Concert Review
Roger Waters: The Wall
By Dave Miller
"Mother should I trust the government?" Roger Waters sang during Friday's epic performance of The Wall at Wrigley Field. The answer followed, revealed a word at a time on the massive wall that doubled as a video screen: "No Fucking Way." The crowd roared in agreement. It was one of the biggest reactions of the night.
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Pink Floyd's The Wall remains every bit as relevant, and perhaps even more so, as when the album was released in 1979. Waters' themes of personal isolation and government tyranny still resonate. Proof came in the stadium being sold out with field seats at $250 a pop -- an impressive accomplishment in these challenging economic times, especially when you consider "The Wall Live" tour had already stopped in Chicago for four shows in 2010 at the United Center. Supply and demand told the story. Outside the ballpark found more buyers than sellers.
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The presentation didn't change much from those United Center concerts. The wall was physically bigger, stretching across the outfield from foul pole to foul pole. A video screen of that size and the images projected on it were staggering, though the wall in the United Center had a more overwhelming presence as it stretched to the second level in the confined space of the basketball arena. The wall did not have quite the same effect due to the open-air nature of the stadium. The biggest difference was the three lights towers, three sound towers and soundboard positioned in the infield. Some tickets were marked "obstructed view" but many other ballpark seats around the infield featured some obstruction, too.
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The show itself was the same tour de force of music, theater and cinema as when it last hit town. The biggest change was the addition of an acoustic coda attached to "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)" in memory of Jean Charles de Menezes, a Brazilian man shot in the head seven times by London police in 2005 after being misidentified as one of the fugitives involved in a bombing attempt. It wasn't the first memorial in the show. While the overriding theme of isolation ran throughout the show, an anti-war mesage was emphasized, starting early with Bob Dylan's "Masters of War" played during the pre-show music. The remembrance of war's casualties began with a picture of Waters' father, Eric, displayed on the wall. Soon, the wall was covered with pictures of those killed in war, and more pictures of the dead appeared on the wall during intermission. "If we give the police and government too much power, it's a very steep and slippery slope to tyranny," Waters said the during the first set, which saw the wall of bricks completed by its end.
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The second set started with the band playing "Hey You" and "Is There Anybody Out There?" behind the wall. A cheer came when the title of "Bring the Boys Back Home" flashed across the screen. The high point of the show was "Run Like Hell" as the combination of music and effects worked to greatest effect. As a giant pig of the fascist variety floated around the stadium, Waters, dressed as a dictator, shot a machine gun into the crowd. When the wall eventually fell, Waters and his band emerged from the rubble to play "Outside the Wall" as a rag-tag street band. That's how the spectacle ended, with music as redemption.
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Waters spent three years putting together the spectacular show, which reportedly cost $60 million to stage. As the tour started in 2010, Waters, now 69, told the Associated Press, "I still have the fire in my belly, and I have something to say." During "Vera" in the second set at Wrigley Field, Waters sang, "Does anybody else in here feel the way I do?" The crowd roared again, this time like thunder.X
The setlist:
The Thin Ice
Another Brick in the Wall (Part 1)
The Happiest Days of Our Lives
Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)
Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2) Reprise - The Ballad Of Jean Charles de Menezes
Don't Leave Me Now
Another Brick in the Wall (Part 3)
Goodbye Cruel World
------intermission------
Stop
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Start: 9:00 p.m./Finish: 11:22 p.m. (includes 24-minute intermission)
Totals: 29 songs, one hour 58 minutes of music
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