It's been two days and it's still sinking in. You see, The Wall was a concert I never thought I'd ever get to see. When Pink Floyd initially released the album in late-1979 there were only 18 live performances and only two of those were in the United States. Then Roger Waters left the group and only performed The Wall as a solo-act on the remains of the Berlin Wall in 1990, and that was it. I more or less accepted that I was probably never going to see this performed live, the way it's always been meant to be seen. And for a long time, like so many other Pink Floyd fans, I have had no choice but to be cool with that.
Now I want to give you a little history lesson so you have some perspective on what The Wall is all about mainly because I know my mother is reading this and she has no idea who Roger Waters is and only a passing realization of who Pink Floyd is.
The Wall is a concept album that tells the story of a rock star named Pink (an inside joke with the band because up until that point one of the most asked questions they faced by fans was "Who is Pink Floyd?" - kind of like Alice Cooper) who builds a thematic wall in his head separating himself from the rest of the world.
There were two major events that influenced Roger Waters as he was writing the songs for this rock opera.
One being the death of his father. Eric Fletcher Waters was a member of the British Communist Party and a conscientious objector who upon witnessing the evils of the German Nazi Party joined the British Army and died in Anzio Italy on February 18th 1944. Roger was 5 months old.
The other influence was the mental breakdown of Pink Floyd founder and former front-man Syd Barrett.
Before...
After...
Of course that's simplifying things greatly since the whole album is seeping with autobiographical details (the breakdown of Waters' marriage at the time being a major one). However, the true catalyst of the album was a performance during the band's In The Flesh tour in 1977 where a particularly obnoxious crowd made Waters mention that he wished there was a wall separating the band from the audience.
The funny thing is, as popular as the album was when it was first released (it was the biggest selling album of that year) the band as a whole lost money on the venture initially. Most of this was due to bad investments but I also suspect a lot of it had to do with the very elaborate stage show.
Roger Waters envisioned the show split in two. The first half involving the literal building of a wall separating the band from the audience, Act I ending with the last brink being put in place. The second half details Pink's attempts at communicating with those outside his wall and builds towards it's eventual destruction, which of course ends the show. The characters featured in the story are represented by huge inflated puppets...
The overbearing School Master...
The overprotective Mother...
The praying mantis-like Wife...
And of course the Wall itself...
...which is used to project literally hundreds of images one after the other, bombarding the audience with a barrage of animation and film-clips from various media detailing the inner struggle going on in Pink's head.
For example...
The initial tour was extremely expensive, which explains why there were only 18 performances. Not long afterword, Water left Pink Floyd and The Wall would not be heard live for thirty-years.
Flash forward three and a half years ago. Roger Waters did a tour where he performed Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety. I saw this show with my wife at Shoreline Amphitheater and up until two days ago it was the best concert I've ever been to. I have a feeling that the success of the Dark Side of the Moon tour is what made Waters decide to do a proper tour of The Wall to commemorate the 30th anniversary of of its release, but that's only speculation on my part.
In any case, the tour was announced about a year and a half ago, and I just knew I wasn't going to be able to see it. For a show like The Wall, seats are everything, and the good seats for this show were very expensive. There was just no way we were going to be able to afford it. So once again I had to accept the idea that I was never to get to see this. And up until about two hours before the show that's was where my head remained.
Then my wife called and said she had gotten a "very good tip" on one of her deliveries. She had me call the box-office to see if any of the cheapie-nosebleed seats were available and I figured, "OK, cheap seats are still seats," so I looked into it. It turned out there were two "upper-level obscured view" seats going for a very reasonable price, so I got those. I figured we could keep our eye open for any empty seats in a better location and move there for the second act.
We arrived at the Shark Tank and made our way in. The person at the door scanned our tickets and said "Oh, you've been upgraded. Go over to the information booth to get your new seat assignment." HOLY SHIT!! We felt like we had just won the lottery. Our new seats were now in Section 128, Row 20 (look those up to see just how awesome they are). We were so close to the stage that I felt the rush of heat coming off of the pyrotechnics as the show started.
This YouTube video I found was shot by someone sitting very close to where we were sitting...
And what a show it was!! There is no way I can even come close to explaining how incredible this show is so I'm not even going to bother. What I will say is how the general tone of the audience was so cool and welcoming. Complete strangers walking up to you and asking if you're enjoying the show during the intermission, everyone having this silly grin on their faces and just being happy to be there (although I have a feeling this might have a lot to do with the "mysterious" thick cloud of smoke that enveloped the place within minutes of the lights coming down). Like me, no one here thought they would ever live to see this show, and we were all grateful just to be there.
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