Roger Waters

M.E.N. Arena, Manchester

Monday 07 May  2007

Technically, this wasn’t actually Pink Floyd, but it is the nearest that we are ever likely to get nowadays, especially now that the keyboardist Richard Wright has sadly passed away. In fact, apart from a bit too much politics, the only thing wrong with this concert was that it wasn’t Pink Floyd at all, despite having all the outward appearances of it – in all other respects it would be very difficult indeed to report on a better concert than this.

As is by now traditional with my concert reviews, I should really give a bit of a background to the artistes concerned and my reasons for particularly wanting to go to the concert, so this is not the time to go against that tradition! I think it would be true to say that Pink Floyd were the first major group that I started to seriously get into, once I had listened to all the Beatles records and needed something new to think about – yes, probably even before Deep Purple! One reason I liked Pink Floyd was that they were pretty much contemporaries of the Beatles, and I read that they had not only attended a recording session for Sgt Pepper, but they had themselves been something of an influence on the Beatles in that period, and that really is a heck of an achievement! To be honest, it took me a fair while to get to like Pink Floyd, until I heard “The Wall”, their mega concept album which came out in 1979, and that was because much of the early stuff was, or appeared to me to be at the time, simply making noises for the sake of it. “The Wall” was very different, being a concept or “story”, over the length of a double album. It was very accessible, full of great and memorable tunes, yet was also full of the instrumental brilliance that had made albums such as “Dark Side Of The Moon” so successful. Of course, the ultimate irony was that, in the same way that “Abbey Road” was a brilliant album, it was not really a Beatles album, “The Wall” was also a brilliant album, but it was not really a Pink Floyd album at all. Although all the (current) members of the group played on it, it was effectively a Roger Waters solo album, with Dave Gilmour only contributing co-writing credits on a few tracks and the others nothing at all. It hadn’t been like this at all on earlier albums, and so this was effectively the end of Pink Floyd, no matter that there were other incarnations of the group, dominated by either Waters or Gilmour.

As I started to like Pink Floyd, I soon naturally started to like other groups that were similar to them, particularly Rush, Yes, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Genesis and later on, Jethro Tull. Such groups constitute the “progressive rock” genre of course, and I have written a long essay on it (CLICK HERE to read), so there is no point going further into that subject again, save to say that for some reason, Pink Floyd always strenuously objected to the “progressive” label, preferring to think of themselves as “psychedelic” – but, to all intents and purposes they had ceased to be psychedelic when Syd Barrett was booted out in 1968.

Anyway, why did I particularly want to go tonight? Well, apart from Pink Floyd being one of my all time favourites, apart from Roger Waters being one of the two main members of the  group, and apart from it being prog par excellence, we were promised a performance of “Dark Side Of The Moon” in full, and one of the few things that could possibly beat that was seeing the Beatles perform “Sgt Pepper” in full: and that isn’t going to happen on this earth anytime soon. It is the album that pretty much defined what a “concept album” should be – in this case, a collection of separate tracks, all seamlessly joined together musically, and all on a single subject: the various things which can cause you to go mad. It was topical in 1973, but has even more resonance in the utterly mad world of today.

As promised, the whole of “Dark Side” was played, but fantastic as it was, it wasn’t really the highlight for me. In addition, a whole host of Pink Floyd classics were played (including one of my top five all time tracks “Comfortably Numb”) but better even than that was a selection of Roger Waters solo material, especially from his album “Amused To Death” (another massive concept album about all the political, societal, religious and commercial evils of the present day), which I think is even better than “The Wall” and surely must be the most severely underrated and unrecognized album of all time. I suspect that even most of this audience didn’t know the tracks, but they should, because it is one of the very best albums of all time, and I would have been just as happy if he had played the whole of THAT, instead!       

What about the sound quality I hear you ask – it’s always one of your big moans and groans? Probably needless to say, it wasn’t a moan this time, on the contrary, it was as loud and crystal clear as you could possibly wish for. Why can’t they all be like this?

With it being Pink Floyd (or not, as the case may be), the visual treats also promised a great deal and we were absolutely not disappointed. The laser show was out of this world, particularly the famous “Dark Side Of The Moon” prism brought excitingly to life,. Even that wasn’t the best though – that accolade belonged to the giant inflatable pig (from the “Animals” album) that floated above the audience. The pig was ever so slightly let down by being covered with political slogans, and indeed, although I found sympathy with the general tone – anti Iraq war , anti Bush and anti-totalitarianism, I feel that Roger should try to lighten up a little every now and then and have fun – you never know, he might just enjoy it!

All in all, apart perhaps from a bit of slightly overdone politicizing, this concert was pure brilliance, the very epitome of everything that progressive rock stands for. It was one of those “life defining” moments that you get once in a blue moon, but remember for the rest of your life. Talk about "Life On Mars" - this was the real thing!! For about three hours last night it actually was 1973 all over again. Fantastic!!

(01.10.08)