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Roger Waters is as deep as
ever
13.07.2007 Roger Waters plays old Pink Floyd hits that hit
new nerves
BY JEFF MIERS
The Buffalo News
When punk rock
reared its spotty little head back in the late ’70s, its
sociopolitical agenda and minimalist sensibilities were supposed
to bury “dinosaurs” like the Pink Floyd that Roger Waters was
fronting at the time. Thirty years later, punk is a fashion you
can buy at the mall and Waters is still performing a body of
work more brave, groundbreaking, indignant and politically
incisive than all but a few of punk’s true heroes were ever able
to conjure.
Waters’ appearance at Darien Lake on Thursday evening — before a
full house, to be sure, and an eager one well-versed in the
man’s music — couldn’t have been timed any better. Last weekend,
Waters was one of the headliners of the Li ve Earth concert, and
pretty much stole the show from everyone, save Al Gore.
Waters dove headlong into material that has not only aged well,
but is in fact more relevant today than it has ever been.
Waters’ topics — alienation, madness, war, the deadening aspects
of complacent society — and his targets — corrupt politicians,
fascistleaning leaders and the sheep-like masses willing to do
their bidding — are dressed in elegant symbolism and bathed in
the forgiving light of arrangements at turns grandiose and
spacious, subtle and intimate. It’s impossible to miss the
righteous indignation in these songs, however, even if Waters
has been known as “classic rocker” or purveyor of psychedelic
trip-out soundscapes. It’s even more impossible to miss the
man’s intent when a giant inflatable pig adorned with slogans
like “Torture shames us all” and “Impeach
Bush” is unleashed to cruise around the arena’s ether.
A pair from “The Wall” kicked off set No. 1, “In the Flesh”
finding Waters calling out in the character of the song’s
fascist narrator — “Are there any queers in the theater tonight?
Get ’em up against the wall! . . . There’s one smoking a joint!
And another with spots! If I had my way, I’d have all of you
shot!” — while “Mother” lamented the emptiness of conventional
wisdom passed from parent to child.
Mid-period Floyd gem “Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Part I),”
which segued directly into “Have A Cigar,” Waters’ appropriate
riposte toward the music industry. (Thirty years old, it makes
much more sense today than it did then.) “Shine On” afforded the
band’s trio of guitarists — former Thin Lizzy picker Snowy
White, the bluesy and emotive Dave Kilminster and longtime
Waters and Eric Clapton utility man Andy Fairweather-Low — an
opportunity to stretch out over the slow, stately and gradually
unfolding chord progression. The song, a paean to the late Floyd
founder and avant-pop genius Syd Barrett, was impeccably
performed and sung with hairraising emotion by a clearly moved
Waters.
The first set ended with some heavy political hitting, as
“Southampton Dock” and “The Fletcher Memorial Home” made
mincemeat of Thatcher and Reagan, and the heart-rending,
anthemic “Perfect Sense” railed in a more universal sense
against the war-mongers in our midst. The new “Leaving Beirut”
found Waters recounting an evening spent with a family in
Lebanon, and offered a moving, humanist sentiment. It also
offered the most direct dissertation on the political doings of
the last few decades. “Sheep” closed the set, as the inflatable
pig cruised over the heads of audience, and Waters spat out his
timeless parable of the meek inheriting the slaughterhouse.
We could’ve gone home then and still have witnessed one of the
more stunning marriages of music, lyric and visual presentation
ever mounted. But after a break, Waters and band came back to
perform the epic, timeless “Dark Side of the Moon” in its
entirety. That album — certainly one of the ten best in rock
history — is concerned with madness, but it’s also concerned
with transcendence, as its spine-tingling coda makes clear.
Though certainly a Pink Floyd piece in every sense, Waters’
post-Floyd band brought a nuanced, elegant approach to it. How
could this music still sound so fresh, new and vital?
Waters, both with and without Pink Floyd, has ably inherited the
mantle of a few of his heroes — Bob Dylan and John Lennon — as a
writer capable of distilling and viscerally emoting the hopes
and fears of his era. That he has also managed to make arena
rock a meaningful exchange for both performer and audience is
only further testament to his significance. These days, it seems
like it won’t get any better than this. But it should. Is there
anybody out there?
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Fotos: Robert
Kirkham/Buffalo News
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SOUNDCHECK:
Waters spielt einen neuen Song!! Er
klingt wie etwas zwischen Hey You und Paranoid Eyes laut Simon
Wimpenny!!
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