A few thoughts on Pink Floyd's 1979
rock-opera, focusing on personal experience of Roger Waters' 2011 and 2013 The
Wall tour.
Part 1 – a short,
informative introduction
The Wall is Pink Floyd's conceptual, double album released in 1979. The concept is conceived in its entirety by Roger Waters, the bassist, vocalist and lyricist of the group. He wrote all 26 songs on the album, three in collaboration with guitarist David Gilmour (those three being Young Lust, Run Like Hell and Comfortably Numb with its famous guitar solo) and one with Bob Ezrin (The Trial, orchestral epic that concludes the album).
The
narrative of the album and the 1980 movie of the same name scrypted by
Waters follows the story of Mr. Pink
Floyd, the son of fallen WWII soldier whom he never met. He gradually falls
into madness, while society he grews up in builds metaphorical wall around him,
people he lives with forming bricks in it; those are his overprotective mother,
school system and abusive teacher, wife, pressure of being a rock star, etc. The
character is based on Waters and partly on Syd Barrett, the founder of
the band, who left them infamously due to his mental state induced by the
extensive use of drugs.
(I have no
need to dig deeper into the storyline or into the meaning of it now; there's a
fair deal of analizing texts on the Internet you can study and I'll probably
write about it in some of the following articles. Hereafter I'm going to focus on
the live rendition of The Wall, the 1980-1981 tour and especially on 2011 and
2013 tours since I have attended two associated concerts.)
Live
installation of the album had always been imagined as a spectacle presenting the
whole story as a spectacular stage event with almost a cathartic effect on audience.
The idea was to build the 12 meters high cardboard brick wall across the stage
which was being completed during the show just to be torn down in the very end,
symbolizing the protagonists liberation and acceptance of his guilt.
The 1980-81
tour was limited only to 4 cities and 31 shows due to the great financial
expenses. The group eventually lost money, save the keyboardist Richard Wright who wasn't the
official member of Pink Floyd at that time for he had an argue with Waters
during the making of the album. He was payed as an ordinary backing musician so
he didn't have to suffer the expenses of the production. The idea of expanding
the tour to more cities was, understandably, rejected. The Wall was resurrected
for a show in 1990 in Berlin by Waters, commemorating the fall of the Berlin
Wall. Some songs, although, became live standards both for Pink Floyd and Roger
Waters', who left the band in 1985.
The Wall live in Berlin 1990 - Comfortably Numb, with The Band and Van Morrison as guests
Hopefully,
technology has made a great progress since 1981 (ask Makrokrama, my blogging partner, about it), already
enabling Pink Floyd's 1990's concerts to be a spectacular experience. But it
was much less expensive and they made one of the greatest profits ever from a
tour despite large stage sets, fireworks, grandiose light and other special effects.
So, no
wonder the musical sensation of the year 2010 was the another resurrection of The
Wall, this time as a solo Roger Waters tour covering 56 concerts across the
North America and 64 across the Europe. It was rumored to be one of the
greatest concert experiences ever to be put on stage, a worthy successor to the
1980 original tour. Can you imagine my excitement when the show in my country
was announced? In Zagreb, Croatia, just a bit more than 150 km away from my hometown.
Hal
For a more personal account of the concert
check out the Dandy Ducks blogsite regularly and find out why Roger Waters' The
Wall Tour is the greatest concert experience ever to be put on stage, at
least for a 15 year old boy who found The Wall to be his musical inspiration.
While waiting for it, I recommend you listen to The Wall album and watch a movie for deeper understanding. For old fans and those who are familiar with this masterpiece I suggest checking out this great site I stumbled upon: http://www.thewallanalysis.com/main/ A wonderful analysis of the story!
Feel free to send us your thoughts about The Wall!
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