Roger Waters in Concert - Circa Sep, 2006
Roger Waters was on tour in North America and was also coming to New Jersey. I bought tickets like 2 months in advance and couple of weeks back and me and my Pink Floyd t-shirt went to see the concert.
It was the first time that I had seen such a huge mass of people collected at the same place. There easily must be 40000 people over there. The concert hall itself was semi-open. With the premium quality seats right in the front and after that there were wide open "lawns" with allowed free seating of your butt on the ground - and this is where we sat. But the cool thing about the place was the acoustics, which were excellent, as well as there were these huge screens, so that one can get an up close view of the stage.
While the audience was hanging around waiting for the concert to start they were playing songs on the system. Now the cool thing about this was that on the video that was playing on simultaneously was showing an old radio, one of the big and old ones, that was being tuned simultaneously as the songs were changing. It just showed a hand, a glass of drink, and a "sutta" in the hand. This went on for some time...
Finally Roger Waters the man arrived on stage with his band. There was a guy on the lead guitar and another on the bass. There were also 3 ladies who provided the chorus as well as sang solos during the concert.
Roger Waters played a medley of songs ranging from classic Floyd to his own solo efforts. And he was as political as he could have been, berating the Republicans and Bush, and abusing the latter during some songs. Being a "blue" state, most of the audience appreciated his thoughts. He also played a song about his travails in Lebanon as a young guy, when his car broke down, and he stayed for the night with a Lebanese family. While this semi-song unfolded there was a matching b&w cartoon strip running in the background.
A notable song that Roger Waters played was "Wish you were here". Actually the concert was billed as the "Dark Side of the Moon" meets his solo hits. So obviously he also played "Brain damage". "Money" was also there some where in the middle. While playing "Shine on you crazy diamond", Syd Barrett was shown on the screens.
The band then took a break after playing for an hour and a half. There was so much weed being smoked that you smell it in the air!
After the break the band played for another hour and then went off. Of course we knew they were faking and when people started cheering they came back for an encore, and they started with you know what - "The Wall", which kind of surprised me that Roger Waters will choose to play this 'pop-ish' song on popular demand. But anyways, this was too cool for words; after hearing the same played in our hostels for I do not know how many times; during Thomso at the request stall, it was an exhilarating experience.
I do not remember clearly, but I think he then played "Learning to fly" after that. And the grand finale of the encore was of course "Comfortably numb".
Tullu and I were kinda disappointed that he did not play "High Hopes" (the "... grass was greener..." vaala song according to her), but then you can't play all.
Amazing show and I am sure damn glad that me and my PF shirt got to see it.
Roger Waters was on tour in North America and was also coming to New Jersey. I bought tickets like 2 months in advance and couple of weeks back and me and my Pink Floyd t-shirt went to see the concert.
It was the first time that I had seen such a huge mass of people collected at the same place. There easily must be 40000 people over there. The concert hall itself was semi-open. With the premium quality seats right in the front and after that there were wide open "lawns" with allowed free seating of your butt on the ground - and this is where we sat. But the cool thing about the place was the acoustics, which were excellent, as well as there were these huge screens, so that one can get an up close view of the stage.
While the audience was hanging around waiting for the concert to start they were playing songs on the system. Now the cool thing about this was that on the video that was playing on simultaneously was showing an old radio, one of the big and old ones, that was being tuned simultaneously as the songs were changing. It just showed a hand, a glass of drink, and a "sutta" in the hand. This went on for some time...
Finally Roger Waters the man arrived on stage with his band. There was a guy on the lead guitar and another on the bass. There were also 3 ladies who provided the chorus as well as sang solos during the concert.
Roger Waters played a medley of songs ranging from classic Floyd to his own solo efforts. And he was as political as he could have been, berating the Republicans and Bush, and abusing the latter during some songs. Being a "blue" state, most of the audience appreciated his thoughts. He also played a song about his travails in Lebanon as a young guy, when his car broke down, and he stayed for the night with a Lebanese family. While this semi-song unfolded there was a matching b&w cartoon strip running in the background.
A notable song that Roger Waters played was "Wish you were here". Actually the concert was billed as the "Dark Side of the Moon" meets his solo hits. So obviously he also played "Brain damage". "Money" was also there some where in the middle. While playing "Shine on you crazy diamond", Syd Barrett was shown on the screens.
The band then took a break after playing for an hour and a half. There was so much weed being smoked that you smell it in the air!
After the break the band played for another hour and then went off. Of course we knew they were faking and when people started cheering they came back for an encore, and they started with you know what - "The Wall", which kind of surprised me that Roger Waters will choose to play this 'pop-ish' song on popular demand. But anyways, this was too cool for words; after hearing the same played in our hostels for I do not know how many times; during Thomso at the request stall, it was an exhilarating experience.
I do not remember clearly, but I think he then played "Learning to fly" after that. And the grand finale of the encore was of course "Comfortably numb".
Tullu and I were kinda disappointed that he did not play "High Hopes" (the "... grass was greener..." vaala song according to her), but then you can't play all.
Amazing show and I am sure damn glad that me and my PF shirt got to see it.
Labels: Concert, Pink Floyd, Roger Waters
posted by Saif at 6:23 AM
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