The Roger Waters Quandary or, Will The Last One Leaving Battersea Please Turn Out The Lights?
Today your regular bloggers have been replaced by Ben, Chris, Nick, and Jason of Death Cab For Cutie. The band's new album Narrow Stairs is out now. DCFC are not professional bloggers, so please send them tips.
By Ben Gibbard
It's come to my attention that there are some people who were genuinely upset at my comments concerning Roger Waters in a recent magazine interview. Hey, I get it! Who am I to slag a rock legend? I guess all I can say is sometimes I get talking and joking and forget there's a dictaphone recording my every word. If this is the worst thing I get caught saying I'll consider myself lucky.
Please let the record show that I am a huge, HUGE Pink Floyd fan. I own every album, have found them vastly inspiring and think the world is a far better place with them in it (even The Final Cut). Thus, I'd like to retract the following statement:
"Roger Waters doing Dark Side Of The Moon would be like Ringo performing Sgt. Pepper's."
And substitute the following:
"Roger Waters doing Dark Side Of The Moon is like Roger Waters doing Dark Side Of The Moon."
Do with that what you will.
//
By Chris Walla
Two weeks ago in London, DCfC played a radio session for XFM, the biggest commercial rock radio station in those parts. The entry to their office on Leicester Square, near all the theatres, sits crammed between a pasty shop and a cheap, tourist trap of a luggage outlet, right on the square. It's a beautiful façade even so, and it's very English.
Jason McGerr and I got in a little bit early, and were corralled in a waiting room on the mezzanine floor while someone from the station was sent to retrieve us. The building houses a few other radio stations whose banners and flyers are displayed around the lobby. I'm hopelessly fidgety and restless before these radio things we do, and I started fishing through the brochures in a little rack on the end table, the kind of Plexiglas thing you might find magazines in at the doctor's office.
One brochure there particularly caught my eye: A totally familiar, wordless photo of a spotted cow on a pastoral English farm. The cow photograph is the cover of Atom Heart Mother, the fourth (or fifth, depending on whether you count Ummagumma, which I usually don't) record by Pink Floyd, and it was on a brochure because Last FM, the classical station in the building, is sponsoring a performance of Atom Heart Mother complete on June 14 at Cadogan Hall in London.
Contrary to current popular belief, I am a Pink Floyd fanatic (as are my bandmates). As big a fanatic as they come. And this performance is remarkable because it's being conducted by the co-composer and arranger of Atom Heart Mother, a fellow named Ron Geesin.
Geesin is one of those Pink Floyd bit-players who deserves his due. Like Roy Harper (most notably for his vocals on "Have A Cigar"), Alan Parsons (producer of Dark Side Of The Moon) and a small handful of others, he was distinctly responsible for a specific left turn in the band's trajectory; in his case, it was the introduction of the proper orchestra into the Pink Floyd canon. The 23-minute title track "Atom Heart Mother" is grand beyond its years; more British than anything this side of beans and eggs, and the first clear, indicative glimpse of where the band would go through the next three albums (Meddle, Obscured By Clouds, and Dark Side Of The Moon). He also made a record with Roger Waters around that same time, the soundtrack to a film called The Body: Though peppered with songs, it's mostly spacey, stringy, scratchy soundscapes with the occasional cough thrown in for literal illustration.
Ron Geesin is absolutely best known for his Pink Floyd association. And if I were in his shoes I'd be staging a 38th anniversary re-imagining of Atom Heart Mother too: It's pretty fantastic shit, and he was a keystone in its creation and production. Then again, I'm a total devotee to all things Pink Floyd, and it's that same devotion that leads me to be so suspicious of the Roger Waters rendering of Dark Side Of The Moon. Granted, my bandmate Ben may have been unduly curt in his assessment of the Waters performance of Dark Side as "like Ringo performing Sgt. Pepper's," but I stand by the sentiment (and also that my favorite parts of that record are Dave Gilmour's, because, well, that's actually true: Those are my favorite parts).
One has to look no further than Waters' solo outings, or possibly even Floyd's The Final Cut, to recognize why a Waters solo performance of Dark Side Of The Moon is a dubious proposition. I actually really like some of his solo stuff, in all honesty: Radio KAOS especially, though marred by marginal production calls (like so much of the 1980s), really hits it in a few spots -- but that's just the problem, it's only great in a few spots. Waters' heavy-handed, hyper-literal social commentary is tiring in large doses. Similarly, the Gilmour driven Floyd of the 80s and 90s is alternately sugary and muscular, but rarely pointed or clearheaded. The Waters-less Pink Floyd's live recording of Dark Side Of The Moon, on 1995's Pulse double CD, sorely misses Waters' acid in the last few songs. It's not that one is better or worse than the other: It's that neither one is right.
In the original lineup, Richard Wright provides elegant counterpoint to Waters' seething wit, and gravity to Gilmour's sweetness. And Nick Mason is, well, Nick Mason: He buys English racing cars, and he simply holds it all down behind the skins. And those things are critical too.
My point, I suppose, is that a band is a band. Not a remarkable statement, as such. But it's worth noting that none of these four guys ever did anything as solid, individually, as they did under the name Pink Floyd from 1968 - 1980. Nothing even close. And where Ron Geesin's upcoming London performance of Atom Heart Mother seems a part-owner's sweet, nostalgic homage, Roger Waters' endless recycling of the Pink Floyd catalog strikes me as falsely taking credit for every good idea the Pink Floyd ever had, whether or not he means it that way.
Certainly he's no charlatan; the genesis of Dark Side as a concept was his, after all. He wrote a good chunk of the thing, and he should rightly remind us of that. But even when the full band reunited in 2005 for the Live8 show, Waters pushed on history more than seemed appropriate, by taking lead vocals throughout the set in places he'd never sung on the records: He croaked a full, jarring third of "Wish You Were Here," for example. That's a huge drag. It's one of the most tuneful songs in the whole catalog, and though Waters is brilliant and has many positive attributes, "sweet tunefulness" is not among them. I'd bet a full pound Sterling it wasn't Gilmour's idea to give those verses away, and I'd bet another it's the reason he's the lone holdout on a full-scale reunion.
And still, I adore Pink Floyd. I never saw them and I never will, and that's fine; theirs is the rare case where recordings may be enough. As documents, the records from Atom Heart Mother to The Wall inclusive defy all critical gravity in my world. Which is why I feel so strongly: If I am the pig, and any group lesser than David Gilmour, Nick Mason, Roger Waters, and Richard Wright shows up to play the music to which I am the mascot, I'll fly away too.
Posted at 10:41 AM in Death Cab Guest Blog, Video, Where's The Beef?
Tags: Ben Gibbard | Chris Walla | Death Cab For Cutie | Pink Floyd | Roger Waters
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I hate retracted comments. And I'm pretty sure anyone who disagreed with the Waters/Starr comment in the first place is an idiot. I think it's a ridiculous idea. Maybe James Iha could tour Siamese Dream or Danny Lohner could take The Downward Spiral on the road.
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Oh, and by the way, I am a fucking idiot.
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Having now seen Waters "old man (the verb)" that song, I only appreciate Gilmour's work as a vocalist even more, which I didn't think possible, to be honest. Thanks for that.
Besides that, I really enjoyed the insight!
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I hate to tell everyone but Roger Waters is the only member from Pink Floyd credited in every song on Dark Side of the Moon. I rather see him touring as Roger Waters, than how Gilmour was touring as Pink Floyd. I had the chance to see Roger Waters on this tour and it was absolutely amazing. Yes, I would love to see Pink Floyd as much as the next person, but to deny a key member of the group to play music he wrote is ridiculous.
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What Chris wrote might be one of the most thoughtful and eloquent things I've ever seen anyone write about the whole Gilmour/Waters/Floyd situation. Especially the comment about Waters seeming to take credit for every good idea Floyd ever had. Even if it is inadvertent, he comes off like that.
I appreciate that after the Gilmour-led Floyd rightfully decided to pack it in, he stayed off the road for a decade and when he came back he played relatively small venues and had the first set be his entire new album. While many people would probably have preferred to see Gilmour do 2 sets of Floyd classics and 3 new songs, I appreciate the fact that he didn't want to go out there as a nostalgia show, which Waters seems to relish.
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Nathan, do you know that Gilmour toured in '84 for About Face, just one year after The Final Cut and the true Floyd break up? The VHS promo tape for that record described him as "ex-Pink Floyd guitarist." That record (which is good, as is his first solo) did nothing, and BOOM Pink Floyd was back in a flash, with 27 songwriters replacing Waters.
As the pseudo-Floyd juggernaut played his songs to stadiums, Roger toured and did his entire Pros and Cons album, along with Floyd stuff. The next tour, he did likewise with his entire RADIOS KAOS album. The IN THE FLESH tour contained an hour of Waters' solo stuff. I saw all of these tours, and will always see the next, because Roger Waters live is astonishing.
And then Waters wrote an opera.
Now he does a tour with an impeccable performance of probably the most enduring LP in rock history, and a batch of the other timeless Floyd classics that he wrote, leaving little room for more than a few of his solo recordings...
And this makes him content to be a nostalgia act?
I love David Gilmour, but he did FIVE shows in the U.S. on his last tour (fewer than Roger did in So Cal alone), and then he went back to his island, content to not even bring the music to his fans anymore.
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Settle down Stephen. If you think Waters doing Dark Side is similar to James Iha doing Siamese Dream, then maybe you're an idiot.
Separate thought: Animals is underrated.
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I think the reason the comment likening Ringo to Waters was received like it was was because a) there's a knee jerk reaction to comparing a genius to Ringo Starr and b) DSoTM was about 70+% Waters' songwriting...Sgt Peppers was about 0% Ringo's.
That said, I completely get what Gibbard meant in his comment. When it comes down to it, both men were only a piece of the whole, and without the other three members, neither man should attempt their respective band's masterwork. I doubt Ben thinks Waters doing DSoTM would be as poor as Ringo doing Sgt. Peppers, but rather that it makes just as much sense in the end.
Also, Chris...no love for "Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking"? That album made me respect Eric Clapton.
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Maybe so, but give credit where credit is due - Ringo was a solid drummer.
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Also, Thomas the Tank Engine is tight.
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Did everyone forget that Gilmour did a Dark Side of the Moon Tour as well?? By the way everyone knows Billy Corgan wrote and played most of guitars on Siamese Dream.
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Ben, you were right on, don't ever back down.
I saw Elvis Costello open for The Police over the weekend and where both acts are Dad Rock, EC was awesome as usual, mixing songs from his great new album with classics that got the over 50 crowd off their feet. The Police are a nostalgia act (as is Waters), putting on the same set they had 25 years ago. With the high expectations I had from my youth, I was disappointed, similarly to how I felt after the Roger Waters concert I saw last year.
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Ben, there is no need to retract your comments. What you said was correct.
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"But it's worth noting that none of these four guys ever did anything as solid, individually, as they did under the name Pink Floyd from 1968 - 1980."
See also: Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, VU.
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In disagreement, see also: John Lennon's "Plastic Ono Band," George Harrison's "All Things Must Pass," John Cale's "Paris 1919" & "Fear," Lou Reed's "New York," and Nico's "Chelsea Girls" & "The Marble Index," all post-group classics.
But I wholeheartedly agree on the post-Zep output.
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I love Pink Floyd too....hell, I even have those boxer shorts! :P
But Waters shouldn't be credited for it all.
All I can say is, True dat, Ben! :)
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Which one is pink?
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ok...I know musiscians pick up influences unconsciencly, but I have to say as soon as I heard 'I Will Possess Your Heart's long intro it immediately reminded me of early Floyd. any way I missed you guys at Coachella, hopefully I'll catch you on somewhere on tour.
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Roger Waters doing Dark Side of the Moon is like Paul McCartney doing Sgt Peppers
now it makes more sense
By the way I saw you guys and Roger Waters that weekend. You rocked the house but Roger Waters tore that shit down. It was fucking amazing.
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wouldn't you miss me at all?
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MMM aside, everything Lou Reed has done has been excellent. Yes, even "The Original Rapper".
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Some of these people are so close-minded that they can't just accept a difference in opinion and leave it at that. The debates are interesting, but I can literally imagine some blood pressures rising just by reading the comments. It's pretty funny, I wonder if anyone else catches the humor in that?
Death Cab has definitely been the biggest musical influence in my life. I get what they're saying in a way that Pink Floyd or the Beatles or whoever has effected other people's lives... and you don't hear me talking shit about how wrong anyone else is that doesn't agree with me, it just baffles me that they don't know how to communicate like civilized human beings. Listen to what other people say and you might learn something.
Guys- can't wait to see you again next month! Loves it.
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Your retraction is even worst, you have to recognize that the real fan of Pink Floyd and history will remember the dark side of the moon as a Roger Waters piece.
The correct statement that you should say:
"David Gilmour doing Dark Side Of The Moon would be like Ringo performing Sgt. Pepper's."
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Ben Gibbard is a future rock legend.
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Nathan, do you know that Gilmour toured in '84 for About Face, just one year after The Final Cut and the true Floyd break up? The VHS promo tape for that record described him as "ex-Pink Floyd guitarist." That record (which is good, as is his first solo) did nothing, and BOOM Pink Floyd was back in a flash, with 27 songwriters replacing Waters.
As the pseudo-Floyd juggernaut played his songs to stadiums, Roger toured and did his entire Pros and Cons album, along with Floyd stuff. The next tour, he did likewise with his entire RADIOS KAOS album. The IN THE FLESH tour contained an hour of Waters' solo stuff. I saw all of these tours, and will always see the next, because Roger Waters live is astonishing.
And then Waters wrote an opera.
Now he does a tour with an impeccable performance of probably the most enduring LP in rock history, and a batch of the other timeless Floyd classics that he wrote, leaving little room for more than a few of his solo recordings...
And this makes him content to be a nostalgia act?
I love David Gilmour, but he did FIVE shows in the U.S. on his last tour (fewer than Roger did in So Cal alone), and then he went back to his island, content not even to bring the music to his fans anymore.
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More proof that Ben Gibbard and Chris Walla just don't get it.
"Better to keep your mouth closed and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt" --Anonymous
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Last year, I had the priviledge of seeing a concert - live- from both the Roger Waters tour and the David Gilmour tour. Both were simply awesome in their own way- among the best concerts I have ever experienced. As a huge Pink Floyd fan, I believe that a big part of their success stems from the fact that David Gilmore and Richard Wright are very orchestral in concept but in a bluesy way & Gilmore's brilliant guitar work in contrast to other lead guitarists is exceptionally expressive and riveting. Roger Waters, on the other hand, is very Operatic & was the mastermind behind their concept albums such as The Wall, Animals, & Wish You Were Here. When together as a group, Pink Floyd almost singlehandedly defined true classic rock, by combining majestic orchestral rock approaches with visual and operatic showmanship. Very few other groups have even come close to achieving the same levels!
For me, the best Pink Floyd album is the Gilmore/Wright/Mason tour album from the early 90's "Pulse". Although missing Roger Waters, the others have improved the classic hits such as Comfortably Numb, Run Like Hell etc. For the Floyd concert experience, I highly recommend the DVD version of Pulse.
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If you took Gilmour out of the equation, they just would've found a different guitarist to replace Syd Barrett.
But without Waters, Pink Floyd would not be what it is today.
Those were all Waters' songs, concepts and albums. Gilmour, Wright and Mason are just session musicians. End of story.
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A correction would've been enough, but a retraction shows class IMO. I feel the musician that writes the actual composition (and lyrics to some extent) plays the most important role in the process. Yes, David added brilliant lead guitars to Roger's compositions, but they were Roger's to begin with. He has as much right to perform them as the owners of the Pink Floyd brand name.
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Just saw roger perform the dark side a couple weeks back; one of the best shows i have ever witnessed. It only seems fair to critize rogers performance of the dark side of the moon if you actually see it. And i dont think Walla or Gibbard would have any problems getting tickets. Gilmore toured for years as pink floyd and i dont hold that against him. Sure, I think Gilmore is the best musician in the band and absolutely amazing. But roger did a spot on job, along with his hired excellent musicians, performing the dark side of the moon and it deserves to be seen and heard before it is lambasted.
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Roger Waters calls himself "the creative genius of Pink Floyd" and Gilmour calls himself "the voice and music of Pink Floyd", and you know what? They are both right! They never would have reached any of their numerous peaks had they been with anybody else. It is Waters' arrogance and dismissive attitude towards any one else's contribution that has kept one of the greatest bands apart for so long, and it is Gilmour's (understandable) scar tissue from his battles with Waters that will ensure they never get together.
The most telling however, is that neither one of them has done jackshit solowise that would end the debate on who is responsible for PK's enduring success. And they never will. One's albums are heartbreakingly deep buth with no melody, and the other's are soaringly melodic but boring. Gilmour was more than just a replacement guitar player, he added the musical touch that made Waters vision so timeless.
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bl bla bla bla ....
i made the band's best album (piper) and inspired their 2nd (3rd&4th prolly) 2 best albums, as well... also barrett and mad cap laughs are a trillion times at least better than final cit or division bell...... but keep bitching i guess....
all ya'll (death cab for snootie included) WILL ALWAYS MISS the ultimate point.
what was it again
acid rulez!!!!1!!!!
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I agree with Kevin T's comments. However, the fact that Gilmore has continued to write and tour with Richard Wright & Nick Mason has given him superior post-Floyd results. As I mentioned earlier, I would argue that the "Pulse" live album especially in the DVD version is the best Pink Floyd recording ever. It takes their classic Wall & Dark Side hits and significally improves them musically. For example, it has an extended version of Gilmore's signature Comfortably Numb lead solo's - arguably the top lead guitar solo in rock - and propels it to another stratosphere! Also, the newer Gilmore/Wright tunes such as Sorrow, Speak to Me, High Hopes etc. show a quality that I don't hear in the solo Waters songs such as "Perfect Sense."
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Let's be real here: If you take Waters, Gilmour, or Wright out of the equation, you have no Dark Side of the Moon. End of story. All three were INTEGRAL parts of that album--and it pisses me off to see people compare Waters to Starr AND to see Gilmour, Wright and Mason derided as "Session muscians." Yeah, session musicians that carried a still-musically inexperienced Waters's ASS.
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At the end of the day, Pink Floyd will hold many more memories than a certain cute band.
Speaking of Pink Floyd memories, read some below:
http://www.jamsbio.com/index.php?page=explore&view=artistResults&tag=Pink+Floyd&layout=grid
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At the end of the day, Pink Floyd will hold many more memories than a certain cute band.
Speaking of Pink Floyd memories, read some below:
http://www.jamsbio.com/index.php?page=explore&view=artistResults&tag=Pink+Floyd&layout=grid
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I don't think it's fair to dismiss anybody in Floyd from the creation of Dark Side, either, but at the same time Roger Waters has more of right to perform it as his own than the rest of Floyd. As for the people who say that Gilmour, Wright and Mason "carried Waters's inexperienced ass" or what have you.. have you ever listened to Roger Waters's basslines on Dark Side? Like REALLY listened to them? They're beautiful and intricate, just like the guitar/keys/drums. Just because Waters wasn't as skilled musically as the rest of the band (which may be true), Waters's forte lay in how effective what he played was, not how complicated or technical. But anyone who has seen the Dark Side documentary knows that Waters is responsible for coming up with the music to Time, Money, Brain Damage and Eclipse (a.k.a. the bulk of the album), as well as all of the lyrics. Without a doubt, Waters played the most important role in Dark Side. Period.
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QUOTE: "Gilmour, Wright and Mason are just session musicians."
Posted by. El Syd
What is stated above is OBVIOUSLY not written by a true Pink Floyd fan. Dismissing the others sagnificant input like that says a lot, and to me proves that it's just a goofball with his head up Roger's ass. No offence, but by seriously saying something like that it tells a lot about what type of Pink Floyd "fan" you are.
Roger is known to take credit for a lot he doesn't deserve that a bit credit on in therms of writing music in Pink Floyd. Producer Bob Ezrin, the late Michael Kamen and the rest of Pink Floyd as well as James Guthrie who has worked with the band numerous times on studio albums and live recordings are credible sources compared to one man who I'd say.
I've seen numerous times Pink Floyd both with and without Roger, as well as most of David and Roger's solo tours, and I've been impressed and enjoyed every second of every gig I'v seen that is Floyd or Floyd related sine 1980. Roger wouldn't be more than a writer or mediocre artist if it wasn't for Rick and especially David's sagnificant input and songwriting in therms of music from 1969 and onwards, as well as the shaping of the songs and the atmosphere. Also worth mentioning is that none of them, INCLUDING the so called "creative genuous of Pink Floyd", Roger Waters, would never enjoy the luxury and wealth they are doing now if it wasn't for Roger "Syd" Keith Barret who started it all back in 1965.
As mentioned I've seen many concerts Floyd related, including 'The Wall' in 1980, 'A Momentary Lapse Of Reason' Tour in 1988, and 'Division Bell' Tour in 1994 by Pink Floyd, as well as Roger's 'Pros & Cons Of Hitch Hiking', 'Radio KAOS' and the brilliant 'In The Flesh' shows by Roger. David's 'About Face' and 'On An Island' Tours, and I've walked away stunned and impressed by every one of the Pink Floyd/Solo shows I've seen by them.
Sadly Roger's "Dark Side Of The Moon" tour was not up there with his previous tours. Roger was heavily relying on vocal assistance and backing tracks on several of the songs he was supposed to sing. The 'Dark Side Of The Moon' portion of the concert was more like a great cover band performing it apart from when Roger did some singing. I walked away a little dissapointed to be honest but glad that others found it entertaining and enjoyed it.
Farfisa
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No one has mentioned the biggest problem with Roger Waters touring these days -- he lipsynchs -- ALOT. He lipsynchs Have a Cigar, half of Shine On, part of Time, and multiple other tracks. As the YouTube of him hacking out WYWH shows, his voice can't cut it anymore. A shame, but no excuse to cheat the fans with fakery.
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Waters was hands down the best show I've ever seen at Coachella, and I've been going since 2001. I was shocked at how an old man did what he did musically, theatrically and visually.
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