The Darkside Of The Tour

On Monday the 5th I attended the Roger Waters concert where he played live with a band he created. He was brilliant. He opened the night with In The Flesh with a big base sound and a good visual display. He had brilliant lights and the room was full of smoke. This was to show up the lasers and other lights. He had fireworks up the back and several mechines that created a burst of fire on selected beats. It was hot and so cool. The sound rocked through your chest. He played Mother, Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Set the Controls For the Heart of the Sun, Perfect Sense Parts I And II, Have A Cigar and a new song he composed for the tour called Leaving Bearute. This was based on his story of a time when his car broke down and his mate left him and a Lebonese family took him in and let him stay the night. His visual display was this comic strip and when ever Roger sang a speech buble would appear and point to him on the stage. In the second half he played the entire of Darkside of the Moon which was totaly awesome. The band then went off before coming back on again for an encore of Happiest Days of Our Lives, Another Brick In the Wall and Comfortably Numb. One of the best songs of the night was Wish You Were Here. The lead guitarist on the 2nd and 3rd solos used a glass slide on a steel string acoustic guitar which sounded very good. All in all the performance was on of the best and most magical experiences I've ever had and I recomend it to anyone.

He Played A Mean Guitar...

Wish You Were Here was one of the best albums in Pink Floyd history. It was hard to follow up an album like Dark Side Of The Moon but they did it well. Shine On You Crazy Diamond has One of the best intos. It was originally going to be on one whole side of the album but was later split into to parts. It is a long testament to Syd Barret. It starts of with a eerie piano solo with a haunting guitar solo from David Gilmour and escalates into a lyrical section before going into a sax solo by Dick Parry. The song Welcome To The Machine was a big gamble for Roger Waters. It was basically mocking the way we live and the people who couch us in life. It was pulled off well and is a strong out liner to the problems we deal with. The song have a cigar is very much laid back. Like a group of guys looking for fun and they stumble on this weird group. Wish You Were Here is one of my personal favourite songs as it has words and musical arrangements that sound like they are singing from another world. So you think you can tell...heaven from hell. This is a very powerful line for it puts the after life into perception. It gives us hope and helps us come through grief. The album in whole is a powerful but sad reminder of Syd, right down to the cover. The burning man represents Syd for he did light himself on fire once. Syd was always in Rogers mind when he was composing Wish You Were Here.

What's On The Dark Side Of The Moon

Dark Side Of The Moon is without doubt the best album in Pink Floyd History. This has been labeled a classic for all time and has been voted the best album in Australia. It was a album that was created as a concert album intended to be performed on stage. Anyone who has seen them play live is one of the luckiest people alive. The album was always about Syd Barret when Roger Waters started stringing together the lyrics for the songs. The very first song, Speak To Me, is in my view about Syd going mad in his mind. The song Breathe has always been in my mined a way of saying to Syd that you should breathe and not be afraid to care about the public. And also how your life will never be any better to him and how the work goes on. The song On The Run is take into depth the strain of work and travel and time management. The song Time Is of how if you waste your years in your youth, one day you'll wake up thinking that time has moved so quickly and no one told you to do anything in you life. The Song Breathe Reprise, no added on to the end of Time, explains the luxuries and comforts of living. Also the band make a reference to religion with the lines: The tolling of the iron bell calls the faithful to there needs to here the softly spoken magic spells. This maybe suggesting that the band or Roger Waters perticually are not religious. The song Great Gig In The Sky is a magical piece that wisks you away to another world. It has the voice of a women singing a dramatic and dynamic solo that has been created to sound like she was having a orgasim at the time. This piece has remain one of Richard Wright's favourite songs due to, what he says, the very blues type chords. This song was perhaps infulanced by Rick's taste for jazz. The song Money has some very true relizations about the prospect of money. It has a sax solo performed at P.U.L.S.E by Dick Parry and a guitar solo performed by David Gilmour which rivals his solo in Comfortably Numb at P.U.L.S.E. Then Us And Them points out the differences between the lives of one another in sociecty. It shows that in todays society we all live in a world that is verymuch to one group us and them. It is a shame it is this way because without this the world would be a better place. The song any colour you like is a demostration of Pink Floyds amazing abillity for arranging instrumental pieces. The song Brain Damage is very much about Syd and him going crazy. The song Eclipse sums up everything about what we do and that we are fine until we are driven mad with what we do. The Dark Side Of The Moon is basically a message that the dark side of the moon is the streek of madness inside all of us. The classic line at the end: There's no darkside of the moon really; as a matter of fact its all dark, means that we are all mad and we are living in a mad world.

The Wall; The Message Behind It

No one really knows just how much you can get out of listening to Pink Floyd. The musical arrangements are fantastic and the words are symbolic. They explain the way our lives change. You just have to look at the album The Wall. It is the story of a rock star who is in a Los Angeli's hotel room somewhere who is watching a movie which is reminding him about his past life. It starts with In the Flesh which shows how his father died in WWII. Then it goes on to Thin Ice which shows the damage of war. Happiest Days Of Our Lives and Another Brick In the Wall are about how his teachers make him feel small. This contributes to the building of a metal barrier around his mind to protect him from the out side world, alienating him self from society. This is the beginning of the building of the wall. Then his mother adds even more blocks to the wall as she tries to protect him from the out side. Goodbye Blue Sky is were he remembers the war and the woes of it. He is building even more of the wall in empty spaces before he tries his luck with love. This goes wrong and he trashes the hotel he stays in and then asks why she is running away in Don't Leave Me Now. Then he builds more bricks in Another Brick In the Wall Part III by rejecting help. Then he says goodbye to the would in Goodbye Cruel World and retreats behind the wall he has built around him self. Everyone out side is asking for him in Hey You and he is asking is there anybody out there. He then remembers his marriage in Nobody's Home. Then He remembers himself as a boy looking for Vera. The the world is asking for the men to be withdrawn from the fight in Bring The Boys Back Home. Then in Comfortably Numb he becomes intoxicated from his memories and isn't well. In In the Flesh Part II Roger Waters sends us a message through out the rest of the movie. That if we were all behind out walls, alienated behind society then we would be like this. A mob of politics. Then he has a trial with in himself and decides to tear down the wall. The last song is a home hitting message that everyone you love is on the other side of the wall. "After all it's not easy banging your heart against some mad buggers wall." This is a album that certainly makes you think and shows us that we should not alienate ourselves from the rest of humanity.