Saturday night, I was fortunate enough to see the stadium version of an arena presentation I first caught in September 2010. Roger Waters, now 70 and no less energetic and passionate than he was decades ago (and likely more so, if you listen to his interviews)put on an amazing spectacle, a feast for the eyes, the ears, and the brain. There were moving puppets, an airplane crashing and bursting into flames, computer graphics that moved along the rising and falling wall. Beyond that, there were incredible bits of music from fantastic musicians and a lovely appearance by a local children's choir to join him for the famous "We don't need no education" part of Another Brick In the Wall, Part 2.
For me, there was so more much to take in- the devastating human cost of war, the grief that faces those left behind, something Waters experienced when his own father did not return from WW2. There was the questioning of government authority at a time when our basic freedoms are being slowly chipped away by laws designed to vilify and dehumanize individuals to better "protect" us from them. There was a lament for the cruelty of the school system he was subjected to, a system that i hope is no longer displaying the "dark sarcasm" that marked a lot of our own childhoods even 20 years after his.So many targets, so many images, so much to take in that I am quite convinced I wasn't able to do it completely.
There was, also, a rant against the cost of building those walls, whether real or metaphoric, and how the divisions are used to further agendas that measure success in money rather than happiness. Some people might say that it is hypocritical to rail against capitalism during a lavish production that surely is making its profits as it lurches from town to town, but that would be missing the point. There is no harm in consuming music and spectacle, unless one counts the brain cells damaged by the drugs some of the participants took before, during or after the show. To create a masterpiece of music and then and be paid for to bering it to an audience is a legitimate offering. To build guns and weapons that serve no purpose but to kill and destroy is to profit from humanity while purposefully causing it grievous harm for generations to come. Such an enterprise deserves the scathing treatment Waters gave governments and the military during his show, and as a young victim of violence left fatherless, he has every right to question how it affected his life. I applaud him for his efforts to effect change and cannot help but think that The Wall is more relevant now in 2012 than it was in 1979. The music is still as melodically beautiful as I remember it, hummable and lyrical, but the message has only grown more powerful in time.
Our great seats just 4 rows above the floor. Perfectly close for a spectacular show.
One of my favourite graphic images on the wall.
