Roger Waters, The Wall

Another Brick in the Wall, Part II

I've been to close to one hundred different music performances in my lifetime (the details of that are forthcoming) and many of those had elaborate stages and effects. However, seeing Roger Waters perform The Wall at Staples Center Monday night took the cake. Truly a ridiculous and awe inspiring spectacle of rock goodness. I mean, who else but Pink Floyd has giant marionettes gyrating above the stage and inflatable pigs sailing over the audience? This definitely made it into my top three concerts.

Unlike his previous tour, Waters did not have Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason and did not deviate to include any other songs not on The Wall. The concert clocked in at just over two hours, which included a thirty minute intermission. There was no opening act and the show started around 8:20 pm. Staples Center and LA Live were understandly packed with people. It was especially difficult to order a Racer 5 at the Yardhouse, but we somehow managed.

The Wall

The very first tour for The Wall worldwide began at the LA Coliseum on February 7, 1980, so it had been over thirty years since it had been performed in the United States. Waters was able to do a duet with himself (whoa!) during Mother, as grainy footage was displayed in the background along with the original audio.



The actual "Wall" itself was built up and destroyed during the performance, which was quite amazing considering each "brick" was a separate screen. It was thirty feet high and spanned from each end of the Staples Center. The background of the Wall displayed many images and videos, including haunting scenes from the movie The Wall.

The Pig!

Highlights were many and included:

• a video of an airplane flying at the audience, with real fireworks lit to act as bullets
• a real model airplane flying along a wire over the seats in the opposite direction, where it literally exploded into part of the Wall
• giant marionette of a ghoulish teach during Another Brick in the Wall Part II
• another giant green marionette looking scary in the middle of the show
• the guitarist at the very top of the Wall during Comfortably Numb, just like David Gilmour in the original tours
• that awesome second guitar solo in Comfortably Numb: the Gilmour replacement nailed it! (although a real Gilmour would be a million times better)
• original footage of Mother
• Waters' duet with himself during Mother
• giant, inflatable pig flying over the audience; this pig was not the pink pig found during Waters' previous tour and on the cover of Animals: this was a sinister, corporate-devil pig!
• watching the Wall come down
• Roger being Roger: acting as Pink with all his heart
• Waiting for the Worms: what a great song to see live, not to mention those scary hammers

It was a kick-ass concert. The only thing it was lacking was an encore.

Pink's delusions of grandeur

All photos and videos courtesy of me and the always crappy camera phone.



The Wall, broken