The one concert that destroyed Roger Waters: “An absolute nightmare”
Not every rockstar is cut out for life on the road. There’s a reason why even The Beatles had had enough of the touring life by the mid-1960s, and the idea of having to imitate perfection in the studio in front of screaming fans night after night was bound to wear on someone. Although Roger Waters created The Wall as a perfect commentary on what the live experience can be if taken to the nth degree, he admitted that he was almost knocked out trying to put together a recreation of it in Berlin.
But if Waters was truly going to pull this off, it would have to be done correctly. He was only a few years removed from his departure from Pink Floyd, and while he still owned the rights to his conceptual masterpiece, how would he be able to construct the same gargantuan setup during a landmark piece of history?
As the Berlin Wall was being torn down, Waters had already begun erecting his own in celebration’ almost as a symbolic representation of how the country is breaking down its division. Despite remaining faithful to the original stage show that Pink Floyd had used, there were still a few more surprises. Since the debut performances featured a surrogate act playing ‘In the Flesh’, getting German rockers Scorpions to play the first track was a badass choice.
In fact, the entire cast was absolutely star-studded, consisting of everyone from Van Morrison to Cyndi Lauper to Sinead O’Connor. Beyond just the musicians, the idea to have Tim Curry playing the judge in the finale song, ‘The Trial’, is among one of the most inspired choices ever conceived. He was already playing that over-the-top character his entire life, and seeing that animated presence helping tear down the wall was like the cherry on top of the evening.
That didn’t mean that it went off with no problems. During one of the main performances, technical problems led to Waters taking the stage to fix everything, even going so far as doing a light softshoe dance for the audience before everything was back up and running again.
Despite being immensely proud of putting together the show, Waters didn’t mince words about how frightening it was to make such a grand statement within inches of patrolling German soldiers, saying, “It completely destroyed me. They came and asked me to do it in October. We went on July 21st I think it was. And the intervening months were an absolute nightmare. It wasn’t just getting the permission. I mean, when we first started talking about it there were still guys wandering around with machine guns, killing anybody who walked out into that piece of land.”
It also didn’t help that Waters didn’t get along with everyone on the crew. While being a fan of O’Connor’s voice, he would go on to say that she was an absolute chore to work with and had no intention of making any recreation of it with her present ever again.
Even with all the hangups, it’s hard not to be proud of such a colossal event being made in celebration of years of division finally ending. And since David Gilmour was steering Pink Floyd through arenas around the world, this was the moment when Waters went from a modest solo act to a superstar all on his own.
