Earls Court

[drafsack]

Another good show last night the band were really on form and apart from a Missed cue at the start of In the flesh it was great, There seemed a lot of drunken Assholes tonight throwing their beer and beer cups around and the number of people moving around to get more beer throuout the whole show was unbeleavable - it was a constent flow in and out. Also when the band appeared for thew second half loads of people were outside even though there had been an announcement that the show was restarting and it took till the middle of Time to settle down again. But apart from that it was great with really good sound and visuals, Didn't get to meet up with Stu - maybe better luck tonight

[hummingman]

Yeah it was a good show, just alot of people being idiots. Show started about 25 mins late because most people were to lazy/stupid to get to to their seats on time, intermission was the same. I noticed the miscue on In The Flesh, Rog starting "So ya" a bit too early...

Good things:

- Roger's voice was great, maybe all the practice has done him good. I don't think he was lip-syncing, although I was a bit suspicious on Fletcher Memorial Home as it sounded alot like it does on the studio version, either that or his voice has got alot better.
- Visuals were cool, lasers were great, big inflatable pig and spaceman yay, screens were good, especially the films, especially liked On The Run and Leaving Beirut.
- The set; not very different to other gigs I don't think (?), but was was impressed with him playing Perfect Sense and two Final Cut songs (no-one seemed to appreciate Southampton Dock to begin with). Wouldn't have minded Welcome to the Machine though.
- Sound was good, although Aussie Pink Floyd were louder
- Atmosphere at the end of the show, great
- Kilminster exceeded my expectations, especially on Have a Cigar (well sung by Rog), and was happy to see veterans Snowy White and Jon Carin.
- DSOTM was fantastic, seamless, well-played.

Not so good things

- Quite surprised by Roger's constant glorification of drugs - yes I know PF is very much a druggy band, made clear by the amount of people who fit the PF stereotype perfectly, but I thought Roger's screenfilms constantly portraying drug usage in a non-cynical way was a bit much.
- The Earl's Court policy - THEY TAKE BOTTLE CAPS! Take a bottle of beer in, they'll take it from you when they search your bag before you go in. Have a bottle of water with you, they'll take the bottlecap, buy a bottle of water inside (£2) and they take the bottlecap - ridiculous.
- Prices are stupid. £20 for a tshirt isn't that bad, but everything else was a bit steep. £15 for a thin paper programme, £50 for a piece of cardboard with a printed image of Rog on it (got a £4 poster afterwards with the same thing on it).
- The amount of drunk and stoned people sitting around me and my girlfriend, I think they all sat next to us. Show was disturbed quite a bit by Earl's Court staff coming up to tell them to sitdown and stop smoking cannabis.
- Seat - was about a kilometre away from the stage, Roger looked like a Borrower playing a tiny guitar. Paid £50 pretty much as soon as the tickets were released That's no-ones fault though.
- A guy I spoke to on the tube after said he'd seen Floyd in Earl's Court when they recorded Pulse - he said that if that show was 10/10, then last night would have been 3/10 - Pulse must have been awesome.

Overall, great show, will be going again at some point hopefully
Really wanna see one of Gilmour's shows though, prob isn't going to happen though

[moodyblue]

Totally agree Draf about the amount of people walking in and out when he came back onstage added to the fact that i had to keep letting people in and out of the row we were in at regular intervals
Great show and i was so glad i bothered this time around.
Roger seems to be so 'into' it nowadays when he's up there that you can just feel it.
As for the lip synching....now can anyone say that 'Have a cigar' wasn't lip synched or what !!!!
Watching him do that filled me with a sense of dissapointment in the man after all the stuff he has come out with over the years ( anyone remember the 'fair forgery' comment ? )
It was a pleasant surprise to actually witness a guitar player in his band that can actually do some sense of justice to Gilmours lines at long last.
I have always come away from his shows in the past dissapointed with that side of things but this guy although he pretty much ridgidly stuck to the original guitar lines for the most part actually played it with a sense of passion. Well done Mr Kilminster but ..............he still can't or didn't play the rakes on the Numb Solo just like everyone else hasn't including that guy in the Aussie PF show !
Another thing i don't understand, why does Snowy white play a Gibson on the Shine On 4 note sequence ?.....It just doesn't sound right !
It sincerly annoys me when a guitar player chooses to ignore the atmosphere or continuity of a song and instead, disses it with some tonal bodge up !!
Anyway, moaning aside, the Dark Side material which i was kinda dreading in how he might present it sounded alot better than i thought it would.
I thought the programme notes were pretty much spot on in what he said about never wanting to perform that album because alot of the stuff was either co-written or had too much of a stamp from the other three on it.
Musically it's by and large a Gilmour/Wright album but ofcourse lyrically, a Waters album ( just incase i get jumped on for the 'co-written' comment )
I'd have willingly swapped 'Another brick' and 'Wish' for material from Amused to Death aswell but it's nice to see that Roger has alot of pride for what he did with PF although i suspect he kinda claims alot of that stuff as his own anyhow.
One striking thing came to mind during this concert. Just how Pink Floyd songs have transpired into the mainstream over the years when in the 70's and 80's, you would never hear PF anywhere except diehards bedrooms amongst a cloud of smoke or in the confines of the interested music fan's record collection and i almost feel like the band i have loved since i was small has been taken away from me by the mainstream average music fan.
Anyway, It's great to see Rogers passion for his beliefs and outlook still prevail in his work today and long may a true artist such as this man continue it.

[decampos]

Interesting reading chaps, might as well post a couple of my comments. I saw Roger perform at Hyde Park last year at it was simply amazing - sensational, one of the best. Unfortunately, for me, last night's wasn't anywhere near as good. Nothing to do with the band, it was the awful acoustics of the venue; so much beautiful music reduced to a cacophony of earbleeding noise. My other issue was the aforementioned arseholes. Among many other things they were shouting amongst themselves and generally being twats. I spent too much of the show fantasizing about smashing their faces in.

Technically, the music was excellent and very faithful to the original recordings which I personally like - was never keen on the way Rog would muck about with the arrangements on previous tours. There was some fat guitar player who kept mincing about, tossing his hair and nodding a lot which initially annoyed me after all, I was there to see Roger not this bell-end, until I started to listen and appreciate just how excellent his playing was. I was saddened that Nick couldn't make it for the Dark Side part, but Graham's rototom solo on 'Time' was quite possibly the highlight of the show for me. The 'Amused' section, again, glad it was there but just couldn't enjoy it because of the terrible sound echoing around the hall. I enjoyed a lot of the films and thought most of them worked well, though 'brick' was a bit odd, while everyone was whooping and clapping and singing along merrily we were treated to a visual of a graveyard.

Bit of a shame but was never awful and there were enough good moments. Will always endeavor to see the man in black with his massive forearms again soon.

[Tenniru]

Looking at this review, it seems like my worst fears were confused. Roger failed to adapt his already battered and pale stage show for the vast Earl's Court, resulting in an awful viewing experience for anyone with a bad seat (and a big venue is mostly bad seats). Combine Identical Performance #523 with an oversized venue... I'm really hoping it's better than I imagine, because Earl's Court doesn't need to be defiled with the low point to end all low points.

Is it me, or is Rog's problem the very reason he refuses to play stadiums? So he suddenly breaks his own vow without even doing anything to recover the damage? You'd think he'd at least make his show physically big enough to make the whole audience happy like the DaveFloyd did for PULSE...

Breaking artistic vows, outsourcing most of the show to machines and other guys, lip-syncing, not joining Pink Floyd to tribute to his old dead friend despite the band being meters away, doing what little he actually does with mechanical precision, hiding/ignoring a lot of very good and beloved work from the past... it's as if he's not there anymore. If Rog is Pink, then Pink never really escaped the Wall.

I desperately hope I'm wrong. I hope a VoIO or official DVD of this show comes out and it turns out it was a much bigger stage, there were way more lights than usual, the Pig was somehow cooler, the performance was actually accelerated to the point where Rog actually did more than standing around playing simple bass notes and singing a few songs (or pretending to sing others).
And maybe the next Earl's Court nights will have something special added, like Hello (I Love You), members of Pink Floyd, previews of his next album, or something else that winds up being awesome.
I really hope Rog hasn't totally blown it and closed a tour that, if you've been following it at all, ends with shows less interesting than Nick Mason's "Profiles".

[oyv666]

I really hope Rog hasn't totally blown it and closed a tour that, if you've been following it at all, ends with shows less interesting than Nick Mason's "Profiles".

I might be a idiot....but what did you mean by "closed a tour" ?
hasn't he still got 30 shows left to go ?

[FransT]

On may 5th I was one of the 35.000 fans at Roger's gig in Arnhem in the Gelredome. The Gelredome is a footballstadium (with a roof which was closed) almost twice the size of Earl's Court. (I've also been in Earl's Court in 1981 to watch the Wall live concert)

In my opinion the stage, screens, show or sound in the Gelredome were not at all 'dwarfed' by the size of the venue. For instance, the quad sound was great, also in the back of the pitch (where we stood). The 4 screens left and right and the big screen behind the band made it also possible to view everything what was going on on stage.

So.. in my opinion, in a bigger venue than Earl's court there we no 'size problems'.

[Tenniru]

I really hope Rog hasn't totally blown it and closed a tour that, if you've been following it at all, ends with shows less interesting than Nick Mason's "Profiles".

I might be a idiot....but what did you mean by "closed a tour" ?
hasn't he still got 30 shows left to go ?

Well, assuming the next 30 shows will be identical, than the last gig would be horrendously boring to someone who has been following this tour since Rio last June. (Also, if you add up the number of dates from '06 and '07, thirty is a pretty small number.)

Did they really upgrade the screens? Through 2006 there were only two screens a few screens about the size of a house; if Rog has duplicated them and made some bigger ones (and taken the effort to bring his own quad amps with enough power and quality to fill a baseball stadium... now we know where all that overpriced t-shirt money is going), that's nice. Still only marginally better than a live telecast with a decent home theatre, but nice nonetheless.

[thrill-seeker]

[moodyblue]

Is it me, or is Rog's problem the very reason he refuses to play stadiums? So he suddenly breaks his own vow without even doing anything to recover the damage? You'd think he'd at least make his show physically big enough to make the whole audience happy like the DaveFloyd did for PULSE"

The stage show WAS big enough in my opinion. He had two large screens either side of the stage and alot going on onstage. Yes the people at the back didn't have as good a view as the people closer but the only way round that is to play smaller venues and then, not as many people can go which in turn leads to people moaning 'why doesn't he play larger venues so i can get a ticket' etc etc etc......so which way do you want it ?

Breaking artistic vows, outsourcing most of the show to machines and other guys, lip-syncing, not joining Pink Floyd to tribute to his old dead friend despite the band being meters away, doing what little he actually does with mechanical precision, hiding/ignoring a lot of very good and beloved work from the past... it's as if he's not there anymore. If Rog is Pink, then Pink never really escaped the Wall

Yeah the lip synching pisses me off and is a betrayal of so much of what he's said and come out with in the past but to say 'not joining Pink Floyd' in a tribute to Syd is nonsence. From reliable sources it seems the problem lies with a certain Mr Gilmour who isn't interested in reforming. Roger has stated in print he'd love to do something with the other three and infact, the notes in the programme back this up to.

I really hope Rog hasn't totally blown it and closed a tour that, if you've been following it at all, ends with shows less interesting than Nick Mason's "Profiles".

Did you actually go to this tour by the way ?

[thrill-seeker]

Sitting down the front was soooo good. I don't regret paying double the price for tickets one bit. Totally worth it and the stage wasn't so high as well so you could see quite a lot.

Here's some random photos anyway, loads more to come as well : http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/andyga ... r=/5108re2

Got loads of videos too.

[decampos]

...From reliable sources it seems the problem lies with a certain Mr Gilmour who isn't interested in reforming. Roger has stated in print he'd love to do something with the other three and infact, the notes in the programme back this up to.

I'm glad you made this point. An except from his interview in UNCUT magazine I think illustrates this:

What would it take to get you together for a tour – money, a good cause?

ROGER WATERS: This is why Dave is very reluctant to ever do anything again: for 20 years it’s been his baby. He doesn’t want to give up that position and what should he? Listen. If somehow, working through all our egos, all the history and whatever, we could come together for a reason - I don’t care what – and maybe do a few gigs in London, a few in New York and a few in LA, Palestine, wherever. I’d be up for it. It wouldn’t be a one-off gig, because to do all that work just for one night wouldn’t be worth it. But a number of events that would draw a line nicely under the work the four of us did together would be very satisfying for me. I’d be prepared to give 6 months or so in terms of preparation for something like that.

... [Gilmour] came up with some strange comments after Live 8, one of which was “I don’t know what the big fuss is about. It would have been just the same whether roger was there of not”. That illustrated for me that maybe he doesn’t quite get how important the symbiosis between the four of us was during “the golden years” of the band. We were great together. We all made a contribution, but it was the combination of the four separate talents. It was a very, very special thing.

[drafsack]

Another good show last night - not so many wankers with their beer tonight and the crowd were a bit more respectful. Nick Mason turned up tonight and played on the dark side part as well as the encore. Looked for Stu again but couldn't see him. Was with mrs Drafsack tonight so there wasn't the same amount of letching at the femail members of the audience as there was the previous evening .

[Barney]

Im looking for photos from the EARLS COURT MAY 11TH gig. Does anyone have any?

[thrill-seeker]

Im looking for photos from the EARLS COURT MAY 11TH gig. Does anyone have any?

Check around some of the other forums. I've got some still to upload anyway