What would a tour supporting The Final Cut have been like?

[Luca]

Waters allegedly recorded all the Pros and Cons stuff (minus lead guitar) and THEN let Clapton join him in the studio... However, his playing on the album is outstanding. Personally, I rate PAC very high, also because it sounds timeless: a rarity for a 80s production. And Andy Newmark is far better than Graham Broad.
Rumor has it that a personality clash between Clapton and Waters occurred very early in the tour, even during the first dinner together: apparently too long and boring for Clapton. Three years later Roger had some kind of argument with Jay Stapley, too.

[Hadrian]

I am quite fond of the Pros and Cons album as well, but for a slightly different reason - I consider that one to be the only solo album that actually could've been a proper Pink Floyd album, had they put some work into it back in the day. It was originally conceived in 1977-78 concurrently with The Wall. It is also the ultimate narrative album, with time being counted in seconds and minutes, and in it I recognize some of that wonderful strangeness that characterizes classic Pink Floyd albums.

The actual end result was far away from a classic Pink Floyd album, however, mainly because Waters was at the height of his ego trip when he decided to produce it (part of it all was the whole thing with bringing-but-not-really-using Clapton of course).

I also like the fact that it was played live in its entirety, as a concert set. Playing the entire album as a concert set was one of the great things about Pink Floyd (1972-1981, 1994). They did this with four albums only - The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals and of course The Wall (that last one as the entire concert).

On his solo tours Waters repeated the practice with The Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall, and with Pros and Cons. All of these albums are quite unique in their own right; hearing them live in their entirety was for me much more of an even than a 'best of' set list.

I also think that The Final Cut would've worked great as a concert set too (the 2004 edition, with 13 songs, integrating "When the Tigers Broke Free"). As long as Waters is willing to go on live tours, there is a remote possibility of doing that one too. I would go to see that live for sure.

[Luca]

...maybe one day BritFloyd or some other cover band will do that

[Hadrian]

I quickly looked online (the setlist wiki) to see what Roger Waters played live over the years from The Final Cut album.

Here is the list of songs, with their live debut date (I used the 2004 version of the album below which includes "When the Tigers Broke Free"):

The Final Cut
01. The Post War Dream
02. Your Possible Pasts
03. One of the Few
04. When the Tigers Broke Free (30 October 2015)
05. The Hero's Return
06. The Gunner's Dream (16 June 1984)
07. Paranoid Eyes
08. Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert (19 March 1985)
09. The Fletcher Memorial Home (10 November 1987)
10. Southampton Dock (19 March 1985)
11. The Final Cut
12. Not Now John (14 August 1987)
13. Two Suns in the Sunset

Essentially half of the album had been played live.

[The Gunner's Dream]

The Fletcher Memorial Home live in 1987? Never heard that before.

[Hadrian]

Here is the entry for that one. For reasons unknown, it came once at the very end of the Radio K.A.O.S. tour. It seems that the performance was abandoned (...ouch...), but technically that is the song's live debut.

p.s.
I noticed that Roger Waters in fact played the entire Radio K.A.O.S. album during his 1987 Radio K.A.O.S. tour, however the songs were performed across two sets and sandwiched between older material. He played the whole album (8 songs), plus 2 out of 3 related songs that came out as B-sides on associated album singles ("Going to Live in LA" and "Molly's Song" - but not "Get Back to Radio"). However, doing it this way creates a different kind of experience than playing the whole album as one of the two sets. By the way, that particular album is definitely his biggest mess, starting with "I wanna be Peter Gabriel" production and ending with a rather messy stage show concept.

The other two rock albums (Amused to Death and Is This the Life We Really Want?) essentially got The Final Cut treatment - roughly half of the album ended up on stage.

[Luca]

Thanks Hadrian! First time I hear of this FMH performance Maybe it was supposed to be added in the eastern leg of the tour, eventually cancelled. It was typical of Waters to drop his own songs in favour of pink floyd classics, when he saw that people didn't care for the solo stuff. On Kaos he dropped Pros and cons (title track)...on in the flesh dropped the powers that be and what god wants.

[Hadrian]

On the current Us + Them Tour there are five songs from the latest solo album, and the rest is Pink Floyd stuff, 1971-1979 period, from Meddle to The Wall. Absolutely nothing from his solo years.

[Kerry King]

RW's solo albums, like a pendulum going too far in one direction, demonstrate the tendency to become spoken word albums (perhaps they should be that, in their ultimate form). Waters had the right idea how to correct this (bringing in Clapton for Pros and Cons; bringing in Jeff Beck for Amused to Death; and he should've brought Jimmy Page for Radio K.A.O.S. to complete the utilization of Yardbirds!), but he did not execute it in the studio/live as he should/could have.

The last thing Roger Waters wants is someone shining brighter than him.

[Hadrian]

Yes. And I bet that, despite all the reconciliation talk and stage reunions, Waters was cursing under his breath again in late 2014 when Pink Floyd - once more reduced to Gilmour and Mason duo - went straight to number 1 with its new studio album, this time even without any concert promotion at all.

Waters' 1987 tour, which resulted in a financial disaster while he was trying to prove to himself and the world that he is Pink Floyd (directly competing with the band on the road, etc.), was definitely the height of his egomaniacality.

The clever thing to do for that tour, as far as the older stuff goes, would have been to focus on the aspects of the band's legacy that the band was ignoring. There were already some older individual Pink Floyd songs that you could only hear live if you went to see Waters ("Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun"; "If"), but the idea could've been taken even further - doing entire albums that the band was ignoring. Expanding on the notion that he could've done The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking (Set 1) / The Final Cut (Set 2) as something unique in 1984-85, he could've went with Radio K.A.O.S. (Set 1) / Animals (Set 2) in 1987. That way, folks could go to see both Pink Floyd and Roger Waters in the same year, and hear entirely different legacy material.

[Luca]

Kaos and Animals? B-sides or b-albums tours simply don't work, and above all weren't feasible in those pre-web days, when there was no way to check the set-lists night by bight In today's world Pink Floyd could not make a three years long tour without changing anything, like they did in 87-89 (...did not get bored?).

[Hadrian]

It would've been worth a shot, imo. "The entire new album + the 10th anniversary celebration of Animals" on the tour poster would've suffice to communicate it all. It just had to be different from what Pink Floyd was doing to get some traction. He tried to do the same thing that they were doing (new album + best of from Dark Side, WYWH, The Wall), and it did not fly. Both were coming to town, but people went to see Pink Floyd do "Money" instead of Roger Waters.

Here is the third new-old suggested pairing, for a third album tour with Jeff Beck that never happened: Amused to Death (Set 1) / Wish You Were Here (Set 2)*

*but played differently to make it more interesting - the way band did it live early on:
1. Shine On You Crazy Diamond I-IX
2. Have a Cigar
3. Welcome to the Machine
4. Wish You Were Here

p.s.
Animals, b-album?

[SurrogateMember]

It would've been worth a shot, imo. "The entire new album + the 10th anniversary celebration of Animals" on the tour poster would've suffice to communicate it all. It just had to be different from what Pink Floyd was doing to get some traction. He tried to do the same thing that they were doing (new album + best of from Dark Side, WYWH, The Wall), and it did not fly. Both were coming to town, but people went to see Pink Floyd do "Money" instead of Roger Waters.

Here is the third new-old suggested pairing, for a third album tour with Jeff Beck that never happened: Amused to Death (Set 1) / Wish You Were Here (Set 2)*

*but played differently to make it more interesting - the way band did it live early on:
1. Shine On You Crazy Diamond I-IX
2. Have a Cigar
3. Welcome to the Machine
4. Wish You Were Here

p.s.
Animals, b-album?

Agreed! And even, to solve the "he didn't play the hits!" issue, a three song encore of Money, ABITW2, and Comfortably Numb would do

[Hadrian]

Speaking of crowd-pleasing encores, one thing that always puzzled me is why Waters never played "Another Brick in the Wall I-III" as a set, putting the three parts together to make a single long song out of it (I am thinking about non-The Wall concert encores only, of course). When you put the studio tracks together, the three parts come to 9:08. If you let the band jam a bit in the middle (like it always should), you are looking 12-15 minutes of music right there.

By the way, exploring setlist wiki a bit more revealed another old track (besides "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" and "If") that you can only hear at Roger Waters' concerts - "Fearless" (from Meddle). He performed it five times in 2016, but it is not a part of the ongoing tour.

[Luca]

I like some Kaos songs... especially Going to live in LA (I'm still waiting for a "lost songs" compilation... solo years vol II), but Billy plus Benny plus Molly plus "dying of cancer er er er er".... no thanks!

If you let the band jam a bit in the middle

He did let the bleeding hearts jam a little... and repeated thrice the lyrics. Paul Carrack added some tasteful (80s taste, but not bad) piano on Happiest days and sometimes they all jammed on Another brick as an encore (after brain damage+eclipse).