2)”. Naturally, the puppet depicts the teacher/schoolmaster that is spoken of in these two songs. This puppet appears in front of the wall, contorting its body and pointing his cane to mock the kids singing and dancing on stage during “Another Brick 2”. The second puppet that is seen depicts the mother sang of during the song “Mother”. This puppet is behind the stage, and watches over everything by turning her head back and forth, which is representative of her described overprotective nature. Other than that, this puppet had no movements. The third and final puppet appears in front of the stage at the end of "Don't Leave Me Now". It depicts Pink’s significant other as a green tentacle bearing monster (because, ya know, Roger Waters). This puppet is the most different in design compared to the original show's, and also appears during a different song than in the original. In the original show, the wife puppet appears as a praying mantis like creature during the fast part of “One Of My Turns”, and stayed there through “Don’t Leave Me Now”. Also for whatever reason in the original show, the Teacher puppet makes an appearance in “Don’t Leave Me Now”. My only guess is that during this song he’s supposed to represent Pink instead of the teacher. I know that doesn’t have anything to do with the current show, but I still felt like sharing. #itsmyblog #dealwithit.
Photo Credit: Jimmy Baikovicius, Flickr

If I had to pick one thing to critique the show on, it’s the fact that Roger Waters was lip-syncing a good portion of it. I realized this after watching several videos of the same songs from the tour, and noticing that when Waters sang, all of his timings, tonalities, pitches, and nuances were all exactly the same. Nothing was different, even in the slightest between the different recordings of them. This was further confirmed when the CD/DVD, Roger Waters - The Wall Live was released, and I heard the exact same things on the same respective songs. Now, to cut Waters some slack, he is getting old, and in my opinion never really had the greatest voice to begin with; at least in his higher register. However, I still feel that if he would have sang those parts live, that it would have added a little bit more to the show.

 That being said, it didn’t take anything away from the show. The Wall Live was more of a spectacle rather than a regular concert. Here’s what I mean by this; what I think the difference between a regular concert and a spectacle, in this context, is - if this was any regular concert, Roger and co. would have just been standing on a stage in an arena playing this album full through with some lighting effects, probably some kind of video screen, and that would have been it. It really would have just been the music that would have mattered because that’s the one thing that’s essential for a concert - music. However, there was so much more than that. There were puppets, a replica WWII plane on a zipline, and a 240x35 ft. frickin’ wall on the stage. Now, one could make the argument that the massive production for The Wall was just done to show off, which is a fair argument. Lots of other artists, mainly pop artists, use striking visuals to further capture and keep the audience’s attention rather than just leaving that job solely to the music and the artists’ stage presence. However, at the end of the day, that’s all those things are for - tools for audience stimulation. They have no essential purpose and add nothing of real value to the music. Let’s face it, Taylor Swift didn’t really need giant inflatable cobras on her Reputation Tour to tell us that “the haters gonna hate hate hate hate hate”, but she used them anyway (because, ya know, pop artists). What made The Wall Live so different in this regard was that it wasn’t just the music that mattered. It was the projections on the wall, the wall itself, the building of the wall, the knocking down of the wall, the puppets, the flying pig, the various places that the band members played on stage… every little thing helped to further highlight the meaning of the music. Everything contributed in a meaningful way to the telling of a story, and they all came together perfectly to help tell it. If one visual was missing from this show, the message of the music wouldn't have been highlighted the way it was. However, there still would have been more than just the music there that had meaning with the other effects, even without that one missing thing. Even if the music itself was missing from this show, there still would've been something of value with the wall, animations, puppets and other things because they're related to the songs they go with. Even though the audience might have a hard time picking up on it since there would be no music to give it context, there would still be meaning to the effects. In contrast, if the giant cobras were missing from Taylor Swift's show, the meaning of the song's message would have stayed exactly the same because nothing of substance would have been missing without it. If the music was missing but the effects were still there, it straight up wouldn't make any sense. Yeah, it would still look cool, but that would be it. To put it in simple terms - the effects for Taylor Swift's show compliments the message, whereas the effects of Waters' show supplements it (I'm not trying to rip on Taylor Swift, I'm just using her show as a comparison.). The music, and the effects that went with it, came together seamlessly to create one of the most, if not the most unique and innovative stage production and show ever made.

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Overall, The Wall Live was something that really couldn't be fully comprehended without seeing it in person. In my opinion, the videos online fail to capture what it was like to physically be there in person to watch the show. Even the DVD that was released didn’t do it full justice. It was something that was so different, that only the people that were there in person can fully describe just how incredible the show was. Really my only regret was taking so many freakin’ pictures (over 200) instead of living in the moment, failing to realize that there were already so many pictures and videos online, all of which were better than anything I was going to capture. The show was unforgettable. I wish I had gone to see Roger Waters’ Us + Them Tour when it came to Columbus in 2017, so I could experience that show as well and see how it compared to The Wall Live. Even though I didn’t go (even though I totally could have), I’m glad I can still say that I saw at least one Roger Waters show in my life.

NOTE ABOUT PHOTOS: Please note that I did not use my own photos for this blog post, as mine were not good quality. The pictures I used were not from the specific concert that I went to, however they are of the same show. Venues and dates that each picture were taken at vary. I provided links to each picture that I used from Flickr. For those pictures, they are to the picture that I used, rather than the takers' home profile pages. I encourage you to take a few minutes to look through some of their other photos, whether of The Wall Live, or of other things that they have posted.


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