Collectorz.com Connect Blog

Although I’m not a huge fan Pink Floyd is one of those legendary bands from the past you have to see at least once in your life when you’re way in your 30s. The original band fell apart years ago and will probably never see the light again due to personal differences although time seems to heal all the wounds. But former band member and one of the driving forces Roger Waters keeps the music of Pink Floyd alive. And he was visiting the Netherlands for one of the few 2008 European concerts playing the Dark Side Of The Moon album which happens to be one of my Pink Floyd favourites.

Roger Waters at Megaland Landgraaf, 11 May 2008

And I was expecting some multi-media spectacle in the old Pink Floyd style. Unfortunately the concert location was Landgraaf which lies all the way in the deep south of the Netherlands, a 3 hour train ride from Amsterdam. So I spent this lovely sunny afternoon in a train. The Landgraaf location is also used for several festivals including the famous Pinkpop festival. This means everything is well arranged so in no time after arriving at the concert area we were sipping a cold beer in the grass waiting for the band to start playing listening to some yankee-doodle-violin-twiddle music. C’m on, we’re not that old! Although I think I was one of the younger people since most of the crowd seemed to be close to retirement.

The stage was showing a huge screen in the back and two smaller screens to the side of the stage. A small pyramid was hanging above the stage representing the album cover’s prism. I found it a bit out of style since it looked like someone had tied a couple of tubular lights together with some tape while the rest of the stage looked very impressive. The big screen was showing an old 50s style transistor radio. Just before the band started playing a hand on the screen started to turn the dial. It changed to a couple of stations playing old songs. At that point Mr Waters and Co. showed up on the stage.

They started playing their first set which was a best-of selection of Pink Floyd songs and some Roger Waters solo songs. The screen showed some beautiful imagery successfully supporting the songs. Images of far away galaxies, stars and planets and old pictures of the old Pink Floyd band members including genious Syd Barrett. Songs like ‘Comfortably Numb’, ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’ and ‘Whish you were here’ to name but a few are all part of the set. At the beginning fireworks are spitting big waves of sparkling fire. All of a sudden I hear a loud noise coming from the back like a plane flying by. It turns out it is the sound of ocean waves from the speakers behind us. It must be the quadrophonic sound system I read about.

During one of the songs a huge inflatable astronaut is shortly floating across the stage. And of course during the song ‘Sheep’ a couple of guys from the crew lead a huge inflatable pig through the crowd before releasing it. Imagine the face of a pilot when he flies a 747 into that one! Written across the pig are all kinds of political statements including the name ‘Obama’ on its belly. Some other songs are supported by political statements on the screen as well. The most beautiful visual is the clip supporting Waters’ song ‘Leaving Beirut’ which features him as a comic character and the lyrics of the song written in the speech bubbles. Very effective and nicely displaying the touching story.

After a while Waters announces a short break before they will start playing ‘Dark Side of the Moon’. A big full moon is showing on the screen while the sun is setting in Landgraaf and a small half moon is showing in the sky. About 10/15 minutes later they return to the stage and start playing the songs of the famous album. Very nice to hear them live.

The sound is well balanced and pretty good. Especially compared to the concerts in huge halls or stadiums. The lights and clips work very well. Roger Waters’ voice is suprisingly clear but this may be due to the fact that according to rumours part of the lead vocals may have been pre-recorded. The drawback of these high-tech concerts with all kinds of visual effects is that there’s little room for improvisation and spontaneity. The band looks a bit static and bored and stick to every note of the original songs. Although ‘Great Gig In The Sky’ was performed beautifully and gave me instant goose bumps. So the audiovisual effects are the actual firework elements of this impressive concert. Sometimes even literally.