Concert Review: Roger Waters plays Pink Floyd's "The Wall"

On Friday night, October 15, Roger Waters, the original bassist, lyricist, and co-vocalist of the famous psychedelic band "Pink Floyd", visited Connecticut's Hartford XL Center. He sat down and played on of the greatest albums of all time, "The Wall". The album is known as one of the most complete, meaningful albums in music history. Each of its songs intertwine into the creation of a symbolic "wall" to separate Waters from the society that he can't seem to fit in to.

Roger Waters played with a full band throughout the show which had its ups and downs. On the bright side, when thumping hit came on like "Another Brick in the Wall" the entire stadium was enthralled with the sound quality and fullness of the music. Unfortunately, there were times where the presence of the other living Pink Floyd members would have been much more of a true Floyd experience. Once in awhile, Waters would not even be singing or playing; his band an another vocalist would carry on other parts of the song.

What overshadowed that downside, however, was the mind-blowing visual creation of the show. There were explosions of sparks and fireworks, giant puppets of pigs and teachers flying over crowd, and throughout the entire show, various stagehands were on cranes placing brick by brick of a giant wall 150 feet wide and 50 feet tall across the stage. On the wall there were projections of graphics, cartoons, and original video footage and loads of anti-war sentiment. It was an extraordinary sight; a concert experience that is truly amazing. There seemed to be a lot of effort put into every corner of the show; for example in "Another Brick in the Wall Part 2", there was an entire chorus of local schoolchildren brought out to sing the chorus.

Overall, Roger Waters put on a phenomenal show that any Pink Floyd fan should go to. It feels a little empty without the original members of Pink Floyd, but that doesn't mean it is not a fantastic show.