Roger Waters: The Wall, Part 3 (Final)

Read PART 1 HERE
Read PART 2 HERE

After building his metaphorical “wall” of isolation with events from his past, Pink is now longing to break free from his self-imposed barrier. Then the dreamy synthesizers and vocals of ‘Comfortably Numb’ start to kick in, set to an equally dreamy animation of a wall slowly rotating and spiraling. During this song, Roger goes about the stage singing the majority of the vocals — while facing the wall. During the chorus in which Gilmour sang on the album version, a fellow by the name of Robbie Wyckoff sang in Gilmour’s place from atop the wall.In addition, the tour guitarist played on a platform overlooking the crowd. During the outro guitar solo, the scenery changed as Roger pounded on the wall, with animated bricks collapsing to give way to several pillars.

The sun came up behind the pillars, while a small choir provided backup for Robbie to sing ‘The Show Must Go On’, portraying Pink unsure of himself as he prepares to take the stage — in a surprising way for those unfamiliar to the album.

Once again, the familiar opening chords of the first ‘In The Flesh’ blared out, resounding through the arena, as this time, a giant inflatable pig was released, branded with graffiti and mishmash. Roger, now clad in a Nazi-esque uniform, sings what seem to be the same lyrics as the first installment, but soon taking a dark twist — “Pink isn’t well, he’s back at the hotel”, meaning Pink is still not in his normal state of mind, something to consider once he “commands” the audience to put “queers”, “coons”, “Jews”, and funnily enough, pot smokers, up against the wall. After the song’s last line, he pulls out a submachine gun from out of nowhere and starts firing into the crowd! — although there were no real bullets, just the sound effects.

Next, Roger dedicated this song to the paranoids — ‘Run Like Hell’ — as spotlights scanned the arena repeatedly as several things appeared on the wall over the course of the song. Among these were a darker twist to the iPod marketing scheme — iLead, iProtect, iFollow, and soon, iPay, shown next to a gravestone; as well as one of the final lines of George Orwell’s 1984:

“But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.”

Basically, amidst his insanity, Pink has ironically turned into a figure similar to Adolf Hitler, the indirect cause of one of the first “bricks” in his wall… his father’s death in combat.

‘Waiting For The Worms’ then plays, as the background displayed several worms squirming in between the columns. After the soft verses, Roger pulls out a megaphone and starts ordering the people to carry out his “final solution”. His words soon turned into ramblings, as the crowd chant of “Hammer!” became increasingly louder, set to the iconic “marching hammers” animation from the film, until Roger screams ‘STOP!’ coming to a realization that he only has himself to blame for his wall, not the actions of others.

Then, the trippy kangaroo court scene of ‘The Trial’ begins to unfold, with Roger doing the voices of various characters, including the showman-like prosecutor, the stern and imposing judge, as well as his schoolmaster, his wife (with a strong accent!), and his mother. The judge’s sentence: “to be exposed before your [Pink’s] peers”. His command? “Tear down the wall!” The crowd soon joined in the chant of “Tear down the wall!” as a montage of scenes from the previous two hours began playing.

And then an explosion interrupted the climactic point of the set, as the wall actually came topping down, along with the release of red confetti.

Everything was silent for about a minute, until the strains of a mandolin became audible, starting ‘Outside the Wall’, with Roger remarking at the end, “Isn’t this where we came in?” The rest of the band joined him after a few minutes to make their bows and exit the stage.

I thought that this was more than just a “concert”. Heck, I don’t think you can even say that this was an ordinary concert. It was more of a spectacle — a well-orchestrated musical with awesome special effects and even the inclusion of off-stage props like the giant inflatables or the scale-model airplane. Roger didn’t need to interact with the audience that much. Rather, he let his works speak for themselves.

(10/10)