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Roger Waters and David Gilmour should have a "Battle of the Pink Floyd Bands" contest. It might be hard to pick a winner, but it'd be jolly good fun for Floyd fans.
It seems like Dark Side of the Moon has been around forever, and to cash in on the record's longstanding critical and commercial success, Waters -- the legendary band's primary creative force -- has built a tour around it, performing the album in its entirety.
On a side note: Waters played two shows earlier that week at the prestigious Madison Square Garden. All of the shows sold out as soon as the tickets went on sale. Aside from Jimmy Buffet and one of two Aerosmith/Motley Crue dates, Waters' performance was the only Beach show this summer to completely sell out.
Anyone who has seen the real Pink Floyd or a previous Gilmour or Waters-led version knows that the stage show is as much a part of the concert experience as the music itself. This time around, Waters mostly eschewed props in favor of a screen behind the band that layered image upon image. The show was broken into two proper sets with an intermission: the first set made up of Pink Floyd material with a Waters solo song or two thrown in, while in the second set, the band covered Dark Side of the Moon from start to finish. The lone encore was comprised of four songs from The Wall.
From the spacey, dreamy "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" to "Shine On, You Crazy Diamond" (complete with footage of the late Syd Barrett in the background), Waters and his band remained as tight as ever. They led off with "In the Flesh" and closed with an intense version of "Sheep" (from Animals). The only song with an actual prop, "Sheep" saw two handlers wandering the crowd with a tethered pig balloon covered in graffiti ("Vote Democrat on Election Day" was written on the pig's ass, for instance). As the song ended, they released it into the sky.
It was a powerful moment, and also a political one. And therein was the problem for many in the crowd. The previous song was a brand new one that addressed families who live in war-torn countries. As a teen, Waters had been driving through the Mideast when his car broke down; a family took him in overnight until he could get help, and he was moved by the family's spirit and generosity for a total stranger. By bringing up the point that there are innocent people in the middle of the United States' current war in Iraq, he touched a nerve. At song's end, some of the crowd lustily booed. But once Waters started playing "Sheep," all was forgiven.
The Dark Side set was flawless: during "On the Run," the video screen showed images that gave one the impression of hurtling through space. These were comically interrupted by visions of trains blasting by, cars racing on a track, and a gunfight. Thanks to the work of back-up singer Carol Kenyon, "The Great Gig in the Sky," a song I generally hate, left my jaw on the ground.
I've seen concert oxymorons in my time, but it would be hard to top what happened during the second song of the encore. Waters brought members of the New York Boys Club out on stage. I immediately had the inkling that "Another Brick in the Wall" was forthcoming, and indeed, the first strains of "The Happiest Days of Our Lives" melded into "Part II" (the "We don't need no education!" bit). But astonishingly, two things were happening during its discourse:
1. On stage, the mode was celebratory, as the Boys Club members swayed and danced. Waters himself was led the audience in a clap-along, and everyone was having a good time.
2. While this was going on, the images on the screen were desolate, stark pictures of urban decay in vivid black and white (with matching graffiti), along with the startling image of a makeshift graveyard with makeshift crucifixes used as grave markers.
Is it just me? Maybe, but celebrating, clapping, and bouncing to images of this type led me to believe something majorly strange was going down. This kind of reaction, coming from a crowd roughly two-thirds of whom booed after Waters' new song? Oh well, what do I know?
— 11 October 2006
