Monday, September 25, 2006  

Roger Waters

Washington Post, Monday, September 25, 2006; Page C03

[DIRECTOR'S CUT]

A lot of visuals during Roger Waters' concert Saturday at Nissan Pavilion would have been perfect accompaniments to an acid trip or a marijuana marathon. Instead, light beer seemed to be the intoxicant of choice among the mostly middle-aged (and beyond) Pink Floyd fans who came to see the 63-year-old Waters run through his former band's hits ("Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)," "Comfortably Numb") and the entirety of the dorm-room favorite Dark Side of the Moon.

The concert brought back the grandiose arena atmospherics of days gone by, and Waters, as usual, did an expert job of pairing evocative images with his music. Grim war scenes and trippy space shots comprised the core of the backdrop, but it was particularly touching to see films and photos of Syd Barrett, the recently deceased leader behind Pink Floyd's first incarnation, during "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" and "Shine On, You Crazy Diamond."

The set included nothing from Waters' solo albums, though it did feature the horrible new song "Leaving Beirut." A rotten blues-based number that was inspired by Waters hitchhiking through Lebanon in 1961 as well as the recent turmoil there, the artless, didactic lyrics attacked war and President Bush in particular. But as underscored moments earlier by the great anti-war songs "The Fletcher Memorial Home" and "Southampton Dock" (both from the severely underrated Pink Floyd album The Final Cut), this new composition wasn't clever in any way.

It was hard to tell if the crowd was booing "Leaving Beirut"'s lame lyrics or the song's tuneless nature, though their wild cheers during "Sheep" for the slogan-laden inflatable pig ("Impeach Bush Now" was scrawled on its fanny) and for the line "Mother, should I trust the government?" in "Mother" seemed to indicate the audience was generally in sync with Waters' political sentiments. Or maybe it was just the light beer talking. --Christopher Porter
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Correction: There was one song from a Waters solo record: "Perfect Sense" from 1992's Amused to Death.

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