I’ve been a Pink Floyd fan for more than half of my life now. I’m 27, and man, so much of my formative years were spent with Dark Side, Animals, WYWH, Meddle, The Wall. But I haven’t really listened to Floyd for years, much like U2 et al, I’ve found other music. So while DSOTM probably still remains my all-time favourite album, I very, very rarely listen to it. Ditto most of Floyd. So in the lead-up to this gig (alongside my busy life) I hadn’t really listened to them. Today I did, I played Comfortably Numb a few times over, Dark Side, Animals. Looked up the setlist, holy shit, incredible. Picked up my dad and went in to the show. Started to get really excited but was feeling weird, too, as shouldn’t this be on the same level as the likes of U2 or Radiohead or Outkast? It was a bit surreal, maybe, because I didn’t think I’d ever get to hear ALL of these songs live. There’s 18 fucking Floyd songs in the setlist, including essentially all of DSOTM, The Wall’s hits, two from WYWH and two (of three) from Animals. Roger Waters may be 74 years old but damn does him and his band (who obviously do a huge amount of the heavy lifting) bring it.
Breathe was a stellar way to begin, a song that feels so incredibly familiar. And I was fucking grinning from ear to ear at the fact that they keep all the adlibs in for the DS tracks; I’ve listened to that album god knows how many times and I know it literally back to front. I’m not sure what previous Waters shows have been like, but he has a David Gilmour replacement, like not just guitar but vox as well. He looks the part, long, sleek hair, facial hair. His voice is pretty pedestrian (it doesn’t take a great singer to sing Gilmour’s parts) but he does the job perfectly and it means that the great Roger Waters vocal parts (Dogs outro, Money, Pigs, Comfortably Numb’s harder verses) pack more power because he hasn’t just been singing. One of These Days was fucking awesome, it served as a pseudo On the Run interstitial and it’s obviously way better than that track so it ruled. It’s here I’ll make first mention of the visuals; the screen must be 20 or 30m long and is so fucking clear, and they rolled through a bunch of violent footage as well as shots of the band and visions of space and shit. It was fucking fantastic.
Time / Breathe Reprise is up next and it was fucking stellar, because it’s an amazing song. The only thing bringing it down (and much of the show) was the incredibly staid crowd. That’s not surprising, everyone there was old, and it was seating on the floor, but it still sucks, it absolutely sucked what could have made for some amazing atmosphere out of the joint. All the music - those heart-wrenching guitar solos, the backing vocals and those amazing drum lines - were terrific, but Waters took Gilmour’s vocals and the Gilmour replacement took Rick Wright’s verses, which just took some of the magic away, but there’s not much you can do about that. And the transition into Breathe Reprise was fucking heavy. That shit is fucking perfect man. Fucking hell.
Great Gig in the Sky was up next and holy fuck I was I excited for this shit. I will gladly argue this song as being one of the best songs ever with anyone. The entire concept of it being a song about death, and then it’s nearly five minutes of no lyrics, just incredible wailing and singing from Clare Torry. The two women they had on backup vocals took it on, and it was nowhere near as transcendent, but it was still pretty special to witness it live. What a fucking amazing song. Welcome to the Machine was up next and that shit was a serious highlight. Such a fucking savage song and even in 2018 it still sounds fresh and real as I imagine it was way back when. Wasn’t one of the songs I was hugely looking forward to (although I was keen as fuck for all 18 Floyd tracks) but it was a serious highlight - as were most of the actual Waters tracks, as a matter of fact.
He played three tracks off his new solo record next, and they were all great, though nothing especially surprising. Deja Vu is essentially a WYWH rewrite, Last Refugee takes the drum pattern from Five Years, Picture That is classic Floyd blues riffery. All were backed by incredible stage imagery and visuals on the screen of wars, Last Refugee in particular was quite emotional.
Wish You Were Here is Wish You Were Here. One of the best songs ever written. After that the first set closed out with Happiest Days of Our Lives / Brick 2 / Brick 3. I was a bit bummed to not have Brick 1 first, but still, it was a pretty epic way to finish the set. I’ve never been a huge of Brick 2, I think it’s great in the context of The Wall but overrated as an actual song, but it was pretty cute with all the kids coming out on stage and singing and dancing.
Interval, and then second set, which was fucking incredible, words hardly do justice. Emergency sirens blaring as a huge line of screens dropped down into the middle of the arena, which then turned into Battersea Power Station. Then Dogs. Man. Dogs is fucking amazing man. Like it was such a fucking trip to see Dogs, a 17-min prog rock epic, performed in its fucking entirety. The pig made an appearance over the top of the towers and then during the real proggy bit Waters dons a dog mask. Eventually it rolls back around to the fucking last few minutes, where Roger takes over from Gilmour, and man, that fucking outro is just the best shit. AND THEN they launched straight into Pigs, which has always been my least favourite from Animals, cos it gets a bit rote and repetitive, but fuck me dead does that shit come alive in a live setting. That guitar riff is just fucking monstrous, I gotta tell ya. As I’m sure everyone knows the song has remained just as relevant as it was when it was an anti-Thatcher song, except it’s now aimed at Trump, and there were a ton of hilarious images on screen and then during the proggy breakdown a massive blow-up pig started flowing around the arena. Dad was trying to get me sit down as I was shredding guitar solos over the last couple of minutes, fuck off dad.
Money is Money, I’ve never been the biggest fan of the song but it went off. Us and Them was definitely the most poignant moment of the night, backdropped as it was by incredibly real and hard-hitting war imagery, and it’s pretty amazing how the song is as completely relevant as ever, if not even more so. It’s just such a fucking beautiful song and to hear it live, to hear those incredibly passionate latter verses live, was just something else, I can’t tell you, even without Rick Wright singing those incredibly passionate verses. It was a little heartbreaking to not hear it move immediately into Any Colour You Like, but it is what it is, Rick has passed on. Another solo song, which was odd placing - I actually thought Rog could have put a bigger spotlight on his new album, play some songs earlier and not clump them all together, I would have been perfectly happy - and then into ….
… Brain Damage. The moment in DSOTM where the protagonist has completely fallen apart, but it doesn’t matter, lunacy is golden at this point. The fucking pounding drums leading into the two chorus takes is just magic, and to hear it live… man. And then I get a frog stuck right in my throat because we know what Brain Damage leads to…. an Eclipse, with that massive drum-lead in, the adlibs, the background vocals, and then the organ… I’m nearly crying just thinking about it. It’s just such fucking magic. As it came to a conclusion the light show made out a pyramid with the lights and it was just almost too much, it was so perfect.
I sat there holding myself for a while as Roger went into a nice little rant, then introducing the band, then launching into Mother, which is a beautiful song. “Mother did it need to be so high…..”, the heartbreaking close. It was fucking lovely. And then straight into the only song they could have finished with, Comfortably Numb. Roger sounds the same as he always has on the song, and then the Gilmour impostor took on Gilmour’s parts and did a good job, and then floors of lights baking over the arena, it was just fucking beautiful, until we get to that solo, which of course just tore the house down. An incredible way to end an incredible night.
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