Legends At The Garden
By: Kevin Filipski |
Sunday October 15, 2006 |
| Roger Waters and The Who prove that there is still a star shining bright over Madison Square Garden, despite not having their original line-ups. |
| Roger Waters, who hasn't released a new rock album since 1992's Amused to Death (for which he never toured), has become, in his old age, positively chummy.
This is the rock star who was so disgusted with those thousands of fans who worshiped him that he spat on one during a concert, which triggered the Pink Floyd magnum opus The Wall, the last word in rock'n'roll alienation. But nowadays, Waters is quite content to play bass and walk around the front of the stage beaming in front of the crowd as his new band members try and recreate David Gilmour's signature vocals and guitar playing (they only sometimes succeed). At his recent Madison Square Garden performance, Waters played a healthy set of Floyd tunes, from the spacy 1968 "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" to a pair of tracks from his 1983 masterpiece The Final Cut, before giving way to a second set devoted entirely to The Dark Side of the Moon. No matter that Waters barely sings on the record (just the finale, "Brain Damage/Eclipse," although for this concert he also sang "Time"), the fans went crazy for every surround-sound ticking clock and spoken bit of dialogue off the album. But the real focus was on President Bush's disastrous administration, which begged the question: how many Floyd fans realized that Roger Waters is-and always has been-an unrepentant liberal? Not many, judging from post-concert online chatter. Apparently, many lunkheaded "fans" never paid attention to the words to "Us and Them," most of Animals and The Wall, and all of The Final Cut, Radio KAOS and Amused to Death. Waters has spent his career decrying the likes of Reagan, Thatcher and Bushes I and II, but to actually hear him sing "Oh George! That Texas education must have f+cked you up when you were very small" during the new "Leaving Beirut" and see the inflated pig hover overhead bearing messages like "Impeach Bush Now" were too much for these gentle souls. Waters' vicious sense of humor came to the fore following "Leaving Beirut": he played "Sheep," one of his most venomous songs off Animals, and all those who were booing and swearing immediately began cheering. I wonder if Waters thought about that long-ago spitting incident then. The Who is now just Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey,.but that's OK. If Jagger and Richards toured as the Stones, or Waters and Gilmour performed as Pink Floyd with session musicians, no one would mind. Also, the surviving Who members have a crack supporting cast: Pino Palladino is an excellent bassist and Zak Starkey, Ringo Starr's son, is easily the best drummer in his family. For the first of two Madison Square Garden shows, Townshend and Daltrey played a healthy dose of new songs from its upcoming disc Endless Wire, including "Tea and Theater,"a gentle acoustic number that closed the show beautifully. They also trotted out the new 11-minute "mini-opera" Wire and Glass, several snippets of songs joined together like the medley on side two of Abbey Road. The new material got a respectful response, but nothing like the roars and singalongs greeting each Who classic like the opening romp "I Can't Explain," a scintillating "Who Are You," or triumphant versions of "Eminence Front" and "You Better You Bet." Although Daltrey's voice has faded-he can't approach the high notes and screams of "Baba O'Riley" and "Won't Get Fooled Again," but by God he tried-he still has power in his lower range, which is why the new songs stack up so well against the older ones. And Townshend still windmills his arms as if he were 25 years old and on the Tommy tour: indeed, during the mini-set from Tommy that was the first encore, Townshend seemed to be channeling himself from four decades ago, and the result was pure bliss, even for those of us who remember how great this band sounded live in its heyday, before the "farewell" tours became a regular occurrence. |
