Roger Waters Kansas CIty
May 26 2017 – Oh how to start this journey?
After seeing The Wall Live tour 10 times in 4 different countries how long will this ride be for us? The Wall tour created amazing memories which included the opening night of the tour, the premiere of the movie at the Toronto International Film Festival and the world’s first review of The Wall concert movie, and of course being there the night that David Gilmour stood on the wall in London’s O2 arena for Comfortably Numb. Needless to say we are huge Roger Waters fans. How much? Enough for three of us to fly into Kansas City from Toronto to catch the first night of the US + THEM tour. We bought VIP packages in order to get to the first row and were situated directly in front of guitarist David Kilminster for the night! Oh ya and by the way, that ticket did cost $1000 of our Canadian bucks but as mentioned before, we REALLY like Roger.
The show begins at exactly 8:15 PM with the band walking on stage while a huge single screen that covers the length of the stage shows asteroid fragments floating in space. The familiar music of Speak to Me leads into Breathe. All 10 musicians on stage are wearing black with Waters right in the middle all focused on his bass. What was interesting at this point is that instead of the familiar On The Run leading into Time, Waters chose One Of These Days as the bridge to Time. Jon Carin dazzles on One Of These Days with pure wizardry on the keyboards. {Edit. Well who better to correct a wrong fact in the original review other than Mr. Carin hiself – he let us know the following “I play the lead guitar on that (One of These Days), which is actually a Lap Steel guitar, and it does sound a bit like a synth at times.”}
As the video played the familiar clock face flying in space the alarms started to go off which of course leads to Time and the built-in Breathe (Reprise). The musicians did an amazing job reproducing the Pink Floyd staple.
The voyage into side 1 of The Dark Side of the Moon of course ends with the female orgasmic shrieking of The Great Gig in the Sky. Waters steps off stage to let his backup vocalists take their turn on the spotlight. While not the most accurate reproduction of the vocals we have seen the ladies from Lucius did a killer job and clearly have powerful voices.
Waters moves on to Welcome To The Machine and the screen keeps delivering the Floydian visuals but in a very minimal manner. At this point it hit me – this was not the epic multimedia mindfuck that The Wall Live was and the music was taking a more prominent role on this tour. The visual assault has been toned down from its hyperactive levels to just a huge screen with animations fading in with the musicians on occasion.
The next four songs are all from Waters soon to be released album Is This The Life We Really Want? When We Were Young /Deja Vu lets Waters state “If I had Been God” while strumming on a guitar, this angry ballad is Waters at his best, the bile in the singing contrasting the beautiful music. The Last Refugee is the third one up and continues the commentary on modern life. This one is accompanied with the video of the song recently released on May 18th and can be seen here. A beautiful song that is based on the last day of a major world war when the last refugee ever lands safely. Finally up is Picture That in which Waters paces the stage during this hypnotic song telling us various things we should picture in our mind and ends with him on electric guitar to close out the song.
While the casual fan may have found four new songs in a row tedious, this segment was a key highlight of the show as we were able to absorb Waters’ commentary on life and delivery of unreleased material. Floyd’s biggest sing along came next and really got the crowd on its feet for Wish You Were Here with a stadium full of lighters cell phone lights. The love for the classics was a clear indication of why most in the audience were here for.
Pink Floyd’s most popular song kicked in shortly with The Happiest Days of Our Lives leading off Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2) and directly into Another Brick In The Wall Part (3). A group of inner city children were on stage again (as they were for The Wall Live tour but no giant teacher puppets this time) for the kids chorus wearing jump suits which eventually came off to show off T-shirts with the word “RESIST” on them. Standard Pink Floyd classic delivery to close off the set.
We see what you did here Roger – pack in the hits at the beginning and the end which is what people remember most and take the middle slot as the opportunity to roll out the new material. An intermission broke up the show as the audience flocked the merchandise stands and snack (i.e. beer) counters.
What transpired in the next 27 minutes was the clear highlight for us as Waters took a visit to the Animals album which was released 40 years ago this year. The video screen transforms the stage to Battersea Power Station (ironically now the home of Apple in the UK and a host of high-end shops and residences) and two new massive screens come down the length of the floors complete with smoke stacks above. Pink Floyd’s most angry album with full attacks on corporate greed and the elite power brokers was well represented first with Dogs which featured Dave Kilminster giving us goosebumps on the guitar solos. The backup singers even had drumsticks to play some drums with during the primal solos which can only be described as euphoric. Highlight of the concert so far. During the instrumental interlude on Dogs a bunch of band members including Kilminster, and Waters himself gather around a table on the side of the stage wearing animal face Halloween masks (including sheep, dogs and pigs – get it?) and start drinking some champagne (similar to the card game stunt used on In The Flesh tour).
Animals could have been written just this year and when Waters sang “Big man, pig man, ha ha, charade you are” on Pigs (Three Different Ones) there was no doubt at all who he was referring to. This is where shit got heavy and Waters takes the gloves off. Trump’s face was all over the screens in the most insulting ways possible – in diapers, his head on a pig’s body, as a baby being held up by Putin, and even naked complete with a microscopic penis. Donald J’s mug was also plastered on the brand new flying pig with dollar signs covering his eyes and a cartoon bubble coming out of his mouth with the caption “I Won”. The song climaxes with blistering guitar building up the momentum with some of Trump’s quotes on the screen including some pathetic examples of humanity such as “You know, it really doesn’t matter what the media write as long as you’ve got a young, and beautiful, piece of ass.” The final quote was a fabulously simple “TRUMP ERES UN PENDEJO” (Trump you are an asshole) which concludes the song.
Animals could have been written just this year and when Waters sang “Big man, pig man, ha ha, charade you are” on Pigs (Three Different Ones) there was no doubt at all who he was referring to. This is where shit got heavy and Waters takes the gloves off. Trump’s face was all over the screens in the most insulting ways possible – in diapers, his head on a pig’s body, as a baby being held up by Putin, and even naked complete with a microscopic penis. Donald J’s mug was also plastered on the brand new flying pig with dollar signs covering his eyes and a cartoon bubble coming out of his mouth with the caption “I Won”. The song climaxes with blistering guitar building up the momentum with some of Trump’s quotes on the screen including some pathetic examples of humanity such as “You know, it really doesn’t matter what the media write as long as you’ve got a young, and beautiful, piece of ass.” The final quote was a fabulously simple “TRUMP ERES UN PENDEJO” (Trump you are an asshole) which concludes the song. If you watch just one of our videos from the night, please watch the one right below.
Wow that was intense and awesome, and surely Waters knew that the audience would react differently in different parts of the world. There is no doubt that in Toronto the above segment would be very well received with thunderous cheers, but in Missouri where Trump easily won the election, the crowd response surprised us. Everyone around us was cheering and clapping in support and the song got the loudest ovation of the night. Rock and Roll baby!
Time to start giving the fans what they want, and of course that is a big hit, Waters played Money (standard fare) which also featured quite a few Trump images but nothing venomous or disrespectful. So much has been written about how much Trump bashing there is on this tour, but we feel the exact opposite, there was not enough. Don’t believe the newspaper reviews that will be the exact same in every city such as this one the mainstream media are out to sell their stories, and sensationalism will get them that. That pig man charade needs to be called out even more and we love Waters for having the balls to stand up to a bully.
Next up was the beautiful Us and Them including the awesome sax solo in the song. The video screen projects familiar footage as the original film from the 70’s is shown. Large applause erupts when a sign on the video is shown that reads “Love is love, Black lives matter, Climate change = real, Immigrants = awesome“. Us and Them is my personal favorite song on my number 1 album of all time and its contrast of subdued and gentle music with its urgently strong political lyrics is a masterpiece of the classic rock era.
Similar to the first set, Waters sneaks in a new song. Smell The Roses (which starts a lot like Have a Cigar), is the hardest sounding song of all the new material. Finishing off the Dark Side of the Moon theme, the second set ends with Brain Damage and Eclipse. A laser pyramid surrounds the whole venue. Incorporating the most sensational use of lighting we have ever seen. With a rainbow of colours erupting through the apex, we are treated to a mega sized reproduction of the iconic album cover we all love so dearly.
The encore consisted of three staples from The Wall namely Vera, Bring the Boys Back Home and the obvious show closer Comfortably Numb. Vera and Bring The Boys Back home were presented bare bones – with Waters on acoustic guitar and his backup singers, culminating with the ladies pleading a final rousing chant of “Bring the Boys Back Home”. “Sing it with us, please, now” pleads Waters as a large metallic sphere floats around the top of their heads (from up close see its not suspended but actually a drone).
Of course Comfortably Numb was delivered with its full emotional charge as Waters paces the stage singing his part of the song and Kilminster nailing yet a couple of more solos. Waters also walks off the stage and shakes hands with everyone in the front row! We got a firm handshake from our musical hero and the night could not be ending better. Confetti (pink slips of paper with the word RESIST! on them) rains from above. The video presents the tour’s main image (two hands reaching for each other) moving towards its final resting place of two hands connected in the way Waters wants the world we live in to actually be. Hate to use such a cliche but that was truly epic!!!! Thank you Mr Waters.
Thanks to Terry Makedon for sending in his review.
Capacity 19,000+
Roger Waters last played this venue on 30 Oct 2010
Sprint Center is a large, multi-use indoor arena in downtown Kansas City, Missouri. The building is located at 14th Street and Grand Boulevard, on the east side of the Power & Light District. The arena’s naming rights partner is the telecommunications company Sprint, whose headquarters is in nearby Overland Park, Kansas.
Sprint Center opened to the public on October 10, 2007, and a concert by Elton John three days later was the first event held at the arena.The arena seats more than 19,000 people and has 72 suites. Sprint Center has effectively replaced Kemper Arena, which was built in 1974, just a few miles away in the southern portion of the West Bottoms.
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