|
Concert review: Solid wall of
Waters
Roger Waters live at Rogers Centre, Toronto 14. July 2007
By JANE STEVENSON -
Toronto Sun
TORONTO - Toronto proved to be the perfect place for Pink Floyd
co-founder, bassist and principal songwriter Roger Waters to
wrap up his 15-month-long Dark Side of the Moon solo tour. Or so
the sixtysomething British singer-musician told about 30,000
fans who filled the sold-out Concert Hall at the Rogers Centre
on Saturday night.
"We couldn't have had a better sendoff," said the long,
lean and lanky Waters as he concluded his two-hour-and-40-minute
musical extravaganza, which included a 20-minute intermission. "Canadian
audiences are always the best audiences in North America. We
couldn't have come to a better town."
Waters brought the same amazing show to the Air Canada Centre
last September with two sets -- the first one consisting of both
Floyd tunes and Waters solo material -- followed by a second
half in which the Floyd 1973 classic album, The Dark Side of the
Moon, was played in its entirety in chronological order.
Needless to say, fans were standing up and waving with their
arms in the air during the second set, given the album's status
as one of the best-selling of all time, propelled by such
recognizable hits as Breathe, Time, The Great Gig In the Sky,
Money, Us and Them and Brain Damage.
Still, Waters is no dummy and given Floyd's long-standing
theatrical bent in concert there were plenty of lights, lasers,
fireworks, explosions, cartoons, and two remote controlled
flying inflatables -- an astronaut during Perfect Sense Part I
and II, and a graffiti-adorned pink pig featuring such slogans
as "Impeach Bush" and "All religions divide," during Sheep -- in
the first set to keep everyone happy.
The set also featured an eye-catching hi-definition video
backdrop that initially displayed an oversized bottle of scotch,
cigarettes, matches, an ashtray, a toy plane and soldier, and an
old Ferguson radio. It was so authentic looking, you actually
thought the set pieces were real until a pre-filmed segment
began in which an arm belonging to a man, only revealed at the
end of the show, tuned the radio to different frequencies and
the concert began.
Like his accomplished 10-piece band, Waters was dressed in
head-to-toe black and worked the long catwalk that stretched to
either side of the massive stage so audience members could get a
better look at him.
And there were also some mighty cool looking vintage photos of
Waters and his old Floyd bandmates on display, including
original Floyd singer Syd Barrett, who died last year and is the
subject of tribute songs Shine On You Crazy Diamond and Wish You
Were Here. These songs were the most moving part of the evening.
Without Floyd guitarist David Gilmour around, Waters uses three
different guitarists to perform solos -- Dave Kilminster, Snowy
White and Andy Fairweather-Low -- with Kilminster and
keyboardist Jon Carin also acquitting themselves nicely as lead
vocalists during The Dark Side of the Moon set.
The most political song of the evening turned out to be a new
solo song, Leaving Beirut, in which Waters recounted a 1961
experience he had as a 17-year-old when he was taken in by a
Lebanese family when his car broke down during a tour of the
Middle East.
"I haven't forgotten those people," he said, before performing
the song that was accompanied by a cartoon, images of war and
some mighty strong lyrics. "Oh, George, that Texas education
must have f--ked you up when you were small," Waters sang. "Don't
let the might of the Christian right f--k it up for you and the
world."
Politics aside, Waters' five-song encore was highlighted by such
1979 Floyd gems from The Wall as The Happiest Days of Our Lives,
Another Brick in the Wall Part II, and Comfortably Numb.
|
Links:
Toronto Sun
Statistik:
30.000 Fans
|
