Roger Waters 'Us + Them' Tour 2017

The heavy drinking started in the venue before the concert had begun. As the lights went out, a significant chunk of the audience took their seats each with a tray of 4 pints of lager. As soon as they ran out, they each went back to the bar in turn and returned with another tray of 4 *each*. The more people had to drink, the more they felt compelled to shout over the music to converse with one another, as though the concert were interrupting their night in the pub with their mates. No one was being unpleasant or aggressive or anything, it just seemed for a large proportion of the audience the fact Roger Waters was playing in the same room was of secondary importance. Those that did seem engaged did the ‘lager football fan chant dance’, involving pointing at the ceiling with alternate arms. Who knew that the song Wish You Were here could be danced to so?

Wasn’t the first time either. Seeing The Wall at Wembley Stadium in 2013, my wife & I stopped in the IBIS hotel literally a stones throw from the stadium itself. We ended up moving rooms as our neighbours were already apolocalyptically splattered before the concert itself. Thankful I had a seated ticket (my wife went into London for the night), but there were plenty on the floor/standing access who’d had enough that it was guaranteed they’d never remember the concert morning after.

By contrast seeing David at the RAH in 2016 had an almost hippyish vibe to the night. Plenty ‘smoking’ outside the venue but no heavy drinking or lager behaviour inside the venue at all.

Going back to the Liverpool date, the only time people settled down and listened was for the Dogs & Pigs (3DO) numbers. Whether this is down to the arena length screen visuals or whether Animals is WAY more popular a Floyd album than I’d imagine I’m not sure, but I was appreciative that the musical highlight of the night was afforded some attention and quiet.

Roger has said more than once that he’s more relaxed about the audience not listening attentively as one might at a classical performance. I did wonder after Liverpool if the general ‘night out’ behaviour was what rankled him so much during the Animals dates way back when that ultimately gave rise to The Wall.

(NB: This is not an invitation for a Roger vs David conversation! I’ve already bowed out of too many Floyd related threads due to the endless David vs Roger bickering, as per Beach Boys threads of Mike vs Brian).

 

Roger refused to tour the original Wall shows because he felt a loss of connection with stadium crowds. He obviously changed his mind about this in 2010. He must have gotten a peak at the bottom line.

 

This is obviously live - imperfections, variations, and all - so I don't know why he needs to lip-synch it on tour...

 

He doesn't "lipsynch" everything. Are you suggesting that he's using a pre-recorded vocal for Wish You Were Here regularly on this tour? I honestly haven't kept track of which songs or parts thereof use pre-recorded vocals.

 

I checked five or six different performances from this year on YouTube and they were identical. Try opening up two different performances in separate tabs and then play them at the same time synchronized. Or you can just compare the lines "for a lead role in a cage" in two or more videos, where the elongation of the vowel in "role" is quite distinct (and conspicuously the same across all 2018 concerts).

 

They do sound an awful lot alike.

 

Well he just added added Broken Bones to the live set. Vocals sound live, but do not have multiple version to do an in depth analysis...

 

From what I've been able to determine (by doing the thing of syncing YouTube videos), he's now lip-synching for the entire set. He's definitely playing bass (and very well, especially on 'Pigs') but the vocals are too polished to be live.

Try playing these two from the first line of his vocal:

 

And this:

 

This is identical to both my Roger Waters gigs at Hyde Park. 2018 was more benign because I wasn't in a busy part of the crowd, so could avoid the loud shouters, but 2006 was really unpleasant, and the atmosphere (due to England being knocked out of the world cup by Portugal shortly before Roger Waters came on) was pretty aggressive. There was a whole swathe of football fans trying to find anyone who could be Portuguese and start trouble.

 

I don't think he synchs Mother, BD/Eclipse, and the new songs, bar one or two lines in them (like 'To find someone home' in Picture That'). Not sure about WYWH, possibly the same thing. Don't think he synchs Numb either, and definitely not Broken Bones.

 

"Wish You Were Here" is lip-synched.

 

I'm wrong about the new stuff as well. At the start of the tour, when it was still in the US, it wasn't lip synched, but now I'm unpleasantly surprised. Is even Numb, Mother and BD/Eclipse lip synched? I'd like to be able to say I saw Roger Waters sing, not that I saw Roger Waters mime At least his bass playing was good when he played it. It annoys me though that there are songs like Picture That in which he doesn't sing or play bass (sure, he plays a guitar solo at the end, but if he isn't singing he might as well join in with the music whilst he's miming, like he does in WTTM).

Having said all that, I'm still thrilled I went to the show, having never seen any of them live before. Nick Mason in three weeks though

 

So you think you can tell?

 

Wait, that live version of Wish You Were Here is lip-synched? My gosh, I would hate to hear him actually sing it live, considering that lip-synched version was brutal.

 

The Desert Trip one posted upthread is live - the ones from this year are not.

 

This lip-synching business is really discouraging ....

 

Sky Arts are showing the 2013 version of The Wall this Saturday at 9pm. Don't think it's been on TV in the UK so far.

 

Sept.6 : Happy Birthday, Roger Waters .... 75 years old today.

 

Happy Birthday Rog!

 

He shares a birthday with me!

 

Hate to interupt the lip syncing discussion, but here's a video of The Bravery of Being Out of Range from current tour (with a new new verse at the end!!).

 

Thanks for that, looks like Bravery replaced Mother as the penultimate song compared to Sydney, glad he's added something solo prior to his latest album, I enjoyed the new verse too

 

That was great - really good to hear it again. It needs a few more performances to really ‘lock in’ and get the dynamics right but he’s singing it really well. And not lip syncing as far as I can tell...

 

Roger adding an Amused To Death's song to his setlist + a new verse?
:Lower part on the jaw scraping the ground: