A few weeks ago, former Pink Floyd vocalist/bassist Roger Waters announced he was touring behind his former band's 1979 blockbuster album The Wall [Columbia] as a statement on modern-day human interaction and personal alienation. (He also stands to make an impressive amount of loot from this endeavor.) We've already seen the ads for the tour on VH1 Classic, so obviously preparations are in full-swing.
Having first heard The Wall during our impressionable teenage years, we found it to be a masterpiece; more so than the legendary Dark Side of the Moon [Harvest-1973]. And the film version [1982, dir. by Alan Parker] was an eye-opener, mostly because it was an album come to life, as opposed to The Wall being mere soundtrack music. We were floored by it and--in a total state of sobriety, mind you--saw it repeatedly on the big screen.
Many years later, we enjoy the album somewhat but feel our initial assertion vis-a-vis Dark Side of the Moon was spectacularly wrong,
to say the least: the dour heavy handedness of The Wall--which was even more prevalent on Waters' subsequent albums--has not aged very well; Dark Side of the Moon remains timeless. (As for the movie, we still feel it is The Wall come to life on the screen but are much less forgiving in our appraisal of it as we were then.)
Hmm...Waters' motives for hauling out the big, white styrofoam bricks one last time may be quite pretentious but he certainly doesn't need the money. (Not like that's stopped anyone before.) And in his recent statements regarding this new go-round, he makes some interesting points, albeit non-original ones, about humans interacting and communicating and technology's role in that deal. Maybe the idea is to look at the concept behind The Wall with a fresh perspective. Unfortunately, the blunt and sometimes clumsy manner in which Waters chose to make his points on this famous album--particularly towards the end of it--doesn't help matters much.
Regardless, the most regrettable thing, in so far as the message is concerned, is that these shows will draw an older crowd and this generation of texters and tweeters will probably not get to experience The Wall in this manner and draw their own conclusions, as it relates to their own forms of technology-based interaction or otherwise. Too bad.
