Roger Waters: THE WALL - post-show

Wow.  It's less than a day after "The Wall" hit the L.A. Coliseum, and I still feel a bit residually on edge...I spent so much time and energy preparing for this gig that it's a little hard to let go of all of it.  More than that, though, is the feeling of great satisfaction I got last night, because I shot the hell out of that show and am very pleased with the results, especially considering the restrictions we had.  "The Wall" is truly an epic show, and I wish that I could have shot more of it, but I'm happy with what came out of it.  Here's the rundown:

I showed up at 6:00 PM so that I could beat the traffic-from-Hell that I knew would be swarming the Coliseum...which I fortunately did.  After settling in and getting all my gear together, I went over to the Media Check-In tent, looking like this:

I actually was the second one there--I was beaten out by my friend Paul Hebert.  As you can see, I brought three camera bodies and four lenses...the most I've ever had hanging off of me for one gig.  Yes, I came prepared.  After waiting for than two hours--the publicist's claims that the show would start at 8:00 sharp being bogus--we were led out through the tunnels and all the way down the Coliseum steps to the photo pit in front of The Wall.

The show started with a bang at about 8:30 with "In The Flesh?", where Roger came out and flashed his dictatorial side in black leather and his trademark mirror shades.  Very Nuremburg-esque, which of course was the point of that particular song.  Once the song ended, following the crashing of the Stuka into the back of the Wall set, we photographers were ushered over to the side of the stage for "The Thin Ice", "Another Brick...Part 1" and "The Happiest Days Of Our Lives".  I was frantically trying to change lenses on my D700 & put on my 200-400mm howitzer, and almost freaking out about how I was going to miss a shot.  Well, it turns out that I needn't have worried...because Roger's microphone quit on him at the beginning of "The Thin Ice".  He was so pissed that he stopped the entire show and made the crew fix the problem, so I had a couple of extra minutes to fix everything, which I did.  It was so funny...it was totally reminiscent of what happened at Roger's 1989 Potzdammerplatz show in Berlin in 1989 after the Berlin Wall fell.  He said in no uncertain terms, "I want you guys to fix this, and we're gonna start again, because I wanna sing 'The Thin Ice!'", to a huge roar of approval from the massive audience. 

Something struck me at that point--the audience.  The people were naturally far removed from the stage, and I remembered that one of the conditions that gave birth to "The Wall" in the first place was the sense of isolation from the audience that Pink Floyd was experiencing during their stadium shows in the 1970s.  And here we were again, doing another stadium show, separated from the audience.  I was wondering if Roger appreciated and understood that fact, and how he apparently was able to reconcile that within himself.  Or, was it a case of "To hell with it, a stadium's the only venue that will hold this show"?

Anyway, the song was re-started, and off we were again.  The big problem for us photographers was the main stage--it was perched very high up and unless Roger came right to the front of it, you weren't gonna be able to shoot him properly without being cut off by the stage.  Fortunately, my 200-400 meant that I could back up a little bit and get a decent angle on Roger.  Some of my colleagues had brought stools or ladders, and to my surprise, they set up a system where they rotated us on and off of their ladders.  I was personally very grateful for this, as it allowed me to get some very good shots of Roger that I knew no-one else was gonna be able to get, since no-one else brought a lens of that size along.

Before too long the fourth song had ended, and we were shepherded back into the front for "Another Brick...Part 2", which of course featured the famous Schoolmaster marionette:

This was pretty much the highlight of the show for us shutterbugs, so all of us naturally concentrated hard on this song.  The chorus was sung by a large group of local L.A. schoolchildren, who staged a "confrontation" with the Schoolmaster.  It was all great for me, visually...unfortunately I can't show all of those great images here.  You can, however, find them in my Getty gallery here:

http://www.gettyimages.com/Search/Search.aspx?EventId=131686371&EditorialProduct=Entertainment

Roger had one more surprise for us...instead of going straight into "Mother", he threw in a new version of "Another Brick...", which could almost be called Part 2.5.  It featured new lyrics that illustrated the disillusionment and devastation that spring from the isolation caused by a Wall.  It meant that we couldn't shoot "Mother", but having previously seen the extremely sparse visuals of that song on YouTube, I wasn't all that disappointed.  Then the song ended, and we were all herded out of the pit and back up that enormous flight of stadium stairs to the place where we came from.  Some of the photographers decided to stay and see the show--they had tickets--but since I didn't and since I of course had to file the images for Getty, I got out of there quickly and went home.  I finally finished editing and transmitting the pics at about 1:00 AM or so...a lot of work, but a job well done.

So, that's that.  I leave "The Wall" behind, and get ready to shoot a video for Deadmau5 tonight somewhere in the Valley.  No rest for the wicked...