余裕のダイエッター、美味しいものを少しだけ♪ Almost Daily Miyupika☆楽天分室

My American friend Brett gave me the review of the live of Roger Waters. It's a very wonderful review.

アメリカのメル友がRoger Watersのアメリカライブツアー初日を観て、レビューを書いてくれました。
翻訳してアップしようと思ったのですが、そうこうしてる間にお正月が来てしまうので、
彼の許可をいただいて原文そのまま掲載いたします。
残念ながら、カメラは持ち込めなかったようです。

We had the pleasure of catching Roger Waters at the Holmdel gig
last night. I thought it appropriate in a way that perhaps he was starting off
his birthday with a bang. He's surrounded himself with an incredible bunch of
musicians this time such as Dave Kilminster and long time keyboardist Jon
Carin.
Anyway, he started off with a one, two punch of "In The Flesh"
followed by "Mother" which sounded excellent and got the crowd up on their feet
in a hurry!!! "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun" sounded great and
brought me back to my days sitting in my "smoke filled room" back at my
parents home in Freehold. Ian Ritchie added some excellent sax that served as a
super instrumental interlude to when Dave and Rick used to do their
psychedelic "space trip" back in the day. The backdrop of seeing the Floyd as
youngsters with Syd augmented this moment with a visual clarity that could only be
appreciated by someone that lived through those days to tell about it!!!

This was followed up by "Shine On Parts 1-5", they really nailed
this piece and gave it the emotion it surely may not have received had Syd not
departed this Earth just months before. I think with the visuals of Syd back
in happier times, courtesy of the surviving 35mm from then, there wasn't a
dry eye in the house when they went through this great tune!! It's obvious
that Roger genuinely misses his old friend. This was followed by "Have A Cigar"
and "WYWH", the former I'll discuss a bit later on. "WYWH" had the whole
place up and singing as usual. To the point where I couldn't tell who was doing
the actual vocals!!

They went into a few tunes from "The Final Cut", not my favorite of
albums but I did enjoy hearing "The Fletcher Memorial Home". After this was
one of the questionable moments of the evening but I'll leave this for later.
The first half ended with a kick ass version of "Sheep", one of the few
numbers where I thought they really missed Dave G's technique (and also
"Comfortably Numb", see encore section below), not to take anything away from Dave
K., Andy Fairweather Low and Snowy White. This tune still rocked!!!!! And the
pig balloon they walked around to the back and released up into the night
towards the full moon really lent an ambience to this "great gig"!!!

The second half was of course, "The Dark Side" performed in its
entirety. The band did an incredible job staying true to the format and original
sound. Having seen it in 2 other decades, I have a few gigs to gauge it by.
I'll always prefer the one from the 70s but all in all I have no complaints.
I believe it was PP Arnold that did the lead vocal for the "Great Gig", she
is to be commended for that, she did a remarkable job!!! I actually got goose
bumps hearing it again after all these years!!! At this point I have to say
that, last night, I had previously written this review on Progears and was
told that Ms. Arnold had recently lost her parents which may explain the
passion in her performance. The program must have been written before her
parents had passed on. In her profile she stated what a challenge "Great Gig" is
and goes on to say, and I quote,"I also feel emotionally involved with it as
both of my parents are approaching the end of their journey at the moment".
My heart goes out to her but I've always felt that music is the ultimate
healer and PP Arnold is obviously throwing herself into her work now.

The encores were rather predictable, but expected, and I'd say
"Comfortably Numb" is where they miss Dave Gilmour the most even though Dave K.
filled in admirably.

I do have a few things I'd like to point out however. The first
concerns a thread I remember about a month or so ago about whether Roger is
"faking it" vocally. I can assure you he's singing but he's got a few young
guys around him to help him out so he's not apt to burn his voice out in this
fashion. I was surprised to hear him belting out "Sheep" but, as I said,
this was one of the few tunes he put himself out on. But this tune calls for
the kind of venom Roger is known to inject into the lyrics when it's called
for!!

The next aspect of this gig I want to point out concerns several
items, one is the vocalizing of "Have A Cigar". I've always felt that the only
singer that could handle this tune is Roy Harper!!! Even when they toured
with it in the spring and summer of 75, 77 and later on during Dave (though I'm
not sure whether Dave G. ever had this in any of his solo setlists) and
Roger's solo tours they both had trouble handling it. But this is picayune at
best, just my opinion and Roger, instead of having Dave K. give it a shot, gave
it a try himself tonight. I still loved hearing it just the same.

The next item, that I was taken to task for on Progears, will be in
2 parts. The first was what I originally wrote. Then I'll give Dawn's
response followed by my viewpoint. Something I was trying to avoid when I wrote
this part of the review!!!

Another thing I'd like to approach here is Roger's preoccupation
with mixing politics with music. This was the "questionable moment" I alluded
to in the third paragraph of my review. I feel he stepped into a big pile of
feces when he decided to add "Leaving Beirut" to his setlist. The intro about
having been stranded to hitchhike when he was 17 and taken in by a family
over near Beirut, and comparing this to the war in Iraq is just an invitation
for trouble. I say this because he was soundly booed near the end of the song
and hopefully he'll have the sense to readjust his list. It was obvious to me
that most of the people present tonight didn't share Roger's views in the
political arena in regards to Iraq. And please don't get me wrong here, I'm
NOT trying to invite a political discussion, I'm just giving my objective
observation on what I witnessed at the concert.

The following is one of the Progears members responses, Dawn
(marimasutica).

marimasutica said:
Was kinda surprised that it seemed more politically charged than
CSNY...but I believe in personal beliefs and the freedom to speak them...

My response:
I guess I kinda walked into this one. I've seen CSN (not lucky enough
for the Y yet) enough times to see their views put out to the crowd with mass
acceptance. I totally agree with anybody's right to free speech as well. I
was just basing it on this one show which isn't a really fair assessment to
Roger. I had no problem with this at all being a person who believes we should
stick with our convictions and say what we believe without anyone in power
sticking their own brand of propoganda down our throats!!! There, I've just
went against what I wanted to do in my original post but it felt good! I have
to tell you though, there was one guy in the next section over from me (during
"Leaving Beirut") that got so agitated he was hollering at Roger over the
din and I thought he was going to have a heart attack he was so animated. I was
thinking of going over to him to get him to calm down and let Roger speak
the piece he was entitled to but he was riled beyond belief!!! There are those
however, that feel nobody in this day and age is allowed their point of
view. This may explain the chorus of boos at the end of the tune. Anyway, thanks
for getting me started Dawn, now I'll get off my soapbox!! By the way, the
gentleman of who I spoke left (to the bewilderment of those with him) at that
point and didn't return. Missed one hell of a show due to his beliefs or
lack thereof.

My only regret, I didn't bring my camera due to the venue's strict policies.
For those of you that have been there you know what I mean. Therefore I
have no pictures to send out.

That said, this was one hell of a show and I hope you all get a chance to
witness this event!!! The sound was excellent and the visuals complemented the
music to a tee!!! Not to mention this was an awesome night weatherwise!!
A perfect confluence between sound, audio and weather!!!! In other words,
what we like to call a "Floydian night"!!!!!!!!!