Last night (September 28, 2010) was a night that I didn’t think could happen. Last night was a night that almost didn’t happen. Last night I saw Roger Waters, one of my favorite musicians ever, perform my favorite album ever, Pink Floyd’s legendary The Wall. Looking back at it, it already feels like a distant memory; a vivid memory I would like to relive one more time so that I could pick out a few more minor details so that I may share them here. Because to be honest, this review, for me, is more than just a “concert review”; it is a brief observation of my own life, of chance, fate, opportunity, passion, and the truly unfathomable power of music. As such, I apologize if it’s a little long winded or personal, but it is something I feel I need to write.

I’ll begin with why this album is so very important to me. Released in 1979, The Wall is a piece of music that entered my consciousness at a very young age. I recall driving in the car with my father and listening to the eerie Is There Anybody Out There? ; I asked him to turn it off. It scared the hell out of me. I remember walking into the living room one evening to find my father watching the brilliant film adaptation of the album (now one of my favorite movies ever), witnessed a few disturbing images, and promptly left the room to do my own thing, feeling slightly shaken. About a year ago, however, for reasons I can’t now remember, I decided to watch the movie that I had for so long avoided. I adored it. I adored every damn second. I went and listened to the actual album front to back, and I adored that too. Then I watched the movie again. And I listened to the album again. I repeated that process a few times over the next few months, utterly enamored with what I had discovered. The album spoke to me. Not only did I grasp the artistic statements expressed through the story of the troubled rockstar Pink, I absolutely identified with it: family problems, addiction, relationship problems, forced isolation, depression. I had dealt with them all. It just so happened that I was at one of my lowest personal points when I discovered The Wall. Despite the album’s utterly depressing tone, it somehow helped to uplift me, as if seeing and hearing the struggle of another, laid bare before my eyes and ears, helped me to unravel my own personal struggles. Nowadays, whenever my friends and I have the “greatest album ever” discussion, I have a default answer ready to go: Pink Floyd’s The Wall is the single greatest piece of music ever created.

As I mentioned before, last night very nearly didn’t happen, for a couple of reasons. The first one, which is way beyond my control, was that Roger Waters, The Wall’s primary creator, has been estranged from Pink Floyd since the mid-80s, save a reunion with the band at the Live 8 show in 2005. While tensions between the former band members have eased, it seemed unlikely that the band would ever reunite to do a tour, and as such, the notion that I would one day be able to see a modern version of the now legendary The Wall live performance never really crossed my mind. Needless to say, the tour announcement was some of the best news I had ever heard; Roger Waters was coming to my hometown of Cleveland, to perform The Wall in its entirety, at the Quicken Loans Arena (I still call in The Gund), where I had grown up watching Cavaliers games. I bought tickets the very first day that they went on sale.

The other reason why I nearly didn’t get to experience last night happened this past Saturday (the concert fell on a Tuesday). I was out driving with some friends when I got distracted while pulling out of a parking lot. A truck going about 35 miles per hour slammed into me. Had I been a few more feet about, he would have t-boned me on the driver side, and I might very well be dead. Instead, I walked away from the accident with a few bruises, a minor concussion, and a fucked up car. Never in my entire life have I flirted so closely with life and death; I’m a safe driver, and things like that don’t happen to safe, thoughtful drivers (so I thought). Today, I’m still sore as hell, and the constant replays of the accident in my head are finally starting to subside. The car is getting fixed, I didn’t get cited, I had insurance, my parents aren’t pissed, and no one else got hurt; I got lucky. I’m not a particularly religious person, so I hesitate from using the word “blessed”, but while driving to the concert with my dad and brother last night, it would be understatement to just say that I felt “lucky”. It was rainy and gloomy as hell all night leading up to the concert and I couldn’t help but feeling a little anxious as my father’s car sped down the wet highway towards downtown Cleveland. But we made it, and walking into The Q on my own two feet, alive and well, with time to spare to get a snack before the show, I felt pretty damned good.

Walking into the slowly filling arena, it was hard not be a little in awe of the scene already prepared by the time I arrived. The outer ends of the wall had already been set up, and a large, circular screen was suspended behind the instruments already on stage. The head of the cartoonish “Mother” figure from the movie protruded from behind the right of the wall (my left). Around eight o’clock (the scheduled show time), the typical pre-show music was replaced by the sound of television. The sounds of a variety of TV shows and movies played on the PA, the audible click of a remote control accompanying each change in programs (my favorites from the few I could discern were some silly moments from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, South Park, and Family Guy, among others). At about a quarter past eight, the lights dimmed, and the familiar melody of the album’s closing track, Outside the Wall, began dimly playing over the excited roar of the arena. Quite suddenly, the opening chords of In the Flesh broke my anticipation. After a few moments, that monolithic riff began, whose chord progression is revisited a number of times throughout the album, a riff that I have hummed in my head and played on my bass countless times. It sounded just as huge in the arena as I always imagined it would, and I couldn’t stop myself from getting goosebumps and shouting like a maniac. When Mr. Waters himself strode to the front of the stage, donned his long, black trench coat, and began singing “So you thought you might like to go to the show”, I simply couldn’t contain myself; I sang along to every word, like a man possessed. The stranger next to me looked a little annoyed and perhaps mildly impressed. At the end of the song, as Roger shouted out commands (“Lights! Roll the sound effects!”), a Nazi fighter plane began its descent from the rafters to my right, ending in a fiery explosion behind the wall, along with a furious barrage of sparks and flames, finishing with that unison “big finish”. It was utterly and completely too much to bear; I was in fervor after the very first song.

As the band began launching into the rest of the first act, it became clear that Roger Waters has expanded the message of the original album to touch on a number of current topics for this tour. At one point, pictures and descriptions of people who have been killed in war related conflicts began filling in the bricks of the wall already under construction by a crew who deftly kept their presence from breaking the reality of the spectacle. During Goodbye Blue Sky, the background video depicted bomber planes dropping the symbols of the “major” religious, as well as a dollar sign and the logos from Shell and Mercedes. The visuals shown during Mother changed the message of the song from being about an oppressive parent to being about an oppressive, all-seeing government. This is something that I found particularly miraculous about the entire show and its visuals; without changing a single second of the original music, Mr. Waters and the crew in charge of the show’s ambitious visuals changed the message of the album into something much bigger than originally intended in a way that was entirely meaningful and organic. At its core, the original album is entirely apolitical. In fact, the album focuses entirely on Pink, and any reference to “the outside world” is simply a byproduct of his selfishness and disillusionment; in other words, the album doesn’t condone war so much as it reduces it to “just another brick” in Pink’s wall. Simply by adding some brief images and statements that take shots at industry, religion, government, consumerism, pollution, and modern life in general, the meaning of the album changes, and becomes totally relevant to current societal issues. That is, to me, the absolute essence of any great piece of art: timelessness. If any there were any doubts about The Wall’s timelessness, this show, thirty years after the album’s release, puts all of those to rest with resounding strength.

While the album’s clever reinterpretations were a nice touch, they never took away from the music or its original themes of loss and loneliness. Pink Floyd may be dead and gone, but Roger Waters’ backing band does a fine job of picking up their slack. As for the man himself, the 67-year old Waters was in top form. His voice actually sounded as strong as it did on the original album, and he didn’t shy away from playing bass and jamming with the rest of his band, or stepping out in front of the wall and taking the spotlight (fitting, of course, since one of the main themes of the album is separation, inspired by Waters’ own estrangement from Floyd when he wrote the album). He kept his between song banter to a bare minimum, only taking the time to briefly talk to the audience before beginning Mother (again, he played the acoustic guitar here himself; he certainly didn’t “cheat”, as some might expect from a musician this late in his career). Speaking of Mother, a fan favorite and quite possibly one of the most beautiful songs ever written, that song in particular was one of the many highlights of the show. When Waters sang “Mother, should I trust the government?”, “No fucking way” was etched on the wall in response; rapturous applause ensued. As Waters played at the front of the stage, a giant projection of himself playing the song in 1980 at Earls Court on the original The Wall tour played in black in white behind him. Seeing him in his 30s, still in the thick of the internal struggles that inspired the album, synchronized with the now worn yet confident Waters of today was a truly inspiring scene. In fact, from the distance I was at, Waters more resembled a man in his 30s than a man approaching 70. He’s still as thin and lanky as ever, and watching him lumber around in a black shirt, tight black jeans, and white Converse shoes, it was easy to forget that this is 2010 and not 1980. A few other highlights from the show included the inclusion of What Shall We Do Now? after Empty Spaces, a gorgeous rendition of Nobody Home and Vera (two of my favorite songs from the album), and some of the greatest crowd performances I have ever seen during Another Brick in the Wall, Part II and Comfortably Numb. I really tried my best to hit the high notes on the chorus of the latter, but I don’t think I did that well; I’m pretty sure I my voice was done after Bring the Boys Back Home. Either way, when the show came to its end, and the completed wall came crashing down to shouts of “tear down the wall”, and Waters and his band came out to bid the audience farewell and play Outside the Wall, I caught myself trembling a bit. Last night was a night that almost didn’t happen, but goddamnit I’m glad it did. One of the best shows I have ever seen; don’t miss it if you’ve got a chance to see it, you won’t get another chance.