Thursday, February 22, 2007

Oh George! Oh George!


Oh George! Oh George!

That Texas education must have ****ed you up when you were very small.

Screamed Roger Waters during the best concert Mumbai has ever witnessed in many years time. Around 40,000 + people turned out for the concert. People of all ages were seen right from the 1950’s to the 1990’s, the show had already started before the band even came on stage. The huge backdrop behind was playing some visual which looked like an advertisement but it was part of the show. Roger Waters and the band came onstage, the crowd went totally berserk .The show started off with “In the flesh” and picked up with Shine on You Crazy Diamond, slowly but surely when they got to the chorus, and then you realize how many people were there 40,000 odd people screaming the chorus overpowering the sound system, in turn which bought a smile on Roger Water’s face. The 1st part of this magical journey started with the song “The Fletcher Memorial Home” from the 1983 album “The Final Cut” which was so visual oriented that it almost looked like a music video on a music channel.



The 2nd highlight and which undoubtedly stole the show was the song “leaving Beirut”. Words cannot express how magical this entire section was. It gave me goose bumps during the show and its giving me goose bumps even now as I’m typing this story. This song is anti-war and the way they portrayed it was another magical moment. They started off this song with solo vocals of one of the backing female vocalist, and then entered the Saxophone player and played some beautiful lines on his instrument. Then Roger Waters steps in and plays (remember no singing only the video with callouts), the way this song was presented was another magical moment of this show. Every line of this song got applause, but the one statement that really brought a smile to my face was this line from the song, Oh George! Oh George! That Texas education must have ****ed you up when you were very small” When the crowd seen and heard this statement, the applauding never stopped from then onwards. In this song every line had a meaning, every sentence made sense and Roger Waters and his set up made it look so dramatic and an experience of a lifetime.
The 3rd highlight of the show was a huge Flying Pink Pig which was inflated and was flying across the grounds during the song Sheep and then let the Pig go into the sky and fly. After the break Roger Waters played songs from the album “Dark side of the moon”. Great Gig in the Sky was done to perfection with some help of the visual in the background. All the clocked started to tick; the crowd roared literally roared cause it was time for another Pink Floyd hit “Time”. Roger Waters played the ticking of the clock of his bass guitar which sounded awesome along with the band. At the end of the 2nd half Roger waters introduced the band and then came the 4th highlight of the day was when Roger Waters introduced his son Harry Waters on Hammond that was another magical moment for Roger Waters himself.

With people screaming “WE WANT MORE , WE WANT MORE”, after 2 minutes Roger Water comes back on stage ask the crowd “Do you guys want more” the crowd responds in chorus “YES”, Roger Water replies “Then why dint you say so” . The encore started off with “The happiest days of our lives” followed by you guessed it “Another brick in the wall II” in which again the crowd overpowered Roger Waters and then the songs everyone was waiting for .As they say SAVE THE BEST FOR LAST , they played Comfortably numb with the crowd laterally going numb. The show ended, the crowd wanted more but the 10:00 pm deadline was nearing so Roger Waters feds farewell to Mumbai. It was a truly magical moment to see Roger Waters LIVE, now I understand the magic when people spoke to me about the Pulse concert of Pink Floyd being out of this world. Hope Roger Waters and Dave Gilmour re-unite again as Pink Floyd and spread even more magic in Delhi next time around.

6 comments:

Anshul Negi said...

Way to go mate!!!!!

Anshul Negi said...

Impeach Bush Indeed!!!

Anonymous said...

Ta-Daa! Well begun! i.e, half done!

So, get on with it, now. And lets see some more pheno-menal stuff then!

Anonymous said...

Do I listen to rock music because I'm miserable or am I miserable because I listen to rock music? ...... i think I'm miserable because I missed this show :(

Anonymous said...

People should read this.

Falguni said...

Amazing!!! Your brilliant writing technique and style has created such a VIVID picture in my mind, which actually made me powerfully imagine myself traveling on those roads of Sonepat, Panipat, Karnal, Kurukshetra, Ambala, Ropad, Kiratpur, Manali . . . A great effort and work, really, and I can imagine how MOTIVATED you must have been to patiently document these wonderful experiences of yours! And of course, some very relevant and superb quotations certainly begin and end this “journey” well! A GREAT PHENOMENON INDEED!!!