• Menu

Roger Waters and The Wall, Live in Ottawa

Roger Waters of Pink Floyd doesn’t look 67 years old. Maybe it’s the drugs; maybe it’s his weird twisted mind. Who knows. He can still put up a show and his songs are still oddly relevant today.

On Sunday night, Feng and I went to see The Wall Live in Ottawa. I’m too young to be a child of the seventies, I grew up with Pink Floyd music as my dad loves them. I first listened to his disks and then eventually bought my own CDs of the band’s main album. The Wall, Dark Side of the Moon, the Division Bell… I love that the lyrics are open to interpretation while songs like Money, Time or Run Like Hell speak for themselves.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from The Wall. While I love the CD, the 1979 movie is a bit too weird for me. We stepped into Scotiabank Place and found the place packed—the concert was sold out. On the stage, half a wall was built with white bricks.

Roger Waters came on stage at 8 pm sharp. Fireworks lit up the place and he began singing.

“So ya Thought ya/ Might like to go to the show/ To feel the warm thrill of confusion and/ That space cadet glow”.

He went on with The Thin Ice and the huge screen behind him started showing videos of soldiers killed on duty during WWII, the Gulf War and more recently, in Iraq or Afghanistan. Slowly and inconspicuously, crew members added bricks to the wall as the show progressed. Eventually, the wall was completed and Roger Water sang “Hey You” from behind it, before reappearing again at the front of the stage. Various giant puppets were used: the teacher (“hey, teacher, leave the kids alone! All in all, you’re just another brick in the wall…”), the mother and the wife, lurking at the audience, appearing and disappearing from behind the wall.

The wall served as a screen to project messages, quotes and elaborated animations towards the end of the show. “Are there any paranoid people in Ottawa?,” asked Roger before starting Run Like Hell, during which were displayed the logo of the major car and oil companies, as well as the dollar sign. During Mother, the question “Mother, should I trust the government?” was answered by a three-word sentence—“no fucking way”, displayed on the wall in Pink Floyd’s signature font.

Eventually, the room started to chant “tear down the wall!” and the music grew louder during The Trial. The wall was destroyed in a matter of seconds and the musicians all played an acoustic version of Outside The Wall.

All apologies if the pictures aren’t the best… We had great seats and I enjoyed the show. This is not the kind of concert where you focus on taking pictures of the band.

Roger Waters
Roger Waters
The Happiest Days of Our Lives
Young Lust
Mother
Mother
Is There Anybody Out There?
The Show Must Go On
In the Flesh
Comfortably Numb
Run Like hell
Run Like hell
Half-way Through The Show, the wall is Built
Tear Down The Wall!
End of the Show
Share this article!
Zhu

French woman in English Canada.

Exploring the world with my camera since 1999, translating sentences for a living, writing stories that may or may not get attention.

Firm believer that nobody is normal... and it’s better this way.

View stories

Leave a Reply to Priyank Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

15 comments