Roger Waters
Madison Square Garden, New York (July 11, 2000)
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Roger Waters
Madison Square Garden, New York
July 11, 2000 |
"For years I've bemoaned the lack of connection with an audience that I felt in the early days of Pink Floyd," he said. "But I felt that connection with you tonight. Thank you."
Old Rog wasn't just blowing smoke, either. He had the sold-out Garden crowd in the palm of his hand for most of the show's two and a half hours.
The first set began, as you knew it would, with a selection of tunes from The Wall. The relatively sparse stage had a 10-foot wall running along the back, in front of a huge screen, and the show started with Roger up on the wall singing "In The Flesh." The Wall set continued with "Happiest Days Of Our Lives," "Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2)" -- which for my money is Pink Floyd's worst song -- and "Mother."
From there to the end of the set, thankfully, the clock was turned back and the Garden was treated to a solid set of older Floyd material. The crowd exploded as the first chords of "Pigs On The Wing (Part 1)" echoed in the darkness, and the cheering got even louder as keyboardist Jon Carin broke into "Dogs," on which he played on the acoustic guitar and sang. Carin is a modern-day veteran of the Floyd army, having appeared on the Delicate Sound Of Thunder live set with David Gilmour and crew.
The clock was wound back even further for "Welcome To The Machine." Rog alternated lines with his trio of black-clad, blue-lit female backup singers (Waters and Gilmour may not agree on much these days, but they are of one mind on the whole backup-singer issue). "Machine" was accompanied on the screen by illustrations of a strange mechanical war beast that looked like a New York rat's dream come true.
Snowy White, a Floyd collaborator since the '70s, handled everyone's favorite acoustic Gilmour line on "Wish You Were Here." Snowy has an almost uncanny ability to fade into the background. Even when he's playing -- and he's a great guitarist -- he looks like a wax figure. Not your traditional stadium-rock guitarist, unless you consider The Cars traditional.
The first set ended in tasteful and moving fashion with several sections of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond," Waters' tribute to Syd Barrett, the original mad genius of The Pink Floyd. When the band got to the first chorus, a huge picture of Syd appeared on the screen, bringing the crowd to its feet. The tune ended with an instrumental section as a huge spinning diamond wheel rose from the wall at the back of the stage. All the other lights went out, and bright beams were shined on the diamond, creating an effect like Dr. Who's disco ball.
After a brief intermission to allow Rog to charge his angst batteries, he came back out and announced, "Now it's time to take you back into the mists." The band launched into "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun," which featured a soprano sax solo.
Then it was around back to the dark side for "Breathe," "Time" and -- say it with me -- "Money," which seemed like a particularly poor choice in the absence of David Gilmour (And, for that matter, in the absence of a guitarist who can sing, which was far beyond Roger's lead man).
Most of the rest of the set was material from the Age of Solo Waters, starting off with "Every Stranger's Eyes" from The Pros And Cons Of Hitchhiking, which was surprisingly well received by the crowd.
The kids then played the hell out of a couple tunes from Amused To Death, including a great version of "Bravery Of Being Out Of Range." Unfortunately, they then went on for far too long with "It's A Miracle" and the title track from that record. This was the bit of the show where folks used the bathroom and bought popcorn that was more expensive than tickets to the Isle of Wight festival.
The big finale of the second set was "Eclipse," followed by Snowy and the other guitarist up on the wall for "Comfortably Numb." Then it was off for the now obligatory pause before the -- surprise! -- encore, a new tune about Kosovo called "Each Small Candle." It seemed like an overreach on Rog's part -- a song not as good as "The Tide Is Turning" that was obviously meant to fill the same role in the show. Even the Amnesty International symbol on the screen behind the stage didn't distract from the song's weakness. This is not just Rog-Never-Did-Anything-Good-After-Floyd Syndrome, because I think Amused To Death and Radio KAOS contain some of his best writing. The new song just wasn't that good.
So, a mixed reaction. A great first set, followed by a good-to-slow second set. Still, it was Roger Waters at the Garden, and that's not the kind of thing you see every day. Now if I had just had time to take out a second mortgage on the house, I could have afforded a T-shirt.
JASON CRANE |