Thursday, June 14, 2012

In perfect isolation here behind my wall

So this past Monday night I saw the one concert that I always wanted to see and never thought in a million years I would see. The Wall performed live in it's entirety by Roger Waters. The last time Roger Waters performed this show prior to the current tour was in 1991 not long after the Berlin Wall came down.  That show was played Potsdamer Platz in the no man's land where the Berlin Wall separated the East and West. After that show, it was thought that Roger Waters would never play The Wall again. Thankfully he has taken it back on the road and I finally got to see this show.  Now for those who don't know, Roger Waters is one of the founding members of Pink Floyd and The Wall is largely based on Water's life.


Now as fan of Pink Floyd, I have pretty much enjoyed anything they do but The Wall itself is the album to which I relate to the most as a person who suffers from a mental disorder and knows what's like to completely suffer a breakdown.


So what is The Wall all about. The Wall itself serves as a metaphor for the walls that people put up to protect themselves from emotional or mental harm from others. The story of The Wall is essentially about the disintegration of a rock star as he isolates himself in a hotel room and is driven to madness when he reflects on his life. This ultimately culminates in his total psychotic breakdown in which he envisions himself as a dictator over his audience and exacts his warped violent ideals on to his audience.


But The Wall while it does focus on one man going mad, the themes are much broader which is something that Water's himself as stressed as being about the self imposed isolation of humanity and how it leads to wars and other detestable acts of violence. The political and religious ideals that create these wars are riddled throughout the performance of The Wall and photos of the victims of all these wars were projected on individual bricks during the show. Of course The Wall was built between the audience and the stage during the course of the show. And was subsequently torn down as the show came to an end.


What was very prevalent was Water's dedication to the material and subject matter and the point he wanted to get across to the fans. That we must tear down our own walls to move forward as a species on this planet. That "fear builds walls" and that we must not succumb to those fears. The show itself ends in dramatic fashion with the audience chanting over and over "tear down the wall".


Now it goes without saying this was the most emotionally gut wrenching show I have ever seen. It starts off much like the album with a fascist rally during the song In the Flesh?






After the song, the show now takes a step backward and begins showing the character of Pink and his descent into madness. During the course of The Thin Ice, photos are shown of all the people who have been killed during the course of foreign wars.




 After this, Another Brick in the Wall Part 1 is played which deals directly with the death of Water's father during WWII. Next the show erupts with the Happiest Days of Our Lives and Another Brick in the Wall Part 2. After which this commentary on sadistic teachers (we have all had them at some point) ends, it gets quiet again during the songs Mother and Goodby Blue Sky. During the former Water's sings very poignantly "mother, should I build the wall?"


Now the show begins to focus on the next bricks in The Wall. The adultery committed by the character Pink's wife. What is noticeable about all this is that the adultery is a result of Pink's self imposed isolation.
The song Empty Spaces deals with his hurt over this and Young Lust is strange act of revenge by thinking he must be with someone else. But even his isolation cannot allow him to feel for this other person which builds into a violent outburst during the song One of my Turns. It is only during the song Don't Leave me Now that he expresses some sort of guilt, but this guilt soon turns to further cement his isolation behind this metaphorical wall. The show then erupts again with Another Brick in the Wall Part 3 in which Water's angrily sings "Don't think I need anyone at all". This is final step towards isolation and alienation. During the course of Goodbye Cruel World, there is only one brick left to place within the Wall which Water's stands behind as he painfully sings this song.






So after a brief intermission, the second half of the show starts with the band and Water's now completely separated by this large wall built across the front of the stage. The songs Hey You and Is There Anybody Out There? play with only the wall being seen by the audience and spotlights shining on them as though Water's is looking for someone to help in a last bit of desperation as he is now fully behind his wall.










During the course of Nobody Home, a small opening in The Wall reveals Water's in a mock hotel room singing about the things he has experienced and his failed attempts to escape his isolation. This then leads to the most emotional tear jerking portion of the show during the songs Vera and Bring the Boys back Home in which Water's again sings of the horrors of war and the effect it had on his life. But he puts a much more universal spin on it this time around and shows how it applies to everyone changed by war, for better or worse.


What was particularly poignant about this sequence in the show were the projections of soldiers fighting in the so called "war on terror' being reunited with their loved ones. And the plea from Water's and the audience to bring all these soldiers back home.




After this portion of the show, the focus then comes back to the central character who now lies in a comatose state after the apparent mental breakdown and building of the wall. The song Comfortably Numb focuses entirely on the attempts to revive the character and keep him "going through the show". Water's is now performing in front of The Wall as he sings the verses to the song and the music builds as the character comes around is about to begin his full descent into psychotic behavior.




It is here now that a "surrogate band' sings The Show Must Go On just before everything erupts into absolute chaos. The character now fully revived but still feeling the effects of the drugs used to bring him from his comatose state have him now hallucinating as a dictator over his audience and exacting his previously mentioned hate filled ideals on the crowd in mock fascist rally which bears striking resemblance to Nazi Germany.






This fascist portion of the show occurs during the songs In the Flesh, Run Like Hell, and Waiting for the Worms. It is during this moment of the show that Water's pulls no punches and goes for the throat. This is the point in which everything that has been building reaches it's climax and the hatred born from fear is let loose on the crowd. Water's very loudly proclaims "if I had my way, I'd have all of you shot". There is no hesitation from Water's as he sings what could be considered some of the most provocative lyrics in rock music.


As these songs reach their end, the fascist hallucination of the character is over and he now asks himself during the song Stop, 'has he been guilty all this time?" This sets up the next song The Trial in which the character puts himself on trial inside his own mind and he plays out the characters of his wife, mother, schoolmaster, prosecutor, judge and himself. Playing the role of the judge in his mind, he declares he must be "exposed before his peers" and the audience following the lead from Water's begins chanting "tear down the wall".


It is here the show culminates with the wall that was built during the course of the show being knocked down which could be best described as like a bomb going off. It was loud and dust and smoke was kicked up everywhere as the wall came down and the audience once again had view of the stage.




After this, the band and Water's stand in front of the stage as they sing the final song Outside the Wall. The fate of the character and what happened after the wall is torn down and is left intentionally unspoken. It is never stated whether his madness completely consumed him and or he recovered from his traumatic life that led to his eventual emotional collapse. But in true Water's fashion, he left some form of hope for the character and the audience with one final image of silhouette of a girl waving her arms.






So why such a long post about this?


Because other than this being the one concert that I always wanted to see, it also the best representation of this little thing we call the human condition. There are lessons to be learned from The Wall about our own humanity. That our own fear will lead to atrocities and that we must not isolate ourselves from each other. That we must genuinely care for each other and not allow ourselves to hide behind our own walls due to whatever fears we may have.