Roger Waters in Dubai

Gig review:

To borrow a word from Almost famous...the performance by Waters and the band last night was incendiary. The collectively crew set the stage on fire...almost literally with the fiery fireworks and explosions - the heat of which I could feel standing just a few meters behind the front of the stage.

Before the concert started, a part of me kept questioning why I was even there...I’m not a concert guy and this isn’t ’really’ Pink Floyd...its just Roger Waters and a bunch of people. But the minute Water appeared on stage and the energy with which he started ’In the Flesh’ convinced me that it didn’t matter that David Gilmour wasn’t playing guitars or that Nick Mason wasn’t doing drums - their replacements, talented musicians and great solo artists in their own right (such as Andy Fairweather-Low) more than made up for the missing members. The show, divided into 2 halfs, the first a selection of the finest Pink Floyd classics from their hey days peppered with a couple of solo Waters efforts was a great way to set the mood for the remainder of the show.

The opening:

Anticipation was high for Waters’ arrival and the band clearly toyed with the audience in influencing this. The show, scheduled to start at 8:30pm, commenced almost exactly on time, but the 30 minutes or so before this was phenomenally well thought of. This is what happened: the field of thousands were staring at a giant screen (behind the stage) where we could see as our view a bureau with an old ham radio with glass of wine/whisky next to it. There were songs playing at the concert venue before the show, which we all thought were just fillers, when in fact they were hand picked selections of blues/old rock/funk etc that would change tracks every time a hand onscreen changed radio stations (we were viewing this while waiting for Waters to arrive!) of the radio on screen. At one point, this onscreen hand, while changing radio stations stopped at a popular Abba song (dancing queen) and as the audience started to laugh, the onscreen hand quickly changed it to Chuck Berry’s classic ’Johnny Be Good’ to the roaring approval of everyone.

The Pre-Dark side of the moon stuff:

I hate to say this, but i personally thought the bookends of the concert, the opening half and the encore were overall more memorable than the actual performance we went to see - the entire Dark side of the moon (which formed the second half). ’In the flesh’ is perhaps the perfect song to start any Floyd concert with the lines:

Quote
So ya
Thought ya
Might like to
Go to the show.
To feel that warm thrill of confusion,
That space cadet glow.
I’ve got some bad news for you sunshine,
Pink isn’t well, he stayed back at the hotel
And they sent us along as a surrogate band
We’re gonna find out where you folks really stand.

finally making literal sense, after all these years of listening to them at home/in a car etc. What followed were other favourites from The wall and Wish you were here including the great Mother and Shine on you crazy diamond. The low point of the set were undoubtedly Set the controls for the heart of the sun and Sheep not sounding the same without Gilmour to guide them. The most compelling performance of this set was probably Wish you were here. Secretly, I’ve always wanted to be able to sing the song in a gig, and the moment during the show when the entire ground swayed with their lighters to the lyrical

Quote
And did they get you to trade
Your heros for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange
A walk on part in the war
For a lead role in a cage?

How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We’re just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl,
Year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found?
The same old fears.
Wish you were here.

was SURREAL!

Dark side of the moon:

As an album DSOTM doesn’t have many standout tracks (Us and them is a personal favourite) and this segment of the show was not only short (about 45 mins or so, just like the album), but a little tame as compared to the first hour an a half. The best moment in this set came when the guy doing drums (Can’t remember his name...), did the 2 minute opening to Time with the spotlight on him. It was unbelievably good....I don’t think original member Nick Mason could have done it better. If you’ve ever heard the song, you know how cracking this bit is, and everyone went wild! The space rock flavour of DSOTM was strengthened by the bizarre images on the screen behind, from Dali like clocks in Money to a images from space and full blown psychedelic images during the last 2 tracks Brain damage and Eclipse - the highlights of this set (and even the album). The album’s status in rock history is now legendary and seeing it being performed in one straight session was hair raising at times not only because of my memory of how good some of the tracks originally were, but how well, exceptionally well, they were performed last night. As one long track, DSOTM really worked well - it had these nice saxophone segments and the powerful vocals by the lady in the band who did The great gig in the sky just as well as it sounds originally,. Every one of the tracks was also accompanied by visuals that were both meaningful and entertaining.

Encore:

To the chants of ’we want more...’ everyone returned for the last 5 tracks, exclusively from The Wall. In my opinion, and this stands valid even today, this is Pink Floyd’s greatest album and probably (probably...) the greatest single album of all time. The songs have transcended being just songs...they are anthems, for not any generation, but for all generations. Anyone last night will tell you, those who were there on a date or just to hang out, or to smoke a joint or whatever, that they became one loud chorus when Another brick in the wall played. I think it was loud enough to be heard in the neighboring emirates. Of everything that was played...all 27 tracks....this song was the one that had the strongest, loudest, most emphatic response! I was overwhelmed. And to end it all, came one of the best tracks ever written and performed by Waters - comfortably numb and apt ending to a night with the lines Come on it’s time to go and I have become comfortably numb.

Overall:

The sound system, the visuals were spellbinding. Every song had a look and feel, complete with the choice of lighting colors etc that made them individual standouts. The show actually blurred the line between watching a performance and listening to it. During Perfect sense an inflated astronaut was released into the air, while a video in the background showed a war being played out like a sports match, with commentary of nuclear bombs attacking warships! Waters and his political views are no secret (we saw flashes of Osama Bin Ladin next to Bush and Stalin in the song Flectcher memorial about an insane asylum for criminals of war), but the audience in this region were welcoming of these. Nothing came close to how powerfully moving Leaving Beirut a new song about Waters experience with an Arab couple in the 60’s when he was stranded in Lebanon, which met raptous applause from the Dubai audience as compared to the boos he received in the US last year. The song itself, never heard by me, was fantastic and the images behind were a black & white comic book storyboard where the song words became the dialogue (shrewdly allowing audience members who had never heard this tune, to also sing along). The originality in planning and execution was extended to even the 15 minute break between the two sets, where a tiny image of the moon kept slowing increasing in size till it was close enough to cover the entire screen by the end of the break!

All I can say is, if you’ve only heard Floyd, you’re really missing out on a major aspect of the overall experience that is them. The concert ranks as one of the best paid experiences I have ever had. Memorable and unforgettable.

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