Pink Floyd

[low_delta]

Well... Roger Waters, really. But he only did a couple of his solo songs. I guess he's really into the Floyd thing lately. He wanted to do a Floyd reunion. But Gilmour wasn't interested.

Tonight's show, was good. It was threatened by all the non-show crap, but it held up. He opened with "In the Flesh," folowed by "Mother" and "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun." Two of my favorites. He also did the first half of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond," and "Sheep." More favorites. What else... a couple of solo songs I didn't recognize, "Wish You Were Here," "Have A Cigar," "Vera Lynn," "Bring the Boys Back Home," "The Happiest Days of Our Lives/Another Brick in the Wall Part 2," "Comfortably Numb," "The Final Cut," "The Fletcher Memorial Home," and Dark Side of the Moon. Yes, the whole thing. In order. Which leads into the stupidest thing I've heard in a long time. From the guy in front of us. When they started "Time." "Yes! I called it!"

The light show wasn't as extravagant as his previous shows. And nowhere near a Pink Floyd Show. We were high up and off to the side, so the speakers were obscuring the middle of the big screen. The film was pretty good, though. He had much of the original film they always used to show during DSoM. There was a laser that shone for about five seconds.

I was really mad because I didn't get a program. I'm going to have to do a little research to come up with the names I don't remember. Graham Broad, drummer. Snowy White, guitar. Andy Fairweather-Low, guitar. (these three are long-time Waters associates.) Kilminster, guitar. vocalist/keyboardist/slide guitar. Keyboardist. Three singers. The woman who sang "The Great Gig in the Sky" brought the house down.

I was surprised at how much singing Waters did. I think he's brought his voice back a bit (it was pretty well shot for a long time). He sang several songs that he didn't originally sing, including "Have A Cigar." He also played acoustic guitar on two or three songs. "Mother" was one.

Waters was a lot more pointedly political than I expected. He had his general anti-war stance, evident in the pair of Final Cut cuts, followed by a solo pieces where the anti-war message was gotten across well. After that, he played his newest song, "Leaving Beirut." A story of an experience he had there when he was 17, mixed with complaints of Tony and George. Every time a smart bomb does its sums and gets it wrong/Someone else's child dies and equities in defence rise and You got freedom of speech/You got great beaches, wildernesses and malls/Don't let the might, the Christian right, fuck it all up/For you and the rest of the world

And the big inflated pig, that a couple of handlers brought through the crowd. They carried it to the top of the amphitheater, and let it go at the end of the first half of the show. We watched it slowly disappear into the night sky. It was covered with spray painted "graffiti." I wish I could remember all the messages. "Torture brings shame on all of us." "Impeach Bush." "Habeas corpus is important."

Comments

[heartwork.livejournal.com]

a guy in the hospital this week looked like roger waters. well, i thought he looked like roger waters. sweetp thought he looked more like lou reed.

[sirreal13.livejournal.com]

Wow... that's cool he can still fill stadiums (stadia)... We saw him in Minneapolis at the old Met Center (now a parking lot at Mall of America), where the North Stars used to play.

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

I saw him at our old arena, and it was one of the more sparsely attended shows I saw there. The time after that, he sold out the much smaller auditorium. I guess word has finally gotten out that he does mostly Pink Floyd music. Of course, this time was more Floyd than usual, and advertised as such. And this time it was during Summerfest, so he got a lot more advertizing than usual.

[the-99th-aisle.livejournal.com]

Today I got my first issue of Rolling Stone. I signed up for it to help two teenagers win a trip to Albania or somesuch, about six months ago. Yesterday my sweet, lovely bride started to suspect that we'd been shanghaied, but lo and behold, there it was.

My first issue of Rolling Stone is, appropriately, one of three issues commemorating the fortieth anniversary of their first issue. From cover to cover (unless you count the ads), it's all about 1967. I was reading an article where Pete Townshend (the article called him "Peter" and discussed his band like it had just assembled in a garage somewhere) talked about how he started playing guitar because the older kids at school would make fun of his big nose, and how he covered up what he lacked in skill with impressive-looking stage tricks. There were feature articles about the Summer of Love, and about the scene in San Fransisco, and about the making of Sgt. Pepper's.

What happened to music? What happened to earth-shattering bands like Pink Floyd and The Who and Big Brother & the Holding Company? We need a new music revolution that doesn't involve rap or turntables.

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

We had a revolution, but it was over 15 years ago. That was the one ushered in by grunge and industrial. But we're getting back to that point of stagnation. But as more and more music is discovered and enjoyed, it becomes harder and harder to find something new that appeals to the masses.

I'm not sure if "revolution" is the proper term for such a thing, though. I think it's more of an explosion. In the sixties, things started happening in about 1964, and by 1967 it had reached critical mass. In the late eighties, things happened more slowly. Not only the alternative sound building, but the explosion itself.

Or maybe they were revolutions. The people were increasingly unhappy with their old rulers, and threw them out when new ones appeared. But there was a lot of competition for the titles after that point of critical mass.