The Wall in Toronto

This would be considered a “SPOILER” if you plan on seeing the presentation of THE WALL featuring Roger Waters. This Tour will be remembered for sure. The few photos and videos I took from the 2nd row and what I am about to summarize will for sure remove the surprise element from the experience for anyone who hasn’t see Pink Floyd or any of previous Roger Waters’ Tours.

……I saw the Radio Kaos Tour when Roger Waters stopped into Hamilton, Ontario around 1987 and both Pink Floyd tours after around the same time Delicate Sound, Momentary Lapse, Division Bell era. Music aside the creativity that went into those tours set a new bar for me as a teenager early in my concert career. Now almost 23 years later the anticipation of seeing THE WALL in it’s original format was building by the minute.

When we first walked onto the floor and saw the Wall going up each side of the hockey rink the size of this show started to sink in…. heck if I hadn’t seen KISSjust 6 nights ago it might have seemed even Bigger!.. But this still had a stadium feel at first glance.

“In The Flesh” -- This was probably one of the best opening songs I have seen at a live concert. It was full steam ahead from the men on the bridge with flags, the fireworks, seeing Roger in his hoodie, lights swirling and that buzz under the hood of we’re seeing THE WALL !!!

… and of course the famous… “so ya thought ya might like to so to the show…” was truly electric and almost overwhelming. The lighting stretched back to the far end of the arena with additional speaker arrangements…above, not sure if it was quadraphonic or just for effects… as we were too close to the stage to hear….but as the helicopter sound kicked in this lighting unit above the main stage appeared to have a small speaker stack on it as well and it moved forward with the spot light shooting into the crowd as if to be the light on the front of the helicopter, the sound moved with it…really wicked…

Some 25 lucky kids from The Regent Park School of Music ended up on stage to help sing over the track for Another Brick plus got to point at thefloating 40 foot teacher. The overall sound was really good for a 1st show and most of the other musicians including Roger’s son on Keyboards were hard to see or get into with this large production unfolding…. except a little at the end of Run Like Hell as the band were in front of the wall closer to us.

I actually heard “Mother”start with Roger on acoustic and have the video it but I will spare you listening to the faint 1st verse that seemed to fall down with technical difficulties… the song never really got back on track for me. The Wall of course was being built brick by brick as Side 1 Played out and the barrier starts to fill in… to the point yes where you could barely see the band.

After the intermission HEY YOU starts and the entire song almost is play behind the Wall…it’s cool and as the light shines thru the cracks and you hear the band playing it really shows what Roger was thinking about years ago of feeling that distance from some of the audience…those who were not engaged with him as he performed . Speaking of di-engaged…The guy beside me after introducing himself 4 times and asking about doing ACID kept praying for David Gilmour to walk out and join in. I didn’t feel that was going to happen. I didn’t feel it needed too….The Gilmour stand in did fine at most points and this was not Pink Floyd we were seeing… it is and was billed as “The Wall Live…featuring Roger Waters”

The imagery on the circle screen in the back dipped into parts from the Wall movie and the overall scenes on the 200+ foot WALL itself were quite thought provoking weaving in some of todays political issues and visuals from past Tours I had scene…all very cool to watch in a synchronized kinda way

“One Of My Turns” turned out beautiful as you can see below in the video and “Run Like Hell” with the flying pig got the crowd up, dancing and celebrating it seemed… ..as security told the front row to move back… and we all started to chant along with “THE TRIAL”... “bring down the wall, bring down the wall..” the WALL did come down..crashing faux bricks.

No encore, just The Wall and alot of entertainment to go along with an amazing album… I will leave the comments open here for others who visit the shows as the tour unfolds. (Sursa)