Riddle.
If he's so anti-authoritarian, then why does the whole production remind of me a Nuremberg Rally?
At a cinema near you on Tuesday 29th September we have Roger Waters The Wall. You may be forgiven for thinking, hasn’t he done this before? Yup, he notched up the honour of the highest grossing concert tour for a solo artist when he took his revamped staging of this rock opera on the road between 2010-2013, which this film …
Unbelievable he's still revisiting this after 35 odd years. .... Peter R. 1
Methinks he is more recrafting it, Peter R. 1, for that more intense and immersive experience that leading media productions and promotions can offer quite magically remotely nowadays. Such novel live experience and virtual experiment has always been what Pink Floyd masters are really about.
Unbelievable he's still revisiting this after 35 odd years.
Yeah. Probably because he has never been able to get over that whole "Final Cut" business. It's still pretty much the one thing he's remembered for (well, possibly a whole chunk of other Floyd stuff but nothing he'd be able to do live that Gilmour & Co. - what's left of them - couldn't do better).
That's kind of the point. The central character ("Pink") gets so wrapped up in his own delusion, and the isolation he creates for himself by building his wall, that he begins to see himself as the dictator of his own personal reality. Being obsessed with the war that took his father, he naturally leans towards Nazi symbolism to express this. What Waters is trying to convey is the danger of this kind of thing, both to the individual and the wider world.
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Masters of the Progressive Rock genre: such as Echoes, the 23 minute masterpiece (the track I'd like played at my funeral!). Or the whole of Dark Side of the Moon which should be played in its entirety (maybe Money could be left out). Same with Wish You Were Here.
Later 'Floyd was more rock than prog as the tracks were less groundbreaking which started with the wall, but is really obvious in the Final Cut (a good album, but very different to DSotM).
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Well, that may be the case (I've only heard Dark Side of the Moon and the The Wall), but this article is about The Wall, and it's definitely _not_ a prog album. Concept album, yes, but apart from the let's-try-making-these-ones-the-singles ABITW Part 2 and Young Lust, it's a group of good to excellent songs put together to tell a story.
(Dark Side of the Moon might have been impressive for its time, but I listen to The Wall _waaaaayyyy_ more.)
Anyway, back to the actual topic: Roger Waters can't sing very well at all*, so I think I'll stick with the album.
* And that's OK, I like a number of songwriters who would be better off as songwriters, and might stick to it if the industry didn't hide the magic behind the pretty performers and the special people got the praise they deserve.
If the narrative of the album/story is being interrupted by cut scenes of Roger gadding around Europe, I'll pass on this. The impact of The Wall is in the immersion: the only bit of the album I don't like is the middle stanza of "Hey You", when the fourth wall is broken by Roger singing "But it was only a fantasy/the wall was too high, as you can see/No matter how he tried he could not break free/And the worms ate into his brain". The story loses its immediacy and impact because suddenly the narrative voice has shifted to a third person, and I fear that telling "the story of The Wall" will take away from the the story of The Wall.
Perhaps it would have been better to have the documentary part as an opening film, before the main event?
"The impact of The Wall is in the immersion:"
Totally agree, as having seen "the show" at Earl's Court back in 1980, and then last year Roger Waters "concert" at Wembley, it is obvious "The Wall" is a show and Roger Water's does not do "the show" but gives a concert themed on "The Wall"...
For example, the sequence for "In The Flesh", following the build up, when the auditorium was pitch black (Earl's Court has no natural daylight), and a single spotlight scanned the audience pitching out individuals seemingly at random in time to the song did have a sense of menace; something totally lost at the Wembley Stadium concert where the spotlight seemingly played with to the fans.
Whilst technology has progressed and the wall is much more effectively used as a screen, the show was lost also due to Roger's various digressions - such as his "I do politics" bit about Jean Charles de Menezes , which has no relevant whatsoever to "The Wall" (and I'm surprised it forms part of the film).
Camera's were NOT banned from being taking into the show. At both shows I went to, Birmingham and Wembley, there was an announcement that cameras were allowed providing flash was turned off as it would ruin the performance. At Birmingham I saw venue staff telling somebody off for just that.
An amazing experience. Shame my local cinema isn't showing this and there is no word of it turning up on DVD.
Spitting at the audience was all the rage back in the late '70's.
I'm happy to agree that "The Wall" was a brave and very personal artwork that was perhaps difficult to listen to or watch, but for those very reasons was a whole lot better than the self indulgent tripe the rest of the band continued to trot out for decades.
"Spitting at the audience was all the rage back in the late '70's."
Not at the audience, but from the audience.
"I see you've all read the Daily Mail and are spitting, just like punks are supposed to, but I don't particularly like being spat at ... ". Hugh Cornwell of "The Stranglers", on the album "Live at the Hope&Anchor". If you listen closely, you'll hear a Yank in the crowd between tracks. That was me ;-)
While there are some cracking tracks on The Wall, Mother, Another Brick in the Wall Parts 1 to 3, Comfortably Numb and Run Like Hell, the rest are, in my opinion, less than those found on DSoTM, Meddle and Wish You Were Here. Especially side 4 where it degenerates into some kind of semi-opera.
For me The Wall is the turning point where Waters tried to turn Pink Floyd into The Roger Waters Band and the problem is that I don't think Waters is a great, solo, song writer; he needs others, Gilmore/Wright at the least, to introduce a steadying influence.
> I don't think Waters is a great, solo, song writer; he needs others
A bit like the Genesis boys - much, much better together than any of their solo projects. Apart from (maybe) the first Steve Hackett album - usually called "the best Genesis record that Genesis never made" (largely because Mike and Phil both played on it and helped with the music..)
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A relative of mine did a lot of the lighting and staging work for PF around the time they were going through those "financial troubles" and he was owed a lot of money. He got a call from the Fraud Squad informing him that they knew where one of Nick Mason's treasured Ferraris would be on a particular day, and wouldn't it be such a shame if somebody happened to "borrow" it, perhaps as collateral against an unpaid debt.
He was paid soon after.
1) The first time I saw the film, after it finished I just sat there for about five minutes, absolutely stunned at the intensity of it.
2) When I was in the 6th form, we were forbidden to play "Another Brick in the Wall". Naturally we played it frequently until Mr Parker, Head of the 6th Form, walked in to the Common Room one break time at the perfectly wrong moment and demanded we "Turn that off now!" As one, virtually the entire room, in time with the song, chorused "Hey, Teacher! Leave us kids alone!" :-)