Roger Waters Brings His Wall To Europe

Roger Waters has announced a handful of shows in London and Manchester as part of his Wall Live world tour – it will be the first time in 20 years that the Wall has been performed in Europe.

Roger Waters’ The Wall will trek through over 25 European cities in 2011 to mark the 30th anniversary of the album’s release and Roger has hinted that this could mark his final big tour.

"Thirty years ago when I wrote The Wall, I was a frightened young man,” Waters recalls. "In the intervening years it has occurred to me that maybe the story of my fear and loss with its concomitant inevitable residue of ridicule, shame and punishment, provides an allegory for broader concerns: Nationalism, racism, sexism, religion, whatever! All these issues and ‘isms are driven by the same fears that drove my young life.”

The show starts with the wall broken down and throughout the first half bricks are built.  The second half is played with the wall completely built. Roger Waters is developing dynamic new video graphics and visual images to illustrate the story and the songs, using an 8,000 sq ft wall as a huge screen. The show features all the Waters scale grandeur and special effects such as original Gerald Scarfe imagery, crashing aeroplane, quadraphonic sound, pyrotechnics, spot pods, gigantic inflatable puppets, projection, video mapping and many elaborate effects. 

Rogers band on this world tour is: Dave Kilminster (Guitar), Snowy White (Guitar), G. E. Smith (Guitar), Jon Carin (Keyboards), Harry Waters (Keyboards), Graham Broad (Drums), Robbie Wyckoff, Jon Joyce (Backing Vocals), Michael Lennon (Backing Vocals), Mark Lennon (Backing Vocals), Kipp Lennon (Backing Vocals).

To date The Wall has been performed by its creator just 31 times live, including Pink Floyd's 1980-81 tour in support of the album. Roger Waters resurrected the show in July 1990 with one of the largest concerts ever held to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall. That event attracted nearly half a million fans to the Potsdamer Platz while millions more around the world watched the extravaganza on television.

"Projection systems now are completely different from what they were then, which means that I would be able to project over the entire 240-foot expanse of the wall ... which we couldn't do in those days," says Roger.

"When we first did it, we were after the end of the Vietnam War, and we're right now in the middle of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, so there's a very powerful anti-war message in The Wall. There was then and there still is now.

"This new production of The Wall is an attempt to draw some comparisons, to illuminate our current predicament, and is dedicated to all the innocent lost in the intervening years," he adds.

Here are the UK dates for The Wall Live

MAY 2011

Wednesday 11  - The O2 Arena, London
Thursday 12 - The O2 Arena, London
Tuesday 17 - The O2 Arena, London
Friday 20 - Manchester MEN Arena
Saturday 21 - Manchester MEN Arena

Tickets for the shows go on sale on FRIDAY 4 JUNE at 9am