Roger Waters, the Bass player and main songwriter for Pink Floyd during the 70s and early 80s, is to revisit one of the bands masterpieces and take the Wall back out on the road for the first time since the he performed it with Pink Floyd.
The Wall has been performed by Roger since then on a one off concert commemorating the fall of the Berlin wall back in 1990 with guest appearances from artists like Bryan Adams, Van Morrison and Sinead O'Connor and since then Waters has performed with his old band mates in Pink Floyd for a one off concert in the Live 8 concert.
But since the death of Pink Floyd's keyboard player Richard Wright any further collaborations with the band's guitarist David Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason are now highly unlikely.
But it looks like Roger has unfinished business with the album that most people equate with 'Roger Waters' the artist and so he plans to take The Wall out for another airing in 2011 making the show his most ambitious to date with everything including the kitchen sink thrown in.
The special effects will be bigger and better than anything previous, this is coming from a man whose stage shows both with and without Pink Floyd have been some of the most fantastic ever staged.
Roger has always been a pioneer conceptually and his song-writing broke barriers and walls (excuse the awful pun) and none more so than in the conceptual design for The Wall on the album of the same name, the film of the same name and the tour.
Themes of alienation, loss and the way that we are affected by such experiences is fundamental to The Wall and a glimpse into Roger Water's soul is captured within the story of The Wall which is regarded as one of the greatest concept albums of all time.
The Wall tour will be also made relevant to today's world moving it from 1979/1980 to today's world even though the themes addressed in The Wall are timeless.
Roger has said that he is unsure of whether or not he will take a huge show like this out on the road again and this may be his swansong with respect to large stage productions but this is Roger Waters and he is to be underestimated at great peril.
Knock em dead next year Roger.
And if you have any spare tickets for the O2 arena shows in May please let me know (the fan inside me can remain silent no longer).
I leave you with one of the greatest performances in terms of emotion and passion. Sinead O'Connor reminds us why she was so huge in the late eighties and early nineties and the backing vocals by Rick Danko and Levon Helm are beyond words.
I'm saddened.
I won't try to get tickets.
I hope it proves to be a great artistic success.
I assume it will be a commercial success. His pension if you like.
I will continue to break out The Wall, from time to time, and appriciate it alone in the dark.
"Themes of alienation, loss and the way that we are affected by such experiences is fundamental to The Wall and a glimpse into Roger Water’s soul is captured within the story of The Wall which is regarded as one of the greatest concept albums of all time."
I hope they're your words Richard. Bloody brilliant. Spot on.
My words indeed Phil 🙂
I spent many a cold night as an angst ridden teenager in different states of conciousness screaming those songs…..not a lot has changed except now I do it in the car driving around the countryside worrying the sheep.
Now I'm just an angst ridden forty something, except that,
I felt I had used up my quota of yearning
but it still arises from time to time, just not so often.
"I felt I had used up my quota of yearning"………the tide is turning billy….
My quota of yearning is still causing me a lot of problems lol.
I am looking all over the West Coast of Wales for a house that I have been dreaming about since I was a child…..weird.
But not all is at a loss….I have narrowed it down to a 60 mile stretch going inland 7 miles lol.