the wall

Jack Attack Tuesday

Roger Waters’ The Wall

A few years back, on July 1, 2012 to be exact, I was lucky enough to attend Roger Waters’ performance of The Wall at Fenway Park in Bahhston.  I have been a Pink Floyd fan for most of my life and I’ve always had much more of an affinity for Dark Side of the Moon than The Wall, but an opportunity came up and I got to see the performance.  I remember that date so well because there’s a distinct difference between the life I was living before that showing the life I am currently engaging in.  Concerts come and go for certain.  Some are better than others, some are lackluster, and while Waters’ has been criticized for being hard to work with and stuck in his ways, after seeing the show performed live I have to believe that The Wall is, and always has been, less a Pink Floyd album than a piece of performance art put together by Roger Waters.  The spectacle of that night still stands as the greatest live performance I’ve ever seen.  I’ve frequented The Who over the past few years, seen Springsteen perform for 3+ hours without a break and been to a pair of AFC Championship games, but I can honestly say The Wall was as close to a religious experience as I’ve ever had.

So, naturally, I’ve been searching for something like it ever since the show ended, and in truth nothing really compares.  The Wall was such a controlled, focused performance with such universal themes that trying to find its’ duplicate would be damn-near impossible anyhow.  You can color me pleased, then, when I found out that Roger Waters The Wall was being made into a concert film.  Immediately it was on my radar, and then it dropped off because, well, the docket overfloweth and I lost track of it.  Cut to this past Tuesday when my main man Bill gave me the heads up that the flick was playing one night only in Providence.  Along with a few other friends, we got our tickets and prepared ourselves.  In my case, it was a chance to re-experience the show, while Bill, on the other hand, was experiencing the performance for the first time.  After two hours of solid entertainment, and then an odd interview filled with dopey softball questions tagged to the end of the movie, the film was over.

As a movie, I’m actually incredibly impressed with how Waters was able to morph the overall theme of The Wall into something more universal than it had been originally.  When it was originally written and performed, The Wall was an idea born out of frustration and the weight of stardom.  At a performance of their then released Animals, Roger Waters was so insulted by talkative fans that he actually spat at one of them.  Upon reflection of what he had done, the idea of a disillusioned and disturbed rock star who had isolated himself from those around him became the start of The Wall.  While The Wall still is very much about that story, the larger message of the album is now one of anti-war sentiment.  At the heart of the pain and anguish of the main character was always the loss of his father via the war.  What Waters has done in the new film is he’s taken the framework of the story and interspersed scenes of the concert performance with his own journey to visit the site of the battle that took his father’s life.  While this is very on the nose, you do feel the anguish and sadness of the very real journey Waters drew upon to write his story.  It somehow makes the entire album seem more important and valid now than it ever was, but I would also maintain that this is an album where the studio version does not convey what the live performance does.  The closest recording I know of to the show I saw, in terms of tone, would be the Is There Anybody Out There recording from 1980.  Where the album had to cut a few key songs, namely “What Shall We Do Now?”, the live album preserves it and serves as, in my opinion, the truest form of the album.

As far as concert films go, I think this one floats high above most others if only because of the wonder of seeing a piece of art morph over time.  The Wall is something full of negativity and menace, but in an odd way it’s almost as if time has matured the album and added layers to the storytelling.  Because of all of that, the film serves as a prime example of how an artist can redefine and reinvigorate his own work over time.  I’d give Roger Waters The Wall a very solid and deserved 9 hard-shell tacos on 10.