The first part of the set ends with three songs from The Wall The Happiest Days of Our Lives leading into the second and third part of Another Brick in the Wall. Waters hammers on about the Israelian/Palestinian conflict, refugees and overall state of things on The Last Refugee (which is linked to the video at the start of the show) and the energetic Picture That before we’re treated to Wish You Were Here. It’s also here that things get political, sometimes overtly so. After that, we take our first plunge into Waters’ solo material with Déjà Vu. The first non- Dark Side song is the ever ominous Welcome to the Machine, with the classic, animated music video displayed on the screen behind it. Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig are excellent vocalists, but after hearing what David Gilmour did with the song on the Live at Pompeii live album last year it’s hard to go back. We were less enamoured of tonight’s rendition of The Great Gig in the Sky, though. The eerie, ruin-like doors and windows on One of These Days, the floating clocks on Time, it’s all classic Floyd, and a masterful display of how you successfully marry image and sound. There’s a cohesion to Waters’ work, conceptually, lyrically and musically, and you have to wonder how much of what you see here and over the years is pure Roger Waters instead of the work of a fully functioning band or a team of concept artists (Storm Thorgerson and Hipnosis first and foremost). Waters chooses his imagery carefully, and watching the floating sphere juxtaposed upon videos of still waters, racing traffic and London, you can’t help but admire the artistry of it all. Cue Speak to Me and Breathe from Floyd ’s seminal The Dark Side of the Moon (which, bar On the Run and Any Colour You Like, is being played in its entirety over the course of the evening). Finally, the clear skies on the screen turn blood red and the camera zooms out to reveal a barren land on a big, black sphere which might or might not be intended to represent our own planet. You know there’s a message in there somewhere, but we’re not quite sure what it is yet. Of course, the entire show is, once again, also a vehicle for Waters to express his political views, and starting the evening with an almost agonisingly long video of a woman in a hijab sitting on a beach is absolutely typical of him. We were promised a “pretty cool show” with about 75% Pink Floyd material and 25% worth of other stuff, and that’s exactly what we got this Tuesday. Waters also hit the road again with his Us + Them Tour, with which he finally hit The Netherlands for a four-evening stint. We were treated to a documentary film of that tour and an accompanying live album, a remastered re-release of Amused To Death and, finally, a brand new album twenty-five years in the making. Last time we saw Roger Waters live, he was still doing his live rendition of The Wall. Stuart Heaney, Video Crew Chief, “This is a fantastic show to work on but of course a special thanks to the hard working video team - Peter Tiling, Gabriel Linford & Kevin Perry on Projection, Dave Rogers as Engineer, Al Wright & Gareth Manicom on LED, Mark Hughes on Polecam and a guest appearance from Mark Cruikshank as FOH Camera for New Zealand.Flying Pigs! Dogs! Power stations! Creepy balls! Prisms! Yes, we went to see Roger Waters live again. An FOH camera with XJ100 lens, pit camera with HJ22 and Polecam with a UP 3G Block camera on track, handheld camera with HJ14 lens and a pair of Agile ARC360 robo cams provided all the shots required, and were processed by the Photon servers to apply visual effects. Universal Pixels built a bespoke PPU & Engineering solution, around the S-A-M Kula 2M/E Switcher and Vega routing, to provide HDSDI fibre conversion for the projectors, and cut the cameras to the various screen surfaces. A full custom fibre distribution system complemented this and robust networking provided by VYV.ĭriving both the LED & Projection are 10 VYV Photon servers operated by Ellie Clement, who has her work cut-out keeping dozens of tracking cameras operational to track both performers & set elements. This surface was covered by 16 Panasonic RZ31 units, and a further 5 Panasonic RZ21 units to provide infills on the Battersea Power Station Chimneys. The show design incorporated a 3 sided 47m long moving projection surface running down the centre of the arena over the audience, produced by Tait Towers. The backdrop to the stage area was a brand new 28.5m x 12m Infiled ER5 led screen in 23 touring frames with Brompton processing & SmartPDU power distribution.
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