Will Roger Waters ever shut up?

  • Talking Radioheads

  • Hahaha - ironically given Radiohead got their name from a Talking Heads song.

    I didn't know that actually. I really need to listen to more of both these bands. Although I had the funny experience today of being at a kiddy carnival where my two year old was jumping around in a bouncy castle to some upbeat dance track, and then inexplicably a really dirgey Radiohead or Thom Yorke solo song came on with ominous atonal chords and doomy lyrics 😆.


    Tangentially related to Roger Waters, I keep seeing reviews of a tour Nick Mason is doing called Saucerful of Secrets, focusing only on pre-DSOTM pink Floyd. They get really stellar reviews and I am bummed I didn't see them in Boston. They play Atom Heart, Echoes and lots of other cool early Floyd songs. Hope they come by again.

  • He might be shutting up soon, as he is being investigated for wearing an SS uniform at his recent Berlin gig (an offence there) and a UK venue is now seeking to ban him due to the aforementioned.......

    Ian


    Putting the old-fashioned Staffordshire plate in the dishwasher!

  • He might be shutting up soon, as he is being investigated for wearing an SS uniform at his recent Berlin gig (an offence there) and a UK venue is now seeking to ban him due to the aforementioned.......

    Alternatively it might give him a new thing to not shut up about.


    What an idiot. Wtf did he think would happen?

    Abandon all reason

  • I know, these are powerful images for wealthy English rock stars to waft about without necessarily understanding the profound feelings they evoke. No problem with being a bit edgy and challenging power and corruption but this seems well beyond that

  • I didn't know that actually. I really need to listen to more of both these bands. Although I had the funny experience today of being at a kiddy carnival where my two year old was jumping around in a bouncy castle to some upbeat dance track, and then inexplicably a really dirgey Radiohead or Thom Yorke solo song came on with ominous atonal chords and doomy lyrics 😆.


    Tangentially related to Roger Waters, I keep seeing reviews of a tour Nick Mason is doing called Saucerful of Secrets, focusing only on pre-DSOTM pink Floyd. They get really stellar reviews and I am bummed I didn't see them in Boston. They play Atom Heart, Echoes and lots of other cool early Floyd songs. Hope they come by again.

    I'm seeing them in August.


    Waters claims the 'costume' he has been wearing is in the character of Pink from The Wall.

  • I'm seeing them in August.


    Waters claims the 'costume' he has been wearing is in the character of Pink from The Wall.

    The mason show is supposed to be great, I'm glad you're seeing them. I feel terrible about missing out. Waters... Is a <expletives even I can't spew here> of the lowest order. Bitter old man with very limited musical ability, some good lyrics who had the extraordinary good fortune of crossing paths in his lifetime with a true original in Syd Barrett and a true musical legend in David Gilmour. He wants desperately that he'd be a legend without Gilmour but it's entirely the opposite.

  • I'm seeing them in August.


    Waters claims the 'costume' he has been wearing is in the character of Pink from The Wall.

    Oh right, yes while I'm not very familiar with The Wall or PF generally I saw the film once and remember that character going fascist. Waters should still know better than to do that in Germany.


    I've heard good things about that Mason show, enjoy.

    Abandon all reason

  • I'm seeing them in August.


    Waters claims the 'costume' he has been wearing is in the character of Pink from The Wall.


    Oh right, yes while I'm not very familiar with The Wall or PF generally I saw the film once and remember that character going fascist. Waters should still know better than to do that in Germany.


    I've heard good things about that Mason show, enjoy.

    I saw NMs band last year they were great.


    Also RW has certainly been wearing that costume ( a little toned down this year , and he didn't wear it in Birmingham the other night) , for over 40 years, I saw the original Wall show at Earls court in 1980 and it's part of Pink's story where he goes mad and In The Flesh (2) Run Like Hell is an anti fascist rant. He wore it in Berlin at the actual Berlin Wall just after in came down in a massive performance of the Wall in 1990 internationally broadcasted and nobody minded then. It was totally appropriate and understood to be a.protest against totalitarianism and how easily ordinary people can sucked in to violent ideaology.. The Wall has much to do with how societies churn out thoughtless racist people

    . By the way it's not SS but can easily be compared to any of well know fascist/communist military leader uniforms. ( Germany does allow wearing of actual SS uniforms for artistic or educational purposes) I think the only reason people are raging against him now is because of his more recent support for the Palestinians and his publisising of war crimes by the Israeli state.


    I saw him the other night will be putting something up about it here. It was a great show.

    .

  • I saw the Roger Waters show last Wednesday in Birmingham U.K. My fifth time of seeing him. Wonderful show. Yes a lot of politics but we know that's part of it. He has deeply felt emotions and rails against the injustice of innocent people being killed. He had U.S. air force footage in his show showing U.S planes killing journalists and civilians, footage.leaked by Chelsea Manning who was imprisoned and no one was punished for the actual crime. Well known fact. RW rants about horrific injustices throughout the world perpetrated by the rich and powerful and I just don't see what's wrong with that. Ann Frank , George Floyd and Blair Peach get mentions amongst many others. He called out U.S. president's as war criminals He highlighted children being killed in wars and made it personal by showing photographs of many of them. If you struggle with protest music then RW is certainly one to avoid but I don't get why he gets singled out other than the obvious fact that its the very rich and powerful he goes for. I've never heard any anti Semitic language language from him, he supports the Palestinians, a people with no rights , no country and occupied by Israel and his show mentions them here and there as well as others including indigenous Americans, whilst the rest focus's horrifics of war throughout the years. RW has been horribly smeared.


    The BBC reported


    Israel's foreign ministry later criticised the musician on social media.


    "Good morning to everyone but Roger Waters who spent the evening in Berlin (Yes Berlin) desecrating the memory of Anne Frank and the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust," it tweeted.

    This is a horrible slur. Anti semitism is real and horrible but unfortunately it seems that there there are people who will use the use words anti semetic to attack those that oppose certain political actions.


    In a tweet on Friday, Waters wrote: "The elements of my performance that have been questioned are quite clearly a statement in opposition to fascism, injustice, and bigotry in all its forms... The depiction of an unhinged fascist demagogue has been a feature of my shows since Pink Floyd's The Wall in 1980.".


    I understand that people don't want to see impassioned pleas for world peace with continual examples of war crimes for a night out which is fine , but I love the music and I found it deeply moving and somewhat inspiring. He has been dressing in psuedo fascist clothes for ITF and RLH since The Wall 1980 , I saw him do it. It's Pink having gone mad. He has the psuedo fascist insignia of Hammers designed by Gerald Scarfe to signify fascists wanting to hammer and kill those they dislike , and I guess it's designed to parody the swastika although the clothing is not dissimilar to many totalitarian military uniforms. It's It's all there To say that he is talentless is nonsense. He's been behind some the greatest music of all time. I'm not keen on the TFC but for me Amused To Death is a masterpiece. I find the rift with David Gilmour awful and RW certainly seemed out of order with attitude to PF when they carried on without him.I didn't like it but it's not my business I'm just glad PF carried on because I love them too and if pushed actually prefer thier post split stuff to his. Actually I don't know what to believe about who said what anyway.

    Sometimes I think people forget that from DSOTM and on Pink Floyd have always been a political band.


    As for the show. It was spectacular but still pared down from previous shows. Roger looked visibly shaken by the onslaught he has suffered , I must admit I didn't know much about it until I saw I the show, where a fair bit of hatred towards him was talked out and shown on the screens.. There were a lot of "Fuck You's" as RW replyed to the attacks on him, I looked up the press attacks on him afterwards . He spent a lot time talking to the audience, which he hasn't done before. For the first I've seen him (including The Wall 1980) he didn't don his black trench coat for RLH. It opened with low key Comfortably Numb, which is now not so much about the numbness of an individual but the numbness of society in general where we look at mobile phones and ignore the injustices around us with on screen proclamations about if you ignore the problems you're part of it. The show contained more Rogers Waters own stuff than past shows. He spoke a lot and was highly appreciate of everyone coming . We had side 2 of DSOTM a fair bit of the Wall with huge sound of course but at other times it was more reminiscent of Tom Waits than Pink Floyd. He had a small bar set where he did a new song "The Bar", which was just him and a piano, and a new version of "Outside The Wall" Since I have seen this very moving two hour show, exposing the horrors of violence upon the weak and the ordinary by nation states around the world , I have actually seen RW being accused of being a fascist himself! That's plain sick, but people believe it. By the way he's also been accused of lip syncing. I really didn't want to go to a show where that was going to happen and may not have bought tickets if I'd heard those accusations beforehand There were of course taped effects but he certainly did not lip sync. I will certainly see this passionate, angry, bitter and somewhat shaken old man again if ever I have the chance .

  • It might be worth mentioning that here in Germany there's a strong fraction of journalists who regard any criticism at whatever the state of Israel does as antisemitic no matter what. Plus, in context of the Nazi past of our country, calling somebody an antisemite or a racist is enough for most people to instinctively avoid that person without digging deeper for backgrounds. As a German, you just don't want to be associated with any Nazi. Questioning accusations will inevitably be a minefield you don't want to enter.

  • Thanks to both The Farmer and Schrottrocker for their very considered and informed thoughts. I suspect I had fallen into the trap of thinking he had introduced more nazi type imagery into this show but it sounds as if he is making his point in the same way he has done for years. I have seen him live and thought his moral compass was generally sound so I am happy to believe this is still the case. I’ve not bothered with this tour partly because it would be hard to top the last one but I did feel bombarded on the night with names and images and didn’t always feel I had the time to digest them and therefore to know what my position was. The rift with Mr and Mrs Gilmour is clearly bitter and it’s impossible to know all the roots of it. I hope he continues to speak out but I also think that he needs to continue to find ways of explaining his beliefs in detail, which would make it harder (not impossible) for him to be misrepresented.

    Edited once, last by Thelawnmower: Minor typo correction ().

  • It might be worth mentioning that here in Germany there's a strong fraction of journalists who regard any criticism at whatever the state of Israel does as antisemitic no matter what. Plus, in context of the Nazi past of our country, calling somebody an antisemite or a racist is enough for most people to instinctively avoid that person without digging deeper for backgrounds. As a German, you just don't want to be associated with any Nazi. Questioning accusations will inevitably be a minefield you don't want to enter.

    Thanks for that . That's understandable , there"s a fine line between criticism of Israel and anti semitism anywhere , Clearly the attacks on him have had the desired effect. They have diverted away from the injustices he is trying so hard to highlight and they have clearly upset and shaken him greatly.

  • As a matter of interest I looked the 1990 show preformed at the Berlin wall on You Tube. ( I do remember watching it on TV) . His costume for In The Flesh and Run Like Hell was.much more outlandish than anything else I've ever seen him wear. He didn't have an armband but the Hammer insignia was plastered all over place on a massive set. As I said previously no one seemed bothered then, it was accepted for what it was.

  • He might be shutting up soon, as he is being investigated for wearing an SS uniform at his recent Berlin gig (an offence there) and a UK venue is now seeking to ban him due to the aforementioned.......

    The UK MP Christian Wakeford who wants Waters banned is spouting a load of ill-informed lies. It was not an SS uniform, it was a leather coat with the crossed hammers on the sleeves. He has been wearing that coat for decades and it is not an SS soldier coat. In fact, the so-called SS or swastika armband referred to is in fact a pair of crossed red and black claw hammers on a white background, designed by Gerald Scarfe in 1979. The hammer logo is based on a fictitious neo-nazi organisation as depicted in the film of The Wall (1982) based on the album of the same name. The portrayal of a fictional extremist group in the film is to show nazism negatively. I won't bore people with the finer details of The Wall, but it is not racist, antisemitic etc. piece of work as some are making out.


    Mr Wakeford also said he flew the pig at the same Berlin gig with Star of David on it, that is also a lie. That pig last flew in 2013 and as well as the SofD on it it also had lots of other religious symbols on it. Waters apologised for that but it was too late. His opposition to the treatment of Palestinians by Israel has meant he has been labelled antisemitic. True, Waters has not helped himself with some fairly inflammatory rhetoric but the label of antisemite does not stick. Its interesting that Peter Gabriel, Brian Eno, Tom Morello and many others all signed a petition to get the Waters gig in Frankfurt that was cancelled re-instated.


    https://www.loudersound.com/ne…oncert-ban-to-be-reversed


    It's a funny old world we live in.

  • ..

    The pig you refer to also had a cross , the symbol of Islam and other world wide known symbols..To me the pig represented war and hate

    The religious symbols are there because so many kill in the name of peace and religion. I'm an atheist so.frpm my perspective it's all a bit pointless. However as you say RW. recognised that it was a mistake and offended people he never intended to target and apologised. Hardly the act of an anti semite.

  • Saw him at the O2 last week and it was a stunning show and performance. The people who labelled him a fascist are quite frankly idiots who are either incredibly ill-informed or playing for attention.


    I didn't go with high expectations. I hadn't even thought about going and I got my ticket as a freebie. However the events that you don't look forward to frequently throw up the biggest surprises. It was spellbinding from start to finish. Great visuals, nailed on performance, powerful moments, intimate moments, careful avoidance of cliche (e.g. Comfortably Numb at the beginning, and in the 2022 reworked form), Roger's voice was strong, and the Dark Side section was simply brilliant. Loved it, and Roger was quite right with his advice to the ill-informed ones...


    10/10