THE show was Saturday night. Roger Waters played The Wall live at the LA Coliseum. It was definitely the biggest spectacle of sound and light I've ever seen (much greater than the original Floyd performance I saw in 1980).
The show was prefaced by a massive traffic jam of cars on the freeway, leading to a panicked search for alternative routes through not so nice neighborhoods, and a well-behaved (but panic simmering) crowd of people squeezing through too few gates. Luckily, the show did not start as promptly as the warning printed on the ticket. The paranoids in the audience sighed with relief…
I feared the sound would be horrible in the massive space, but it was nearly perfect in the amphitheater acoustics. A technological marvel. The guitarist(s) replicated Gilmour's art immaculately. All the other players were exceptional (not a single bad note was heard). Roger sang great. He must have taken voice lessons. The sound quality of the album was matched and improved upon with extended versions of almost all songs (and a few extra pieces here and there).
The show was at times very emotional, and EXTREMELY heavy (of course). In particular, I found the brooding facist overtones (while supposed to be a joke/metaphor, sort of) almost repulsive, but true to the art. It was very powerful. Especially in the large stadium setting. At times I felt I was in Berlin in some of those old war reels. At other times, the imagery was cleverly subtle and somewhat subliminal, yet of strong effect. Bravo!
Of course, we got some of the amusing over the top standard prop pieces: inflatable giant marionettes, a giant floating pig over the audience, and the overhead airplane crash into the stage. But these paled in comparison to the huge evocative imagery on the giant 300 foot long, and 3 story high wall. This included projections of closeups of the performers, plus lots of mesmerizing visual effects, movies, moving collages, and animation, some of which was disturbing, of course.
I was surprised that the content, while still heavy, was made more PC. For example, the line "are there any queers in the audience? Get them up against the wall" was missing. I think it was updated by a reference to a different group?
Well, anyway, the bottom line is that the show may be a once in a lifetime experience. I would have gotten better seats, if I had known it was going to be this good… Cheers!