SCREEN
Roger Waters sticks it to the dogs, the pigs and “the man” in new concert movie. By Mark Blake.
It’s Us + Them, says Roger Waters.
Roger Waters ★★★★ Us + Them SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT. DVD CD V ‘‘U
S + THEM is not standard rock’n’roll fare,” cautioned Roger Waters, before his juggernaut tour of the same name lapped the globe throughout 2017 and ’18. “Some in the audience may ‘Yee haaaa!’ But many will weep. That is what I hope for.”
Waters has always been all about the message and the show. His navel-gazing introspection helped shift millions of copies of The Dark Side Of The Moon, but he was also the driver behind Pink Floyd’s The Wall concept and stage production. Wedding a serious message to a bells-and-whistles rock show is not easy.
Nonetheless, Waters achieves this monumentally big ask. First, there’s a lot to shout about at this 2018 date from Amsterdam’s Ziggo Dome: namely, a setlist crammed with Floyd hits and deep cuts, couched in a jaw-dropping $4 million set. You can almost smell the money. But while there’s plenty of “Yee haaaa!” to be had at his rock’n’roll Cirque du Soleil, Waters drives his message home with tireless conviction. Basically, world leaders are pigs and not to be trusted, and you must care for yourselves and your fellow man – even when you’re busy gawping at a peerless CGI recreation of Battersea Power Station.
Songwise, this is Waters sticking his flag in the Floyd back catalogue. He still sings like he’s dispersing rioters through a loud hailer, but, lest anyone forget, Waters wrote most of this stuff, and a judiciously chosen setlist means he gets away with not having Floyd’s David Gilmour around. His interpretation of Wish You Were Here proves the point. He strips away the original’s beauty to show the wounds. It’s harrowing, but great.
Entries from his most recent solo album, 2017’s Is This The Life We Really Want?, slot perfectly next to Welcome
To The Machine, Pigs (Three Different Ones) and Dogs, because they’re cut from the same black cloth. Pigs, originally from Floyd’s brilliant, unlovely Animals, is especially good. Waters spits the words, while screens flash up reams of Donald gibberish and the closing statement,
“Trump Is Een Varken”.
At times, he takes a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but when has he not?
The Final Cut, anyone?
Elsewhere, Waters’ expansive band manoeuvre through the back catalogue, while never forgetting who’s in charge.
The DVD’s bonus feature shows him drilling them like a black T-shirted headmaster. On-stage, he stalks, gurns, scowls, wrings the neck of his bass and mouths the words, even when guitarists/ vocalists Jonathan Wilson and Dave Kilminster are singing them for him. Then, in contrast, he grins proudly as kids and teenagers in orange prison uniforms appear on-stage for a choreographed routine during Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2).
The show closes with a people-pleasing Brain Damage and Eclipse and a Dark SideÉ prism strafed with lasers hovering over the throng. Look closely, and some seem on the verge of tears. Mission accomplished, then.
“Whether this show has any effect on us, I’ve no idea,” Waters wearily suggests at the end. But you suspect he’ll die trying.