Roger Waters seeks to break down the wall in live show (photo by twi-ny/David Darmstadter)
Thursday, November 4, Izod Center, East Rutherford, NJ, $69-$268.85, 8:00
Saturday, November 6, Madison Square Garden, $70.45-$277.40
www.thegarden.com
www.roger-waters.com
A lot of bands have been performing albums in their entirety this decade, but no one is doing it like Roger Waters. In 2007, he played the Pink Floyd masterpiece DARK SIDE OF THE MOON all over the world, incorporating multimedia elements and, of course, a flying pig. But the sixty-seven-year-old founding member of Floyd, who split from David Gilmour and the rest of the group in 1985, is now on the road re-creating the majestic 1979 concept album THE WALL, adding multimedia and theatrical flourishes and bringing back, of course, the pig. The story of isolation and stardom, loneliness and fame, which was turned into a 1982 film, features such classic rock songs as “Another Brick in the Wall,” “Mother,” “Hey You,” “Is There Anybody Out There?” and “Comfortably Numb.” On his website, Waters explains what drew him toward revisiting THE WALL: “Thirty years ago when I wrote THE WALL I was a frightened young man. Well, not that young, I was thirty-six years old. It took me a long time to get over my fears. Anyway, in the intervening years it has occurred to me that maybe the story of my fear and loss, with its concomitant inevitable residue of ridicule, shame, and punishment, provides an allegory for broader concerns: Nationalism, racism, sexism, religion, whatever! All these issues and ’isms are driven by the same fears that drove my young life. This new production of THE WALL is an attempt to draw some comparisons, to illuminate our current predicament, and is dedicated to all the innocent lost in the intervening years.” His performance of THE WALL LIVE at Nassau Coliseum last month (catch some video by twi-ny spy Ben Rossen here) drew raves that are still reverberating across the tristate area; you have two more chances to catch this remarkable show, tonight at the Izod Center in East Rutherford and Saturday at the Garden.