Concert Reviews, Photos, Videos and Rock and Roll Stories from fans who love live music

So Ya, Thought Ya, Might Like To, Go To The Show….

This would be considered a “SPOILER” if you plan on seeing the presentation of THE WALL  featuring Roger Waters. This Tour will be remembered for sure. The few photos and videos I took from the 2nd row and what I am about to summarize  will for sure remove the surprise element from the experience for anyone who hasn’t see Pink Floyd or any of previous Roger Waters’ Tours.

……I saw the Radio Kaos Tour when Roger Waters stopped into Hamilton, Ontario around 1987 and both Pink Floyd tours after around the same time Delicate Sound, Momentary Lapse, Division Bell era.  Music aside the creativity that went into those tours set a new bar for me as a teenager early in my concert career. Now almost 23 years later the anticipation of seeing THE WALL in it’s original format was building by the minute.

When we first walked onto the floor and saw the Wall going up each side of the hockey rink the size of this show started to sink in…. heck if I hadn’t seen KISS just 6 nights ago it might have seemed even Bigger!.. But this still had a stadium feel at first glance.

“In The Flesh” – This was probably one of the best opening songs I have seen at a live concert. It was full steam ahead from the men on the bridge with flags, the fireworks, seeing Roger in his hoodie, lights swirling and that buzz under the hood of we’re seeing THE WALL !!!

… and of course the famous… “so ya thought ya might like to so to the show…” was truly electric and almost overwhelming. The lighting stretched back to the far end of the arena with additional speaker arrangements…above,  not sure if it was quadraphonic or just for effects… as we were too close to the stage to hear….but as the helicopter sound kicked in this lighting unit above the main stage appeared to have a small speaker stack on it as well and it moved forward with the spot light shooting into the crowd as if to be the light on the front of the helicopter, the sound moved with it…really wicked…

Some 25 lucky kids from The Regent Park School of Music ended up on stage to help sing over the track for Another Brick plus got to point at the floating 40 foot teacher. The overall sound was really good for a 1st show and most of the other musicians including Roger’s son on Keyboards were hard to see or get into with this large production unfolding…. except a little at the end of Run Like Hell as the band were in front of the wall closer to us.

I actually heard “Mother”start with Roger on acoustic and have the video it but I will spare you listening to the faint 1st verse that seemed to fall down with technical difficulties… the song never really got back on track for me.  The Wall of course was being built brick by brick as Side 1 Played out and the barrier starts to fill in… to the point yes where you could barely see the band.

After the intermission HEY YOU starts and the entire song almost is play behind the Wall…it’s cool and as the light shines thru the cracks and you hear the band playing it really shows what Roger was thinking about years ago of feeling that distance from some of the audience…those who were not engaged with him as he performed . Speaking of di-engaged…The guy beside me after introducing himself 4 times and asking about doing ACID kept praying for David Gilmour to walk out and join in. I didn’t feel that was going to happen. I didn’t feel it needed too….The Gilmour stand in did fine at most points and this was not Pink Floyd we were seeing… it is and was billed as “The Wall Live…featuring Roger Waters”

The imagery on the circle screen in the back dipped into parts from the Wall movie and the overall scenes on the 200+ foot WALL itself were quite thought provoking weaving in some of todays political issues and visuals from past Tours I had scene…all very cool to watch in a synchronized kinda way

“One Of My Turns” turned out beautiful as you can see below in the video and “Run Like Hell” with the flying pig got the crowd up, dancing and celebrating it seemed… ..as security  told the front row to move back… and we all started to chant along with “THE TRIAL”... “bring down the wall, bring down the wall..” the WALL did come down..crashing faux bricks.

No encore, just The Wall and alot of entertainment to go along with an amazing album… I will leave the comments open here for others who visit the shows as the tour unfolds.  ROGER WATERS SETLIST AND MORE PHOTOS BELOW…

One_of_My_Turns

RUN LIKE HELL

MORE PHOTOS OF THE SHOW !!

ROGER WATERS – THE WALL LIVE – TORONTO SETLIST

Roger Waters |Set List for THE WALL in Toronto | ACC

Are you going to see Roger Waters this Tour to witness The Wall? If so do not miss this video ! It explains the album in today’s context!

Spiritual Machines – album presentation

Fifth time is a charm! I have caught OLP 4 times prior to last night including a small acoustic set at a local radio station. With the exception of the acoustic set I have been less than impressed with their live sound. Last night was much, much different!

I have good rock & roll luck and as it would have it last night I ran into a guy selling a front row centre pair way below cost, nice! It was meant to be as I had tried earlier to get into the Mod Club for the Sirius Radio Song writers show featuring Joel Plaskett, Jeff Martin, Default and The Trews. When this wasn’t working out I went over to Massey for the OLP’s presentation of Spiritual Machines.

Man I forgot how good this album is. OLP’s concept album has some really nice stuff here. From the start Right Behind You sounds so good! It isn’t hard to tell the band doesn’t play many nights that feature albums in their entirety. Raine Maida has the MAC set up to play the narrative of author of the book the album is based on as well as a binder with the lyrics. We’re lined up in front of Steve Mazur and his wonderful sounding Marshall stack and full array of effects pedals, I am seriously impressed.

We get Life, Middle of Yesterday the lead vocals are soaring the crowd is heavily into it. This is one of the loudest crowds I have ever heard at a Massey Hall. It makes sense because this is a homecoming for this band. I really forgot how beautiful the guitar work is on this album. Basically we get the entire album song by song and it is really nice. I mean pull it out and play it through a few times again. I know you will say yeah!! Exactly!! The entire presentation worked well. I wanted to bolt home and pull out the Cd’s and it made me wish I been here the night before for Clumsy. There is still a chance they are playing Clumsy in Kitchener next week Friday. This album finishes with 3 very strong tunes, All My Friends, If You Believe and The Wonderful Future the best of the 3 is The Wonderful Future which Raine starts out saying they recorded this song never intending to play it live. The Wonderful Future has a hidden portion. The song lists at 20 minutes but fades out @ four minutes then is silent for 12 minutes before it coming back in with a conversation between the book author and someone else. (for obvious reasons the break was condensed down) I am not up on the whole thing enough to know who he is conversing with but I am up enough to know this was a great first set for this band and the entire album run through was perfect!!  In between sets I managed to snag a guitar pick.

The second set started out with Maida telling everyone that the band looked at the first set as work and now it is time to have some fun!! The second set consisted of a 13 songs. Starting out with Monkey Brains from Burn, Burn which had several tunes show up in this second set and then ran into Superman’s Dead, Innocent, Clumsy and One Man Army back to back to back!  The sing along with Innocent was pretty amazing with crowd basically singing the whole tune. Raine climbed the balcony at one point I think during One Man Army. I mean this whole chuck was worth the price of the ticket any day! A couple more from Burn and then we get a stellar Somewhere Out There! Then the unmistakable bass line to Naveed, Nice! This song finishes the set and the encore is not to be missed 4AM straight into Starseed!

Anyone worth their own weight in OLP appreciation was hooked back in 1994 by the Naveed album.
Overall I though Mazur’s guitar / guitar effects and Maida’s voice were in the best form possible. To be fair to the first shows I wasn’t in the front row and only one of these featured Mazur. The band was extremely appreciative of the crowd response and referred to this as a homecoming quite a number of times and as you could imagine this sent the crowd over the top every time. I managed to get a setlist from both sets. I stayed with this band until 1999 and Happiness and my interest beyond this period was somewhat sporadic and tied to radio hits but man I am glad I did this show!! It is nice to go back and listen to some of the stuff that came out I never paid much attention too.

Here is to new ground.

The Professional

The stage set up in the Sean O’Sullivan Theater at at Brock University on Friday night was evidence that there wasn’t going to be a rock show. On the stage were 2 microphone stands, 5 guitars and a keyboard.  When he was introduced the tall, lanky Plaskett appeared as though someone had told him ten minutes ago that he was performing tonight.  Loose sheets of paper in hand, he bumped his head on the microphone when he put them down, he looked, well, confused. None of this seemed to faze the crowd as there were numerous “I LOVE YOU JOEL” greetings before he had struck his first note.

As a prelude to Absentminded Melody he finger-picked and sang a brief, off-the-cuff salute to St. Catharines citing The Hideaway and The Mansion House.  After his first number he confessed to being up late the night before in Brooklyn, “You can probably tell by my voice, and the fact that I haven’t shaven.”  As he said this he broke a string trying to tune his guitar.  A collective sigh and chuckle.  You would assume that most Polaris Music Prize winning artists would have a stage hand run out and hand him a new guitar.  No suck luck.  “Anyone know how to put on a G-String?”  Eventually an audience member volunteered and strung it, sitting on the piano bench, taking as long as it took Joel to sing the second song.  “I should be able to tune this thing and tell you a story at the same time, I am a professional after all.”

What followed were 2 sets of songs from his latest, 3-disc record called 3, along with some old favorites, rare gems and yes, occasional lapses in professionalism.  Despite these the crowd, seemingly very familiar with his body of work, appreciated every moment and laughed with Joel as he laughed at himself.   A few songs in he announced that he was going to play a song on his keyboard, but rather than sitting down at the one set up he picked up what looked to be no more than a small toy keyboard held together by duct tape, a Value Village find no less.  On this he would eventually play very fun renditions of Television Set and Fashionable People, the last two songs you’d expect to hear during an acoustic set.  In addition that little toy accompanied him on Rewind, Rewind, Rewind, one of the shows highlights.

Taking a song that in the studio received much production treatment with numerous instruments and backing vocals and presenting it so stripped down live is the mark of a good performer, but moreover it reveals how good of a songwriter Plaskett is.  His songs seem to work no matter how they are played.  Once people began shouting out requests I was reminded of a Neil Young show 2 years ago when a pre-recorded announcement sternly told fans not to shout out requests because the set list was pre-determined.  Joel seemed flattered by the requests.  Even taken aback when one fan called for The News of Your Son.

“We don’t play that one often” Joel chuckled.  “

“I KNOW, I’VE SEEN YOU SEVEN TIMES AND I’VE NEVER HEARD IT!” the fan replied.   He played it of course, as far as I could tell he didn’t have a set list written out.   He seemed even more flattered at the request of a Thrush Hermit song.  “St. Catharines was always good to the Hermit” he grinned.

Peter Elkas of the Emergency eventually joined Joel onstage and backed him with vocals, guitar, and keys. The two finished off the first set on high note with hand-clapping favorites Happen Now and Rollin, Rollin, Rollin.

The second set had its share of high points and humorous moments.  Joel introduced Nowhere With You as one of his greatest hits and it didn’t disappoint.  He told stories, often in the middle of songs.

“That was the first verse, I think it went well.  Here comes the second, I hope you enjoy it.”

This one also introduced as a “new song” called “Old Friends”…

He spoke of his education in the week past and coming.  While in New York he took in a Broadway play starring Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig called A Steady Rain.  He saw one of heroes Nick Cave perform, and next week he and Peter were off to Philadelphia to see Bruce Springsteen.  Elkas performed his own new single, the catchy Poor Young Things.  “When I sit down to write a song I always try to sound like Bruce Springsteen but it turns out sounding like Bob Seger’ Peter lamented.

Always personable with the audience, Joel and Peter were able to find the humor in the mishaps that occurred throughout the night.   Plaskett closed the show by dropping to his knees and feigning injury or exhaustion, either saluting James Brown or making fun of himself.  On cue, Peter brought out a cape and draped it over the star of the show, something he had foreshadowed in the opening number.  After retreating to the back of the stage he all of a sudden returned, triumphantly to finish the song.  In the midst of his charge back to the microphone he inadvertently unplugged his guitar and as he began to sing again there was no accompaniment.  Laughter ensued, most enthusiastically from the two performers.  Undeterred, they tried the entire scene again.  This time Plaskett’s cape knocked over the beautiful Gibson guitar Peter had been playing all night, sending it tumbling. That’s how it ended.  A great show that fell short on professionalism but no one in attendance seemed to mind.  It goes to show you, all the slick stage preparation and execution in the world are no substitute for talent and charm and Joel Plaskett has an abundance of both.

Another brief moment from Deny, Deny, Deny

The setlist, in no particular order, as far as I can remember:

The News Of Your Son

When I Have My Vision

Work Out Fine

The Day You Walked Away

Absentminded Melody

Television Set

Happen Now

Rewind, Rewind, Rewind

I Love This Town

Fashionable People

Penny For Your Thoughts

Face Of The Earth

You Let Me Down

Through & Through & Through

Safe In Your Arms

Sailors Eyes

Rewind, Rewind, Rewind

Precious, Precious, Precious

Deny, Deny, Deny

Rollin, Rollin, Rollin

Nowhere With You