As a live music event, the 2010 version of “The Wall” is based on a shaky premise: that fans will pay as much as $200 a seat to hear Roger Waters and a cast of supporting musicians — none of whom has anything to do with Pink Floyd — perform from start to finish one of the most commercially successful, beloved and ambitious art-rock albums in history.
The music alone would not justify such a price tag, so Waters accordingly turned the performance into a epic, gaudy and extravagant piece of theater — an onslaught of sights, sounds and socio-political themes. Some of it was poignant, some of it was bombastic, some of it was viscerally thrilling, like a great rock show ought to be. But all of it was stimulating and entertaining.
The history of “The Wall” — the album, the Alan Parker movie, the 1980 tour — is its own libretto. So most of the more than 13,000 fans who saw Saturday night’s performance at the Sprint Center were no doubt schooled in the show’s background. The album is Waters’ personal magnum opus on his life from childhood to adulthood and all the demons and disappointments that forced him to isolate himself from the outside world. It evolves into a political statement about power, authority, corporate hegemony, war and despotism.
So as the show begins, the famous and enormous white wall is erected on stage, brick by brick, until it obscures the band and becomes a screen upon which a dazzling array of videos and visuals are projected. Technically, this was a nearly flawless show. The sound was clean and true. A friend sitting in the upper level texted me: “The sound is immaculate up here.” An acquaintance who is a veteran sound man, raved about the sound, too, and credited what he said was an analog soundboard.
As clean as the sound was, however, except for a few songs when the crowd indulged in a group-sing, the music played second fiddle to the visual orgy that kept erupting on stage. Some of those visual elements were garish spectacles, like the gargantuan inflated puppets (the schoolteacher, the mother).
Others were more humane, in their display and their message, like the photographs and bios of war victims, including the Iraq war — one way in which Waters has updated the show. There was much to digest visually, so much that I agreed later with someone who said he’d see it again just to re-witness some things he probably won’t remember.
Sensory overload, in a good way.
It has become routine these days for bands to replicate one album at live shows, so it didn’t feel that odd to see a show and know exactly what the setlist would be and in what order the songs would come. It does eliminate the element of surprise, but it also arouses moments of anticipation. For me, there were several: “Another Brick in the Wall Part 2,” which featured vocals by students from the Kansas City School of Rock”; the bittersweet “Mother,” which featured Waters in a duet with his younger self; “One of My Turns”; and pretty much the entire second half of the show (the better half, if you ask me), but especially “Hey You,” “Bring the Boys Back Home,” “Comfortably Numb” and “Run Like Hell.” A shorter intermission would have been nicer; 30 minutes seemed a bit too long.
Waters brought with him an 11-piece band that included guitarist G.E. Smith (sideman to many, including Bob Dylan, and former “Saturday N ight Live” band leader) and Waters’ son Harry, who played keyboards. They took a bit of license with a few songs, but for the most part played everything true, as recorded. (I supposed some David Gilmour fans would argue about Robbie Wyckoff’s vocal facsimile.) Thus when the band disappared behind the wall, it added to the sense that you were watching live theater with a soundtrack over it.
Several times, Waters looked as pleased as anyone in the place — beaming like a parent watching his child graduate. He has plenty to be proud of.
The show ended with Waters and the band lined up along the rubble of the fallen wall, dressed like some ragamuffin lonely hearts club band, singing the languid and lovely “Outside the Wall,” with Waters on trumpet. It was a rare feeling of warmth and human connection in an entertaining and memorable show filled with grand visions of loss, nightmarish fantasies, stern warnings and dark omens.
Read more:Â http://www.kansascity.com/2010/10/31/2374134/review-the-wall-with-roger-waters.html#ixzz13yMdmWLo
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