Roger Waters Live Review @ The O2 (02 - Millennium Dome) (London) - 19 May 2008

Roger Waters Live Review @ The O2 (02 - Millennium Dome) (London) - 19 May 2008

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Live Review

OK, so first the confession: I’m not exactly a Roger Waters or Pink Floyd expert, being that I own the album that people who aren’t Floyd fans has to own: 'Dark Side of the Moon', so you’ll have to forgive me any Floydian slips, so to speak. Having said that, I’m not exactly a Floyd virgin, either, what with my brother going through a bit of a phase in the late 80s/ early 90s and seemingly playing on repeat a number of Floyd videos on his newly acquired Nicam stereo VCR/ decoder (remember them?!).

The other thing about this gig, is it’s the first ever where I didn’t actually buy the tickets – my missus did. Leading up to it, I was a bit cagey about the whole thing, thinking “well, I’m not exactly a Roger Waters fan”, so I did a tiny bit of homework – checking his myspace site (www.myspace.com/georgerogerwaters) all of six hours before the gig...

Preconceptions before getting to the gig weren’t exactly shattered on the lead-up to the O2 where lots of ageing rocker-looking-types, complete with grey/ receding hair and Floyd t-shirts were prevalent, and even the smell of hash… getting inside the actual venue, though, I was quite surprised at the mix of ages and people.

We were sitting pretty off centre in the side seats with a 30 degree view of the stage, so I was also a bit concerned the sound would be bad – since I was in a similar position for a Muse gig at Wembley arena last year and the sound was terrible. I needn’t have worried, though, as, historically Floyd have always been into sound recording, and obviously live reproduction seems to rank up there for Roger Waters. Considering the volume and the size of the gig (around 20,000 people), I can safely say it was the best sound of any gig I’ve ever been to.

The stage backdrop is a gi-normous hi-res LCD screen, with an old fashioned radio set and some dude (whom you can’t actually see) smoking, drinking and popping pills whilst flicking between radio stations. Finding “We’ll Meet Again”, “My Funny Valentine” he settles on those for a while, but but upon finding ABBA on a few stations, he hastily re-tunes.

I think the first number the band played was ‘Wish You Were Here’, but it could have been ‘Learning to Fly’ (I’m pretty sure both of those songs were played), leading on to the ode to over-protective mums ‘Mother’. The audience were noticeably lifted (myself included) by the time ‘Shine on you Crazy Diamond’ was played, Waters’ tribute to Syd Barrett, with a poignant backdrop of early Floyd shots, solo shots of Syd. It was quite clear (even to me), that Roger’s songs are imbued with meaning, with popular themes being: war and madness, as (I think it was) two songs about war and loss followed.

It was shortly after this that Roger addressed the crowd – which was pretty amazing, as we were already quite a few numbers into the set and I had only then realised he had not said a word to us, letting the music do the talking. Telling us the story of being stranded in Beirut as a teenager and having to hitch-hike his way home, but also of a Lebanese family which took him in to give him food and rest for the night. This family, as it turned out were not exactly wealthy, yet had taken in a total stranger and forsaken (in the wife’s case) food to let him eat.

It was a touching story, which then transferred to the large screen behind him in cartoon form, as the band opened up with the politically-charged ‘Leaving Beirut’, with it’s rousing choruses. Quite cleverly, the lyrics were displayed on the comic strip, helping everyone, that may not be that sharp, get the gist of Roger’s ‘Stop picking on Lebanon’ message. The political message was further reinforced when the trademark flying pig came out to stretch his air hoofs, brandishing the dual messages: “Fear builds walls” (presumably referring to the Israeli wall) and “All religions divide”.

Did I mention earlier, that I hadn’t exactly prepared for the gig? Well, I already knew that the gig was in two parts, but had somehow forgotten why (despite my wife posting a news article about this, some time back), so I was probably the only member of the audience that looked all excited and went; “oh yes!” when Roger announced that coming-up in part 2 was the Dark Side of the Moon.

My appetite had been sufficiently whetted now, and the band led from the backing track of ‘Speak to Me’ to ‘Breathe’ pretty-much flawlessly, in fact, it should be said: the band (all ten of them!) were absolutely amazing throughout. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many guitars on one stage (apart from the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain!) – there were four at one point, all playing an active part, be they: acoustic, electric, slide or lap guitars. Back onto the sound: in the centre of the arena’s ceiling were a cluster of speakers providing the various ambient effects (planes flying, cars driving past) – which when combined with the light show, pyrotechnics and trippy screen animations were absolutely excellent – we were also at the politics-free part of the show as well.

Personal favourite ‘Time’ chimed-up after the interlude which was ‘On the Run’, and I was surprised to see that the “tick-tock” sound was in fact Roger muting one of the strings on his bass, whilst plucking it top-to-bottom. I cannot be certain, but it felt like the band were allowed to stretch-out a bit from this point, rather than sticking to the “play it exactly as per the album” routine which the earlier few numbers seemed to stick to.

One thing I was interested in hearing was the female vocal solo/ ad-lib on ‘The Great Gig in the Sky’, which backing singer Carol Kenyon stepped up to the plate and duly delivered with aplomb. It should also be mentioned, that when I refer to the band being flawless, this also include the three backing singers: the afore-mentioned Carol, Katie Kissoon and PP Arnold.

Of course, I have to make a mention to the delicious ‘Money’, with it’s odd timing (7/4?), switching to 4/4 in the choruses…. yum!

A well deserved standing ovation greeted the end of ‘Eclipse’ for a great night of music, and of course, the crowd wanted more, and that’s what they got with ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ and a few more Pink Floyd favourites.

I’m off to expand my Pink Floyd/ Roger Waters 'collection'. I’m thinking ‘Wish You Were Here’ and ‘The Wall’ as the bare minimum...

Daniel O'Connell

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