Finally, the day is here. The real reason we are in this fair city. Roger Waters. I’m excited, Mardi is not fussed. It’s just another day for her in New York. She’ almost a local.

As the day goes from light to dark, we make our way to Madison Square Garden. The Garden. MSG. It is where all the greats play or want to play. The crowd is thick: black t-shirts, beards, greying hair are the order of the day. It’s 2010, but we’ve all come to see a work that was released some 30 years ago. The music is timeless. The political overtones are timeless. The struggle depicted in the album is anyone’s and everyone’s struggle.

After airport level security checks we make our way to the floor seats I secured. We are about 15 rows from the front, centre stage. Perfect. The crowd is abuzz. I chat to people in front of me about seeing Pink Floyd in the 1980s, we are all showing our age!  After what seems like an eternity, the lights dim. A chorus of the line from the 1960 film Spartacus rotates around the hall using the legendary Pink Floyd quadraphonic mix.

Then the almost imperceptible voice and faint clarinet (playing in B major) starts the show, the last moment of peace for two and half hours!

The sonically beautiful, brutal and cacophonous explosion of military-style precise drums, Hammond organ and guitars invades not only my ears, but also my whole being in the key of E minor. Major keys are often used for buoyant tones, whereas minor keys are used for darker tones. Within 15 seconds we have gone from one to the other. 

I am transfixed, listening to the opening fusillade of In the Flesh. The soaring guitar. The Hammond keyboard chords that float in and out. The powerful drums. Roger Waters’ sarcastic and caustic lead vocals explode, “So ya, thought ya, might like to, go to the show.”

The song ends dramatically, as a spitfire screams across the speakers and above us, to the right. I tap Mardi on the shoulder, I know it’s coming, she doesn’t. The full size spitfire flies along down its cable towards the stage, crashing in a ball of flames and sparks as the song ends.

Mardi’s eyes widen as she watches it. She must be impressed by the theatrics of the show. There is more to come I say to her, keep watch!

in The Flesh, spitfire crashing and fireworks

The next song starts, the familiar crying baby, The Thin Ice eases into my senses with the ghost of Rick Wright’s haunting keyboard playing being respectively reproduced by Waters’ son, Harry. The notes hang in the auditorium before Waters lovingly sings “mother loves her baby”.

It’s all about birth at this stage. Birth, ingeniously woven in with death, death of a father and musicianship that is out of this world.

Song after song, they build and meld into each other as spiraling guitar solos give way to hammering drums, coupled with atmospheric organs and instrumentation that build the dark and scary, semi-autobiographical seminal work that has sold over 70 million copies worldwide. It influenced a generation, with “We don’t need no education” becoming a catch- cry for kids the world over, many of them unaware of its real meaning.

Waters’ strained, British drawl grabs me by the throat and sucks me into his world for the entire show. His world is dark, a burnt-out rock star grappling with love, life and death.

Lyrically and musically, The Wall is a masterpiece. Nothing is out of place, the words complement the music, which complements the sound effects and background tapestry woven neatly into three acts that plays out in front of us. From the spitfire, to the giant puppets depicting his wife, his teacher and his mother, the whole set is astonishing. Gerald Scarfe’s sarcastic cartoons splash across the wall during the second half as Waters interacts with the wall, almost bringing it to life. His hotel room, his bedroom, his emotional trial and eventually the crashing down of the wall.

Afterwards, I sit in my seat, exhausted, mesmerised, yet exhilarated. What a show, what an experience. Mardi is also impressed. We sit and wait for the crowd to depart, on the way out we actually see Gerald Scarfe and people in front of us also see the reality TV star Donald Trump. 

We begin to leave and wind our way out of the Garden and onto the street. We make the ten block walk home, the weather is quite cool, but fine.

I’m absolutely buzzing after the show. I sing lyrics as we walk home, reliving the experience in my head. Imagine if he brought this to Australia?

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