Roger Waters, The Wall Live 2011

Gelredome, Arnhem, 8 April 2011

In year 2011 we in Europe experienced massive tour from Roger Waters, performing The Wall live. It was continuation from same tour in North America in 2010.The tour dates announcement was gradual. At the beginning there had been only one date in The Netherlands, which in the end extended to three dates in a weekend at the Gelredome, Arnhem. It was the same location where Roger Waters held the Dark Side of the Moon show in 2007.

I had my ticket for the show on Friday, which was sunny and reasonably warm for Dutch spring time. I left early from work and arrived in Arnhem around 5 in the afternoon. As usual, the city public transport was geared up for the big show and within 5 minutes I arrived at the big dome.

I walked the half of the stadium to reach my entry gate. Lots of people were walking around, sitting on the grass enjoying the warm sun, and savouring the food from several stands. The other side of the stadium was much quieter. I stopped at the merchandise booth and bought the tour shirt. I was quite tempted to buy the “teacher” shirt as well, but 35 euro was too much for a shirt, which apparently had worse quality than previous Roger Waters tour shirts.

After standing quite a while in the queue, finally the gate was open and I entered the arena. The outer part of the wall was already setup on the stage and the circle projection slide at the center was impressively huge. The stage was very wide, accentuated by the wall that covered the whole width of the arena.

The standing area was already quite crowded. The front area was already full. I fixed to a spot in the center, slightly in front of the mixer desk. The audiences were mix. I saw lots of old people but there were also lots of younger generations. I wouldn't surprise if the show became a family event, proof of progressive rock re-generation.

The show was scheduled at 8 o'clock. The tribune seats were getting full approaching the showtime and we in the standing area became bit impatient. Finally it begun with formal announcement about no flash photographs to avoid quality degradation of the projections on the wall.

The crowd cheered when Roger Waters and the band begun the show with In The Flesh. As grand opener, this song was ended with fireworks and the crashed aeroplane.The band continued with more songs from The Wall meanwhile the crews slowly piled up the bricks closing the stage. Another Brick in the Wall part 2 was marked with children choir, who warmly thanked by Roger afterward. The inflatable schoolmaster stood menacingly at one side of the wall throughout the song.

Before playing Mother, Roger did short introduction speech. He thanked Dutch fans, loyal since the beginning of Pink Floyd era when they played Paradiso in Amsterdam. Mother was performed by Roger with his acoustic guitar in front of the wall, accompanied by old video shoot of himself from 1980 show and also the inflatable mother stood high till the end of the song.

Further songs employed nice projections to the wall. Goodbye Blue Sky with the animation about the war, followed by Empty Spaces with the flowers animation, both I believe were the original animations by Gerald Scarfe. Young Lust with shoots of hot girls, very suitable for this hard rocking song. 

One of My Turns and Don't Leave Me Now were sung by Roger, who wandering around the stage in front of the almost fully built wall.

During Another Brick in the Wall part 3, the wall only left 3 holes to view Roger and the band. The wall being used fully for projections meanwhile the band performed behind it. Finally, there was only one hole in the wall, from where Roger looked out to the audience and sang Goodbye Cruel World. Then it's closed, ended the first half of the show.

During the half an hour break the wall was being used to display the gallery of Fallen Loved Ones, initiative from Roger Waters that everyone could upload picture and short texts about a loved person lost in war. It was also time to pay more attention on the projectors hung above me that projected the gallery. There were around 18 projectors that synchronously beamed images to the wall, impressive technique.

The second set was started with Hey You, performed by the band completely behind the wall. The wall itself was projected and sometimes contained animations. Before Is There Anybody Out There?, small parts of the wall was opened for viewing the acoustic guitars duo.During Nobody Home, Roger sang the song alone in a living room that opened at the left side of the wall. After Vera, he appeared in front of the wall when they performed Bring The Boys Back Home.

Comfortably Numb surely was the best part of the second half. The animations on the wall was great, Roger gave his full performance, and the guitar solo from Dave Kilminster was deafening.

The Show Must Go On was performed by the vocalists in front of the wall. They wore the military-alike uniform with the hammers symbol, which was accentuated to the wall projection during In The Flesh, when Roger acted as general and shooting undesired audiences with his machine gun.

Run Like Hell was another crowds' favorite, with the hands clapping in unison. We also could spot the black pig floating around the hall in the mid of this song.Waiting For The Worms was performed with lots of animations about the marching hammers and Roger sang using megaphone.The show was going to the climax with The Trial. The animations were fully used in this song until finally everyone shouted together "tear down the wall", and in the end...the wall was collapsed.

The show was ended with all the performers appeared in front of the ruins and sang Outside The Wall. Roger warmly thanked the crowds, announcing each performers, and finally said goodbye.

All in all, this was a brilliant show; as in previous Roger Waters' shows, the standard was set really high. The sound quality was exceptional, with the quadraphonic surround sounds. The performers did their job perfectly, which is reasonable remembering they had toured The Wall since last year. The projections to the wall were great, brought the show really into live. As usual in The Netherlands, the crowds were attentive but not really lively. One final conclusion, which is more as a reminder for myself, if this show will come in DVD, buy it!

Set List

First Half: In the Flesh?, The Thin Ice, Another Brick in the Wall Part 1, The Happiest Days of Our Lives, Another Brick in the Wall Part 2, Mother, Goodbye Blue Sky, Empty Spaces, What Shall We Do Now, Young Lust, One of My Turns, Don't Leave Me Now, Another Brick in the Wall Part 3, The Last Few Bricks, Goodbye Cruel World

Second Half: Hey You, Is There Anybody Out There?, Nobody Home, Vera, Bring the Boys Back Home, Comfortably Numb, The Show Must Go On, In The Flesh, Run Like Hell, Waiting for the Worms, Stop, The Trial, Outside the Wall.

The Watch - Green Show

De Bosuil, Weert, 13 March 2011

Last year I attended a good show from The Watch, where they played Genesis' Blue Show, performed songs from Foxtrot album and beyond. This year, this Italian band did it again with Genesis' Green Show, where the majority of songs are from Selling England by the Pound album.

I missed the show at De Pul, Uden, where I watched the Blue Show last year. Luckily there was another date at De Bosuil, Weert, which also quite close from my home at Eindhoven.

This concert also marked as my first concert photography. With two simple e-mails to The Watch and De Bosuil, I got green light to brought my camera to the show.

The show was on Sunday afternoon. I drove from Eindhoven pretty early and I arrived at De Bosuil when the door was still closed. From outside, I could hear the band was still rehearsing, playing a section from Firth of Fifth.

When I got inside, it was very relax environment. No one bothered to check my camera bag. The band just finished the rehearsal, I saw them still walking around on the stage.

The hall was quite small, comparable size with De Pul and W2 Poppodium at Den Bosch. The stage was simple, proportionally raised from the audience area. The lightings were not so complex. Too bad there was no background slides that could be used by The Watch as in other shows from this Green Show.

I checked the merchandise table and spotted the new album. I asked the guy to reserve one and a shirt for me until end of the show. Then I bought drink on the bar at the side of the stage, sat there observing the stage and figuring where to get good pictures.

The hall was getting crowded until almost full when the show begun on time at 16:00. I got a good spot at the guitar side, but I did not have to worry, the front area was basically always clear so we photographers could move around easily. At least there were three other people with long zoom lenses and heavy camera body wandering around in the front.

The first song, like last year in the Blue Show, was more for warming up. They played Medley Sirence, taken from their Primitive album. It was applauded warmly by the audience.

Second song was the famous Watcher of the Skies from Foxtrot album. It was performed very well. The Mellotron sound was nice and even though there was no make up ala Peter Gabriel, I could hear almost the same vocal style from Simone Rossetti.

Simone Rossetti

After that, Simone told us that they were performing Selling England album, opened with the very first song, Dancing with the Moonlit Knight. He translated the title to Dutch when announcing, responded with laugh and applause from some audiences.

I Know what I Like was opened using typical lawn mowing action. Simone pretended to start the lawnmower several times, then he joked that it was an Italian lawnmower :). The song was cheerful as usual and always crowds' favorite.

Still following the track order of the album, piano intro of Firth of Fifth was wonderfully played by Valerio De Vittorio. This song was perfectly played, the guitar solos from Giorgio Gabriel were really good.

Valerio De Vittorio

Breaking the song order from Selling England, they performed One Day, a new song from their latest album Timeless that just released last month. This album is full of nuance from Genesis' first album, From Genesis to Revelation, but with extra energy from The Watch music.

Back to Genesis, they performed The Musical Box. Again in this song Giorgio showed his great guitar skills, performed great solos and sounds as Steve Hackett. After this long song, we had a short break.

Giorgio Gabriel

The second set started with enormously complex song from Selling England, The Battle of Epping Forest. Simone did wonderfully here, fluently sang those thick British accent phrases.

After the Ordeal showed great acoustic guitars duo from Giorgio and Guglielmo Mariotti.

After that, yet another own song, they performed All the Lights in Town from Planet Earth? album released in 2010.

Guglielmo Mariotti

They closed the set with the love song from Selling England, The Cinema Show, followed with Aisle of Plenty. I found The Cinema Show was really perfect, like watching young Genesis performed in the 70's. Marco Fabbri, the drummer, produced energetic sounds like young Phil Collins and the keyboard solo from Valerio was tightly played.

Marco Fabbri

Surely the band would not finish the show without any encore. And it was a really great one, because it was Supper's Ready. To experience this epic song being performed live, with perfection in every notes and transition, was a great way to end the show.

Attending show from The Watch was always an enjoyable moment, and this show was no exception. The performance was top notch even in really complex compositions from Selling England album. I shall wait for more projects from them, as promised by Simone at the end of the show.

Musicians:

Giorgio Gabriel - Electric guitars, 12 strings acoustic guitar

Guglielmo Mariotti - Bass, bass pedals, 12 strings electric and acoustic guitars, vocals

Valerio De Vittorio - Pianos, Hammond L122 organ, mellotron, arp and moog synths, vocals

Simone Rossetti - Vocals, flute, tambourine

Marco Fabbri - Drums, percussions, vocals

Setlist:

Medley Sirence

Watcher Of The Skies

Dancing With The Moonlit Knight

I Know What I Like

Firth Of Fifth

One Day

The Musical Box

----

The Battle Of Epping Forest

After The Ordeal

All The Lights In Town

The Cinema Show / Aisle Of Plenty

----

Supper's Ready

Bon Jovi, Royal Beach Concert, 5 June 2010

Scheveningen, NL, 5 June 2010

After releasing The Circle, Bon Jovi toured at many cities in USA and several consecutive nights at London. When first I heard a date for Holland, I did not directly believe it. Indeed it was true, Bon Jovi had planned to headline Royal Beach Concert at Scheveningen beach, Den Haag.

Surprisingly, I had been offered for pair of free tickets to the concert by very kind lady, who won a lottery and privileged for free tickets.

It was a nice sunny day when me and Tony (I got him from the whole gang of Bon Jovi fans who watched the previous concert) arrived at Scheveningen. We need to walk quite a distance to reach the concert area. From afar we could here Kane begun to perform.

Entering the area after ticket checkpoint, it was great atmosphere. Nice weather, sunny but breezy from the sea. People enjoyed the concert in various ways, some sang along and danced, some just sat or lied on the sand. Very relax audience.

I could enjoy bit of Kane performance, although not knowing many of their songs. After break and setting up the stage, exactly as being scheduled, at 5 Bon Jovi hit the stage.

They started the show with couple of new songs from The Circle. Then they rocked the beach with good old songs from Slippery When Wet and New Jersey era. Further on, the songs selection mainly consisted of upbeat songs. Personally I thought it was perfect with the condition where it was still bright and sunny. I don't think it was nice to listen to Bed of Roses or Always, for example.

Bon Jovi seemed to enjoy the show as well. At one point Jon commented it was rare moment for them to have a show in afternoon, on the beach with lots of nice girls.

Performance wise, Bon Jovi was good as usual. Tico was very tight and powerful in his tempo. David was cool behind his keyboards. Richie still rocked with his guitar sound and gave his nice second voice. Jon was energetic as always, moving to all corners of the stage without losing a key in his voice.

After Keep the Faith, they disappeared behind the stage for a while. When they're back, Jon announced the next song as a song they had not played live for a very long time. It was Only Lonely from their second album. I think the last time I heard that song was most likely around 15-20 years ago from my Bon Jovi tape.

They closed the show with their most favorite songs as usual, Wanted and Livin' on a Prayer. It was too bad that the show was ended only around 7. Even Jon said that we should just play and play until the next day.

It was a nice concert, unusual setting, very relaxing.

Set list:

Last Man Standing

We weren't Born to Follow

You Give Love a Bad Name

Born to be My Baby

Lost Highway

Raise Your Hands

We Got It Goin' On

When We were Beautiful

In These Arms

Captain Crash and Beauty Queen from Mars

Bad Medicine

It's My Life

Lay Your Hands on Me

I'll Sleep when I'm Dead

Runaway

Work for the Working Man

Rockin' All Over the World

Who Says You Can't Go Home

Keep the Faith

---------

Only Lonely

Wanted Dead or Alive

Livin' on a Prayer

Valentine's Day with Level 42

Muziekcentrum Frits Philips, Eindhoven, 14 February 2009

In Holland it is very popular to see '2 halen 1 betalen' promotion, which is the same as 'buy 1 get 1 free'. Although I didn't really expect it, this was also the case for the recent Level 42 show in Eindhoven. Sri saw this promotion on the local newspaper about 2 weeks before the concert date. I called the ticket office the day after and we got the ticket.

The concert was on Saturday evening, held at Muziekcentrum Frits Philips, the concert hall where we normally watch classical music concerts. We know exactly where the best seats are, so we decided to arrive half an hour before the show. We managed to get very good seats with direct view to the stage. The hall was getting full, most of the seats were taken including the upper level. The standing area next to the stage was also full with the audience.

The stage was already set in a simple layout. Mike Lindup's keyboards rack filled the left corner, drums set at the middle a bit to the back, and three microphone stands for Mark King, Nathan King (guitar), and Sean Freeman (sax). The background was only curtain, no projection slide. The lighting was also pretty standard, although it would provide nice effect during the show.

Around half past eight, the Level 42 entered the stage and Mark King greeted the audience. They kicked in with Fashion Fever from Running in the Family album, followed with a newer song, Forever Now.
The sound quality was very good. We got very clear bass sound and good mix of keyboards and vocal sounds. In the beginning Nathan's guitar sound was mixed too low but it was improved along the way.

They pleased the crowd with more old tunes, Turn it on from their first album and Heaven in My Hands, their hit from 1988. Besides his agile fingers on the bass fret, Mark King delivered good voice. Nathan and Sean also provided nice backing vocals.

Mark King made short comment about giving concert on Valentine's Day and (ironically) they sang the ballad Leaving Me Now. Sean gave nice saxophone sound here. This calm song was followed with another hit, Running in the Family. The vocals harmony was very nice.

After an unfamiliar song for me, The Machine Stops, Mark King played the bass intro of Dune Tune followed with his bass solo. He used loops to create multi-layer bass sounds. The effect did not work at the beginning but finally he succeeded after couple of tries.
The solo was followed with their first single ever, Love Games.

Not enough playing hits from 80's, they performed Something about You. After that Mark introduced Gary Husband on drums, who then delivered powerful drumming in Man and the instrumental Mr. Pink. The latest one also highlighted the skills from each player.

Then another slow hit, It's Over. After that Mike Lindup got the opportunity to deliver his nice falsetto in Starchild, which also got nice clapping from the crowd. It was followed with their biggest hit and also crowd's favorite Lessons in Love.
Before disappeared backstage, they performed the only song from the latest Retroglide album, Dive into the Sun.

For the encore, we got The Chinese Way followed with wonderful instrumental from the same album, The Pursuit of Accidents. Finally they closed the show with another crowds pleaser, Hot Water.

In general it was a good concert. It was very nice remembrance of the 80's era. The band still showed very strong skill. Moreover, I really enjoyed the sound quality of the hall. The atmosphere was not as intense as rock concert but more sober and calm, which is typical in jazz-funk concert. To conclude, Level 42 still could deliver nice show.


Level 42 are:
Mark King: bass, vocals
Mike Lindup: keyboards, vocals
Gary Husband: drums
Nathan King: guitar, vocals
Sean Freeman: saxophone, vocals

Setlist:
Fashion Fever
Forever Now
Turn it on
Heaven in my Hands
Leaving Me Now
Running in the Family
The Machine Stops
Mark King Bass Solo
Love Games
Something about You
Man
Mr. Pink
It's Over
Starchild
Lessons in Love
Dive into the Sun
-----------
The Chinese Way
The Pursuit of Accidents
Hot Water

Marillion - Happiness on the Road

Vereeniging, Nijmegen, 24 November 2008

Happiness is the Road (HitR) is the latest album of Marillion, released on 20 October 2008, only can be bought at Marillion web site unless you are in Poland or North America. Continuing the success strategy of deluxe edition campaign with Anoraknophobia and Marbles, the new album was available for pre-order since last year. Moreover, smart as ever, Marillion also pioneered the legal peer-to-peer free distribution of the digital version of the new album (yes, free...with a twist). This was even online before the release date of the album.

I had considered to pre-order HitR, but held back because it was pretty expensive and I was not sure about the quality. In the end I downloaded the digital version, blown back by the wonderful new songs, and decided to watch them live (where I presumed I could buy the CD).

With very loyal fans base in Holland, the Happiness on the Road tour included 4 dates in a row in Holland. The Tilburg show had been sold out, which was a tradition. I chose the show at Vereeniging, Nijmegen, where I watched The Musical Box before. I liked the Vereeniging theater, very old and classic so that I thought it would be perfectly suitable with the ambience of the new songs.

The show was on a cold Monday evening after a snowy weekend. I went directly from the office to the show. Vereeniging was a nice location, lots of parking places nearby. I arrived there few moments before the door was open, around 19.30. The checking was very minimal, just the ticket. My backpack with camera was untouched. I spotted the tour merchandises corner and walked there. As I predicted, the new albums are abundant there, even the deluxe edition (although the price is exactly the same as buying on the marillion.com). The t-shirts had nice designs, particularly the asylum satellite. Lucky that I had my backpack, the deluxe edition box was so thick!

It was pretty empty inside the hall at that time. The stage was nicely set and the standing area had no boundary with the stage, very nice. Quite some distances to the back, behind the soundboard area, there were permanent tribune seats. There were already some people occupied the seats, also few seats on the balcony. I had good experience sitting on the balcony, so I decided to move upstairs. I chose the left wing, which I slightly regretted later because I could not have complete view of Steve Rothery.

We waited quite some times before the opening act, Sine Star Project, performed. They were quite good performer with adequate progressive style. Some songs were mellow, dominated with keyboards and pedal steel guitar that reminded me of David Gilmour and Pink Floyd songs. The other songs were heavier style, fast tempo and lots of low guitar riffs. They performed about 40 minutes, gained lukewarm applause from the crowds.

We waited again after that, while the stage was rearranged. It was nice to watch the crew setup the stage with high precision and agility. The stage layout was Marillion standard. Ian's drum set and Mark's tower of keyboards at the back, Pete at the right side, Steve Rothery at the left, and Hogarth's keyboard at the middle, side by side with mic stand attached with different kind of percussions.

Around 9.30 the lights were dimmed, Ian and Mark ready on position, and then Pete, Steve, and Hogarth entered the stage. They opened the set with a new song, Dreamy Street followed with This Train is My Life. Hogarth wore long robe, barefoot, very relax. Mark Kelly wore the same shirt, I think, as the one at Snow-where Else tour last year (..duh..). Pete looked a bit older but very agile as always. The projection screen was nice, displayed different images related with the songs. The sound quality was very good, no echo, not too loud, I could hear almost all details. The train background sound was very nice.

After a quick hello from Hogarth to the crowd, they performed another sequence from the new album, Nothing Fills the Hole and Woke Up. The crowd enjoyed the crunchy guitar sounds and deep bass sound here.

After another small chat with the crowd, they gave The Other Half from the previous album. Then came Essence, one of my favorite songs from HitR. Hogarth's voice soared nicely in this song.

Then came an old song, Beautiful from Afraid of Sunlight (AoS) album. I think the whole theater sang together the whole song.
If I remembered correctly, after that Hogarth announced that the next day would be Steve Rothery's birthday. After a long clapping, we sang happy birthday and For He's a Jolly Good Fellow together for him.

Another new song, this time from the second part of the HitR, The Man from the Planet Marzipan. It was beautiful song and Hogarth was very expressive as the Planet Marzipan man. He opened his robe and showed his skin because the air was so thin :).

Another song from AoS, Hogarth gave a short introduction about Donald Campbell, racer who had died on his attempt to break water speed record for the 9th time. He, and Bluebird-the boat, had become the inspiration of Out of this World. The back screen displayed a black and white video footage of the day back in 1967, from the preparation until when the boat was flipped and crashed.

Then they performed two songs from Brave, Mad followed by The Great Escape. Once again it was very obvious that Hogarth really improved his theatrical expressive skill. His face expressions reflected the deep emotion of the songs.

The crowd went crazier when they performed Afraid of Sunlight. It was a nice view from the balcony to watch the crowd dancing and singing. The nice song was followed by Asylum Satellite #1, another brilliant song from HitR. I understand that some people judge the album as 'too mellow', but those are nice songs there!

Another crowd favorite was Between You and Me from Anoraknophobia. This song is always nice for live show, energetic and easy to sing. Hogarth also became more energetic, he climbed the speaker and sat there singing.
After that, finally we got something from Marbles, the magical Neverland. It was the third time I experienced this song being performed live and I liked it more than before. Steve Rothery delivered brilliant guitar solos.

After this song they went backstage, which surely could not be accepted by the crowd. But apparently they needed to do that because Hogarth changed his clothes to old style suit complete with eyeglasses and a walking stick. Pete started the groovy line of Invisible Man. This song was performed very well, one of their best performance for me. Hogarth really showed touching emotional expressions, very detail reflection about being invisible.

It was half an hour to midnight when they finished that wonderful song. Once again they went backstage, Hogarth changed back to his white shirt and pants. He explained that they had reached the time limit, but he said that he could not leave us yet...then he sang the main message...Happiness is the Road! This song started very calm, getting more and more powerful along the way. Pete shook the whole theater with his bass pedal. In the end Hogarth led the crowd to sing the 'Hapiness is the Road' line again and again, while the rest of the band disappeared backstage. Finally he embraced all the happiness from the crowd.
On the way back home, that line still echoed repeatedly in my head.

To conclude, it was another great live performance from Marillion. The production was generally better than their Christmas Tour, maybe because this tour was to promote the new album. The lights and screen were being used optimally. It was also nice idea to put small cameras close to each musician and projected the video on the screen.
The best part that night was the expressiveness. Hogarth really made me think about Peter Gabriel style on the stage. Pete was always moving everywhere. Even Steve Rothery walked to the other side couple of times. Ian Mosley was always consistent with his drumming. At last, as you noticed from HitR, lots of musical aspects were strongly built by keyboards sounds of Mark Kelly.
Marillion, thanks for bringing the happiness on the road!



Set list:
Dreamy Street
This Train Is My Life
Nothing Fills The Hole
Woke Up
The Other Half
Essence
Beautiful
The Man From The Planet Marzipan
Out Of This World
Mad
The Great Escape
Afraid Of Sunlight
Asylum Satellite #1
Between You and Me
Neverland
----
Invisible Man
----
Happiness Is The Road

Bon Jovi Lost Highway Tour 2008

Amsterdam ArenA, 13 June 2008

Actually I had no desire to watch Bon Jovi in concert because I hadn't continuously followed their activities after Crush. Surely I still bought Bounce, Have a Nice Day, and even the not-really-right This Left Feels Right. I even have the nice 100 Millions boxset. But I wasn't really into their music anymore these days. Somewhere in my head I kept thinking that the Bon Jovi era was their first 6 albums. For me Crush was already on the edge.

The idea to watch the concert was coined by Fajar and back then it was directly agreed by two more friends. Another attractive point was that before the concert there would be football match on the big screen between Holland and France in the Euro 2008. First I was still doubting, since I also had no desire to watch the match on the big screen (what's the difference with my TV anyhow?). But then I thought, never mind, let's watch Bon Jovi. So we bought 4 tickets.

Then the plan was spread among more friends. Finally 4 more girls wanted to join, including Sri. So we bought 4 more tickets, luckily at the same seat section but just one different row.

For preparation, I tried to update myself on Bon Jovi. I couldn't get the latest album but luckily got the Lost Highway DVD. So I knew all the songs! The tour was already started in the US and from their website I got the setlists. Apparently they kept it slightly change so we could expect few surprises. The good news for me, mainly they played old songs.

When the day came, 5 of us arrived around 8 at the Amsterdam ArenA, the other 3 came later during the football match. We had plenty of time to queue, buy t-shirt (well, only me), toilet, and drink before we went to our seats. It was pretty good seat, not too high and not too far from the stage. They only sold the lower-half of the tribune seats because they placed wide screens facing the tribunes.

The atmosphere was like a football match. Lots of orange attributes. Then the match begun. As I expected, I didn't feel any difference than watching the match on my TV. Good thing was that Holland devastated France with wonderful goals.

After the match, all the lights off, then suddenly Jon, Richie, David, Tico, and Hugh appeared on the stage. Jon put on an orange shirt and they kicked in with Rockin' All Over the World.

After Lost Highway, they continued with Born to be My Baby, which is always my favourite. Then Jon screamed the most popular opening line...'Shot through the heart..and yours to blame..you give love.. a bad name..'. I think everybody stood and shouted together with him. Richie still rocked in this song, it reminded me to their glorious time with those long hairs.

Still from Slippery When Wet album, they played Raise Your Hands. This song was really good to raise the audiences' hands :).

Then they played their first hit ever, Runaway. I couldn't imagine that I still remember the songs in my head after more than 20 years and sing along just came out that easy.

During I'll Sleep when I'm Dead, Jon sang few lines from Jumpin' Jack Flash.

After another new song from Lost Highway, Jon introduced David Bryan on keyboards, whom then sang In These Arms in his barritone.

After that the stage was darkened and only Jon and Richie stood at the front. Jon announced that the song was never performed before on this tour, from These Days album...Diamond Ring. It's really a brilliant duet from them.

Always was the crowd's favourite, the whole stadium sang this song. Then they performed two songs from Crush followed with Someday I'll be Saturday Night, again another sing along song.

After that Richie extensively used the talk box in We Got it Going On. Then another big hit from Crush, It's My Life was performed. Not enough rocking, the deep intro of Keep the Faith was shocking the whole arena. It was amazing to see their stamina and energy.

After Keep the Faith, it was time for Jon to have a rest. Richie performed I'll be There for You. Surely he could sing so good.
Jon back on the stage and they played Blaze of Glory, followed by my other favourite song from New Jersey album, Blood on Blood.

Then they played some more recent songs, Have a Nice Day and the country style Who Says You Can't Go Home. In the last song we finally went home to catch the last train. It's a pity that we couldn't stay until the end of the show. While walking outside the arena I could hear Livin' on a Prayer sang by the crowd.

In general it turned out to be a very good concert. I really enjoyed the sing along part especially the old songs. Bon Jovi performed way above the standard, very energic and lively. Jon and Richie were still very attractive on stage. Tico Torres was very powerful with his drums. David did some nice solos on his keys during Keep the Faith.

The stage was quite simple with nice backscreens and also two side screens. The light show was also pretty simple, with some nice colors and audience shots. The sound quality of ArenA was bad as usual, although it was bearable after first couple of songs.

Setlist:
Rockin' All Over The World
Lost Highway
Born To Be My Baby
You Give Love A Bad Name
Raise Your Hands
Runaway
I'll Sleep When I'm Dead/Jumpin' Jack Flash/Gimme Some Lovin'
Whole Lot Of Leaving
In These Arms (David in vocal)
Diamond Ring
Always
Captain Crash & The Beauty Queen From Mars
Just Older
Someday I'll Be Saturday Night
We Got It Going On
It's My Life
Keep The Faith
I'll Be There For You (Richie in vocal)
Blaze Of Glory
Blood On Blood
Have A Nice Day
Who Says You Can't Go Home
Livin' On A Prayer

Encore:
Stick To Your Guns
Wanted Dead Or Alive

Marillion Snow-where Else Christmas Tour

8 December 2007
Live Music Hall, Cologne, Germany



This year I was quite desperate to watch Marillion Christmas show. First I aimed to watch the show in Zoetermeer, but it was sold out in no time. Some other dates in Holland were impossible for me because they were on working days. Then I looked at a possibility on the date in Cologne, which was Saturday. I proposed the plan to Sri in different wrapping: Christmas market visit to Cologne. She agreed with the plan as long as we could ask some other friends to join us so she would not be alone while I have fun with the show.
In the end two of our best friends decided to go. We arranged the hotel, rented the car, and ready to go. Oh, surely I had my ticket as well.

We spent the Saturday afternoon in the Cologne city center after checked in at our hotel. The area near the Dom cathedral was full with people enjoying the yearly Christmas market. We enjoyed the atmosphere, had our bratwurst and browsed the small booths to see the Christmas decorations that they sold.

After that we walked along the shopping area of Cologne until we reached Neumarkt area where we found another Christmas market. It was a bit less crowded than at the Dom. After a plate of sauerkraut (sour cabbage), I took the U-Bahn (German underground) to Live Music Hall in Ehrenfeld area.

The hall was about half full when I arrived. It looked like an old storage building that turned to a music hall. Just a square hall, flat floor, with two drink bars on both sides. I even could not spot the wardrobe directly, which was at a hidden corner after the small entrance.

The tour souvenir corner was not really impressive this time compared with Christmas show two years ago. I just bought a long sleeve shirt and the new released Somewhere in London DVD. After that I tried to sneak my way until near enough with the stage, slightly to the right so I could easily enjoy Steve Rothery in action.

Albeit the announcement that there was no opening act and the band would start the show one hour after the hall was open, we waited quite a while until the dark moody intro of Bridge was played. It was worth waiting though, as the band played the first four songs from Brave, the darkest album of Marillion. Steve Hogarth stayed sit behind his keyboard and his voice was full with emotions.

After the songs from Brave, Steve Rothery changed guitar and they played the bluesy The Fruit of the Wild Rose from Anoraknophobia. After the song H spoke to the audience. He said the previous song was not very often being performed. Then he drank from an alligator-shaped jar and told us that they would perform two shows that night.

After the short conversation, H introduced the Out of this World, a calm song from Afraid of Sunlight. After a tight performance from the band, they gave us a new song from the next album, titled Real Tears for Sale. H asked the audience about the song after that. When someone asked who's writing it, he answered "Kylie Minogue..." with further comment "she's deeper than you think...". But the song was pretty good, quite a promising new album.

Maintaining the atmosphere of the 'first show' to be calm and relax, they performed the best track from their latest album, Somewhere Else. The first set was closed with the brilliant winter song Seasons End, with H inserted short excerpt from O Come, O Come Emmanuel at the beginning of the song.

I enjoyed the first set very much, especially I liked the nuance of the songs to be very calm and dark. The lighting supported that very good with the color gradation filled in the whole stage. Unfortunately the stage was a bit too simple with no background images or slides.

After the break, we knew that the second set would be different when they started with the rocking Hooks in You continued with Most Toys. The mood was a bit calmer when they sang The Other Half from the new album, then it was back with another up-tempo song, Cannibal Surf Babe. Steve Rothery used his double neck for this song.

They then performed songs from Holidays in Eden album. This Town was rocking as usual, followed by The Rakes Progress and 100 Nights. The set was closed with This Strange Engine.

The encore was started with powerful bass lines from Pete Trewavas, the famous intro of Quartz from Anoraknophobia. Then they performed Neverland from Marbles. This beautiful song is always perfect for closing the show.

Ups..did I say anything about closing? After Neverland, the stage was darkened. Then the stage crew set a nice white christmas tree and some christmas lights on the stage. Not long after that, there were two Santa's on the stage! One was extremely fat until he could not stand properly behind his keyboards..poor Mark Kelly.

They threw away some kazoos to the audience and asked us to help in the next song. It was pretty useless, the kazoos were wet because they were kept inside the alligator jar together with H's beers. Pete got a dry one and he showed us the tune.
Then all of us sang Let It Snow, and we got fake snow all around the stage. Well, that's make the party perfect.

In general it was a pretty good show. The band played perfect as usual, Steve Rothery was really brilliant with his guitar. The sound quality was not very good, most likely because of the acoustic of the hall. On the other hand the audience was great, lots of sing along and interaction with the band. The songs selection was good, with some rarely performed songs. Good job guys!


Complete set list:
Bridge
Living With the Big Lie
Runaway
Wave / Mad / The Opium Den
Fruit Of The Wild Rose
Out of This World
Real Tears For Sale
Somewhere Else
Seasons End
---
Hooks In You
Most Toys
The Other Half
Cannibal Surf Babe
This Town
The Rakes Progress
100 Nights
This Strange Engine
---
Quartz
Neverland
---
Let It Snow

The Four Seasons by Vivaldi

Frits Philips Muziekcentrum, Eindhoven, 5 October 2007


It has been a while since the last time we enjoyed classical music concert, especially in the Frits Philips Muziekcentrum Eindhoven. Then about two weeks ago Sri found an interesting performance, the complete Four Seasons of Antonio Vivaldi by English Chamber Orchestra and violinist Sarah Chang.
We got the tickets last week, bought a mid-price seat, the third row from the stage. We went with two friends of us.

So, yesterday we met in the music hall some times after 8 in the evening and hurrily checked in because the concert started at 8.15. Our seats were really very close to the stage so we could see clearly everything on it. Unfortunately the seats were the same height as the stage, meaning the sound will pass above our heads.

The concert started sharp on time (sigh..I wish rock concert follow this example). The first piece was the famous Brandenburg Concerto Nr. 3 by Bach. It was a simple performance, which was performed only by 11 persons: 3 violins, 3 violas, 3 cellos, 1 bass, and 1 harpsichord.

This famous piece from Bach was very nice to listen to, with some circling sound from the violins, violas, and cellos. As expected, the sound of the harpsichord was 'vaporized' in the air from where we sat.

After the brilliant performance and warm applause from the audience, the orchestra went inside and the stage was rearranged for bigger capacity. The second piece was something new for me, Serenade in Es Op. 6 by Josef Suk, apprentice of Dvorak.
The composition turned out to be very nice and melodious, although according to Sri the last two movements were a bit like movie soundtrack.

After that we had a break for about 15 minutes. Something noticable during the break was that the audience was not only dominated by old people like normally we noticed in the classical music concerts. There were some young people, very casually dressed for classical music concert. I assumed it was because The Four Seasons is really popular, or maybe they went to see Sarah Chang :).

After the break we back inside the hall, when I realized that it would be my first time watching the Four Seasons live.

The orchestra was in the same formation as when they played the second piece. Then the main violinist walked to the center of the stage. Dressed in elegant long gown and with her Asian look (she has Korean blood from her father), Sarah Chang held a beautiful charisma on the stage.

After quickly tuned the violin, she gave a sign to the others and begun the first part of the Four Seasons, La Primavera (Spring). This cheerful piece was really enjoyable, with impressive and confident playing by Sarah Chang and perfect harmony from the orchestra.

The following three parts of the concerto were also great. Normally I did not really able to enjoy Summer and Winter but live performance provided different view of it. It was great to capture the moments when the main violin played head-to-head with the cello or the viola. Moreover, watching Sarah's fingers flying on her violin was also awesome.

It felt the complete concerto was so short when they played the final notes of Winter and Sarah Chang finished it. She and the orchestra received a standing ovation for quite a while before finally they left the stage.

After the concert we had drinks at one of the terrace in the main square of the city, enjoying mild autumn evening. When it was getting colder, we went home. It was a good show and very nice evening!

Performers:

English Chamber Orchestra
Sarah Chang, main violinist in the Four Seasons

Complete performance:

Brandenburg Concerto Nr. 3 in G major - JS Bach
Adagio - Allegro

Serenade in Es Opus 6 - Josef Suk
Andante con moto
Allegro ma non troppo e grazioso
Adagio
Allegro giocoso, ma non troppo presto

----

The Four Seasons (Opus 8 Nr. 1-4) - Antonio Vivaldi

Spring (Concerto Nr. 1 in E major, Op. 8)
Allegro
Largo
Allegro

Summer (Concerto Nr. 2 in G minor, Op. 8)
Allegro non molto
Adagio
Presto

Autumn (Concerto Nr. 3 in F major, Op. 8)
Allegro
Adagio
Allegro

Winter (Concerto Nr. 4 in F minor, Op. 8)
Allegro non molto
Largo
Allegro

Genesis Turn It On Again Tour

Amsterdam ArenA, 1 July 2007

Genesis is really an old friend of mine. I have known them since 1987 when I was only 12 years old. At that time I bought a cassette of Genesis called 'The very best of Genesis vol. 2', produced locally by Aquarius Indonesia. I still remember how I enjoyed their songs from Duke, Abacab, until Invisible Touch albums. I also had a copy of the Invisible Touch video containing clips of almost all songs from the album.

Several years after that I still followed their activities. I enjoyed We Can't Dance album, with nice songs like Driving the Last Spike and Fading Lights. It was even better when they released The Way We Walk live albums. From then on I was captivated by their 'ancient' songs from the 70's, thanks to the old medley.

Since that moment, it seemed like I traveled back in time. Slowly, in between my passion for music from that period like Metallica, Megadeth, Helloween, and other heavy stuffs, I threw myself back to the progressive-rock era by listening to Seconds Out, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, and the Archive 1967-75 box set.
After that there was no turning back, I collected their official albums completely plus the Archive box sets and the official DVD releases.
In the past two years I also got the chance to watch their 'reincarnation', The Musical Box. I watched them performed The Lamb Lies and Selling England shows.

With this prelude, I think you agree that I was one who got excited and happy when last year Genesis announced to back on stage in 2007. Well, not the most perfect formation, but we couldn't always get what we wanted, could we?

On a Saturday morning in November last year, I was one of the people who queued at the post office to get the ticket for Genesis' concert in Amsterdam ArenA, the only show in Holland. I got two tickets at the tribune, great!
Not much happening until few months back, when I bought the first Genesis SACD box set and re-shaped my memory of their songs with the wonderful 'new' sound of their albums between 1976-1982 period. I must admit that I really love this new SACD mix (kudos to Nick Davis).
I also got regular updates from Germany Genesis Fanclub website about the tour preparation and rehearsals, until finally they kicked out in Helsinki last month. After touring some cities in Europe, there came the first of July, when Genesis played the Amsterdam ArenA, and I was there!

It was a mild Sunday in the summer. It was not too hot and luckily it was not rain. I took the train from Eindhoven with my wife to Arena. We arrived there around half past seven in the evening. There were lots of people outside the ArenA, also at the queue to enter the stadium. The entrance process was smooth, no one bothered about digital pocket camera in the bag.

It was the first time I entered Amsterdam ArenA, the biggest stadium in Holland. It took already quite some energy to climb the stairs to reach the corridor of the tribune seats. Before entering the tribune, I bought a Genesis t-shirt. They also sold some interesting stuffs at the merchandise corner, including Anatomy Of A Tour book and Phil's The Long Goodnight documentary DVD.

After bought soft drinks and french fries, we entered the stadium. We got seats at the right-hand side tribune. Not until I checked the row number when I realized that our seats were at the highest row! We had a full view of the stadium and the stage, except the wide screen on the left-hand side.

The main stage was still hidden behind black curtain, but we could observe the whole stage layout. It was quite wide, with a wave-shaped background and two oval screens on both sides. There were seven metal towers soared above the background for lighting support. The festival area was almost full with people and it was not much different situation at the tribune.

About half past seven, the black curtain was removed. The main stage was not so big and the layout was a Genesis standard: Tony's keyboards at the right, two drums sets on the raised floor at the back, two pedal sets for Mike and Daryl, and center microphone stand. While the whole stadium was almost full, we still had to wait for another 45 minutes before the band hit the stage. It was pretty boring except for the light and the big screens testing.

But finally it started! No spectacular entrance, just the complete background turned on as white dotted lights, they kicked in with instrumental medley of Behind The Lines and Duke's End. Phil played drums, Mike took the center stage, and Tony was calm and serious as always. This instrumental opening was pretty good, I would say it was like a warming up for the band, kind of jamming session.

Behind The Lines

The second song was Turn It On Again, where Phil took the center stage. His vocal was still OK in spite of his age. I found these two opening songs from Duke were a perfect choice. After Turn It On Again, Phil shortly interacted with the audience, introduced Mr. Tony Banks and Mr. Mike Rutherford, warmly applauded by the crowd.

The following two songs were from newer era, No Son Of Mine and Land Of Confusion. The background was turned to a huge display screen, showed the ticking clock at the beginning of No Son Of Mine and the puppets during Land Of Confusion. The oval screens on both sides helped us on the tribune to watch 'closer' to the stage. It was nice to watch old Mike and white-haired Tony in action.

After those 'pop' songs, the band got down to real business with Phil started the familiar "I got sunshine in my stomach" line of In The Cage. Mike used his double neck for switching between guitar and bass. I enjoyed this part, Phil's vocal was good and the music was flawless. In The Cage was the first part of medley, where the instrumental part was smoothly moved to the instrumental part of The Cinema Show. Phil back behind his drums and they ended the medley with another smooth transition to Duke's Travels.

In The Cage

Almost as a continuation of the previous medley, the band played the calm Afterglow. It was another enjoyable moment for me since I always like this song from Wind and Wuthering album.

To maintain the stamina, at least in my opinion, they played another slow song, Hold On My Heart. Phil sat on a chair and the lights turned into pink-purple nuance, kind of romantic.

After two slow songs, Phil told his story about a scary house to begin the wonderful Home By The Sea suite. This song was performed perfectly. The visualization was brilliant, with images of the house, the face on the wall, and the ghosts animation. The sound was powerful, especially during Second Home By The Sea with double drums. The lighting was great, with raising spotlights on the light towers at the end of the song.

Home By The Sea

After a short stop, they performed Follow You Follow Me. Phil was playing drums while singing. This song was performed softly, even better with a nice simple animation showing characters from Genesis' album covers such as the Duke, walking son from We Can't Dance cover, sleeping lawn mower from Selling England, and Cynthia with her croquet stick from Nursery Crime.

Then came the second medley: Firth of Fifth - I Know What I Like. The performance was perfect, sounds great especially the solos from Daryl. What I like most from this song was the background slide, showing pictures of young Genesis faces, very nostalgic and touching. There were many pictures, combination of photo shoots and live pictures (including Gabriel's flower face from Supper's Ready). During Phil's tambourine dance, the background slide also showed the same dance but from around 25 years earlier!
At the end of the song, with reddened stage, there was a net being raised between the light towers, which made the stage looked like a huge crown. This medley was definitely my most favorite part of the show.


I Know What I Like

Mama, the next song, was good. Phil's sound and act were still worth watching. Especially because of his older look, the light show during the laughter part was terrific.

Not enough of old songs, the band performed the beautiful Ripples. Mike again used his double neck. We experienced another good performance of classic Genesis song, with nice green-yellowish light nuance and trees image background that reminded me to Roger Dean's art from albums of Yes. The crowd gave very warm applause at the end of this song.

Ripples

Back to the new era, Phil Collins chanted the popular intro of Throwing It All Away and surely followed by the crowd. Regardless of its pop style, this song is one of my Genesis favorites. The big screen showed candid shoots of the crowds during this song, gave us a very nice entertainment similar to what we usually get on sport live coverage. It was great to see people sang, then smiled or waved once they had known that they were on the screen.

Throwing It All Away

Another interaction with the audience, Phil explained his domino principle. Finally I was actively involved in this domino effect after watched it so many times in the DVD. The light was great, and the crowd responded eagerly.
The song itself was great. I enjoyed the calm first part and the powerful second part. Phil's vocal quality was still good. The visual effects were wonderful, showing falling domino pieces and Phil's face surrounded with light waves.

After the powerful Domino, the crew set up bar stool that placed between two drums sets. Then Phil and Chester performed the drum duet, this time started with the bar stool. I think the stool had a leather surface, which made the sound quite different. They gradually moved to the drums and performed the powerful and tight duet. The drum duet directly continued by Los Endos, a wonderful instrumental song from Genesis' progressive era. Once again I enjoyed Mike's double neck action. The background displayed fire flame animation, brilliant support to give progressive nuance.

Los Endos

After that the band performed their standard live songs, Tonight Tonight Tonight followed by Invisible Touch. They were nice as usual and Invisible Touch was one of crowd's favorite. I saw many people danced with this song.

Ending the Invisible Touch, the band went off the stage. Surely no one in the crowd agreed with this, so we shouted, clapped our hands, until finally we heard the electric drum intro of I Can't Dance. The sound effects were great, the walking was enjoyable, but for me the most wonderful aspect of this song was the background, where it displayed big size white walking Genesis at the beginning and then turned to many colorful of them at the end. Though I never really liked this song (honestly I booed at the end of this song) but still the performance could not be ignored.

I Can't Dance

After his dance at the end of I Can't Dance, Phil thanked Chester and Daryl, who got very warm applause from the audience. Then he announced the last song, mentioned that the song was very special for them. It was the beautiful Carpet Crawlers. Nothing could beat this nice calm song as the ending of the show, with very nice vocal harmony from the trio at the refrain.

Then it was over. We waited quite a while until we could walk down the tribune and walked in a hurry to catch our last train to home.

To conclude, off course it was a great show. It was not perfect, though. First of all, the acoustic of Amsterdam ArenA was terrible. From our place the echoes were enormous, sounded like there were two bands performed at both sides of the stadium at slightly different timing. Another thing that I could not totally appreciate was the neighboring crowd. It seems like there was a generation gap between some of them. Some people enjoyed the new songs and chatted, unfortunately quite loud, between themselves during the old songs. Some others loved the old songs and luckily they were wise enough to just keep quite during the new songs. So in the end I tend to appreciate old progressive fans than the young pop fans. Long live progressive rock!

Nevertheless, it was indeed a great show. The production was great, the lighting and the visual were beyond my expectation. The band was still great performers on the stage. Chester Thompson still very discipline with his tempo and Daryl Stuermer still sharp on the strings. Tony, Mike, and Phil were still solid as a team after 15 years break.

In the end, as an old friend, I would always remember this as a great show (have I mentioned it?). I cannot wait until they release the DVD from performance in Rome and also the next SACD box sets.

Genesis are:
Phil Collins - Vocals, Drums
Tony Banks - Keyboards, Vocals
Mike Rutherford - Guitars, Bass, Vocals

Supported by:
Chester Thompson - Drums
Daryl Stuermer - Guitars, Bass

Set list:
Behind The Lines / Duke's End
Turn It On Again
No Son Of Mine
Land Of Confusion
In The Cage / The Cinema Show / Duke's Travels
Afterglow
Hold On My Heart
Home By The Sea / Second Home By The Sea
Follow You Follow Me
Firth Of Fifth / I Know What I Like
Mama
Ripples
Throwing It All Away
Domino
Drum Duet
Los Endos
Tonight Tonight Tonight
Invisible Touch
--------------------
I Can't Dance
Carpet Crawlers

Roger Waters Performing the Dark Side of the Moon

Gelredome, Arnhem, 5 May 2007



This was the second time for me to watch a concert in Gelredome stadium in Arnhem. The situation before the concert was typical. I arrived about one hour before scheduled time on the ticket and the Arnhem train station was full with people who wanted to go to Gelredome. As usual the special shuttle buses were ready and we timidly (well...almost) queued to get in to the bus. Slightly different with concert of Coldplay two years ago, this time the majority was older people because this was the concert of the legendary Roger Waters from Pink Floyd. I think I was younger than the average age, due to the fact that I even had not yet born when Pink Floyd released The Dark Side of the Moon, which was planned to be performed completely by Roger that evening.

After a short ride with the bus, we were approaching the stadium. There was even more crowds at the location, some were already queuing to enter the arena, some were still enjoying the sunny weather. I bought my second Roger Waters t-shirt (the first one was a gift from Brain Damage, thanks!) and then I need to walk around half of the stadium to reach the correct entrance gate based on my ticket. This time I chose a seat at the furthest tribune from the stage but with frontal view so I could fully enjoy the visual entertainment of the concert.

When I entered, the field was already half full of people and most of the tribune seats were already occupied. The show that evening was sold out anyway.
My seat was quite low and a bit to the right from the central line to the stage. The stage was far, I think it was about 100 metres from my seat. I had a wide view of almost every thing, the only obstacle was two thick speaker wires at the center of the field, hanging vertically to several huge speakers on the ceiling. I was surrounded by old and young audiences, mostly in groups. I think some of them were family and father-and-son pairs. It's nice to see that the progressive rock music was regenerated smoothly :).

The stage layout was really promising for visual entertainment. There were two projection screens at both sides of the stage and one huge video screen at the background of the stage.
The video screen showed still image of a radio transistor with an airplane miniature on top of it, a half full whiskey bottle, a half full glass, and an ashtray.

After waiting for almost an hour, the show was started in a real progressive style. We saw smokes on the screen, and then there was a hand turned on the radio and turned the knob to choose channel. We listened to some old songs, I recognized Hound Dog from Elvis and a song from ABBA that was switched almost immediately by the hand, meanwhile the hand drank the whiskey from the glass and the lights of the stadium were turned off.

Around 8 o' clock, while we were still enjoying the old tunes from the radio, Roger Waters entered the stage, walked and waved to the audience. Then he shouted "Lights! Turn on the sound effects! Action!", which started In The Flesh.
This powerful song was really perfect as an opening, with its theme, its loudness, and with extra fireworks at the end of the song. The video screen also helped a lot with the original animation from The Wall.

The second song was also from The Wall album, Mother. Roger played the acoustic guitar and the mother part was sung by one of the backing vocalists.

The next song was a Pink Floyd classic. Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun was performed with a slightly different arrangement than the original, but tend to inherit the version from In The Flesh tour/DVD with the sax solo. I enjoyed a lot the animation during the song, started with image of sun flare, then old black and white shoots of young Pink Floyd members, and the psychedelic bubbles along the climax end of the song before finally showed again the sun flare.

While the sun flare on the screen was zoomed out and the video showed the wide universe with many stars, the familiar intro of Shine On You Crazy Diamond was played, responded by big applause from the crowd. This song was one of the highlights of the show, with positive response from the crowd and several pictures of Syd on the screen.

Shine on You Crazy Diamond

The show was continued with another song from Wish You Were Here album, Have a Cigar. I found the sound was a bit too loud on this song and Roger's vocal quality was a bit too perfect. Nevertheless, the ending of the song was brilliant. The guitar solo was ended abruptly, and then the screen showed back the radio and the hand switched channels, exactly the same effect as in the album, until the acoustic guitar intro of Wish You Were Here was played. It was great!!!
The WYWH itself was perfectly performed, with nice acoustic guitar solos from Dave Kilminster.

The show moved on with newer songs from Final Cut album that already became standard Roger Waters live songs, Southampton Dock followed by The Fletcher Memorial Home. Roger's emotion was intense, expressed on his face when he sang the songs. The guitar solo on The Fletcher was very good.

After songs from Pink Floyd era, the video screen showed the astronaut accompanying the intro of Perfect Sense. This was followed by the appearance of an astronaut balloon from left corner of the stadium, floating nicely along with the relax piano and breathing sound of the song. This song combined perfectly the perfect surround sound effect, thanks to the quadraphonic sound system, and nice visual especially the part where Roger acted as the submarine shooter destroyed an oil rig (also with a real explosion on the stage!). PP Arnold also performed her vocal part perfectly, supported with the crowd sang the line “Can't you see? It all makes perfect sense”.

As a 'new' song, Roger introduced Leaving Beirut as a reflection of his visit to Lebanon when he was 19 and being hosted with great hospitality by a family there. The lyrics expressed his story, combined with some political messages related to US influence in the Middle East. We could follow the complete lyrics as it was transformed as cartoon images on the screen. There were some interesting parts in the lyrics, for example 'That Texas education must have fucked you up', pointed to Bush, and a mention of Atticus Finch, a fictional character from To Kill a Mockingbird novel, which accidentally I just read.

The first set was closed with Sheep. This song gave ultimate ending for the set. The quadraphonic system once again used perfectly for the animals sound (the dog howling sounded so real!). And..off course, everyone expected the pig flies. It floated around quite long, with several writings on it such as 'Stop Bush Now' on the side and 'What an asshole!' on its rear.

Flying pig during Sheep

During the break, I could enjoy the satisfaction on majority of the audiences, especially the older people. Meanwhile the screen displayed image of the moon, which very slowly looked bigger and bigger until the lights were off once again and the heart beat sound filling the stadium. This sound was reflected as a red dot at the moon orbit, which grew closer and turned out to be a satellite, focused on the center of the screen at the screaming sound at the end of Speak To Me.

The second set was a complete performance of the Dark Side of the Moon.

Breathe was sung perfectly by Jon Carin. The sound effects during On the Run were brilliant, extended with several extra effects such as sirens, trains, and braking car sounds. The visual was pretty much the same as the original animation or the one showed in the PULSE DVD.

Time was another perfect performance from the band, started with very real ticking and ringing clocks, then with nice percussions. I always like the part when the song was blended back to Breathe..”home..home again..”.

Further on, Carol Kenyon performed a wonderful voice on The Great Gig in the Sky. She got a very warm applause by the audience.

Money was, as always, everyone's favorite. Roger Waters looked very much enjoy playing the bass and singing this song. Us and Them also was crowd's favorite. I like the smoothness and calmness of this song.

Any Colour You Like was also wonderful. The guitar sounds were nice.
During Brain Damage, there was a pyramid shape placed above the stage, which was turning and sending colourful laser beam throughout the stadium. The sound was also brilliant, the laughs sounded very real.
The DSOTM set was ended by Eclipse, a short song that closed by the heart beat sound as the beginning of the set.

The crowd went crazy, clapped and shouted when the band disappeared behind the stage. They would not stop until finally Roger and the other musicians back on the stage and performed the encore.

The encore comprised songs from The Wall, started with The Happiest Days of Our Lives followed by Another Brick in the Wall (part 2), where it seemed like nobody could not sing it. Snowy White played the solo almost as perfect as David Gilmour.

Vera was sung with lots of emotion by Roger and most of the crowds also sang along with him. As in the album, Vera was followed with Bring the Boys Back Home, with visualization of war scene complete with bomb explosions and smokes.

The show was closed with the classic ending song of Roger Waters' concert, the famous psychotic Comfortably Numb. The guitar solos were played nicely by both Dave Kilminster and Snowy White. The screen displayed again the radio transistor, but this time exposed the hand owner, a man seated almost laid down on the couch, smoking and staring to infinity, very good illustration of a comfortable numb.

Then it was over. For me it was the most spectacular concert that I ever experienced, in terms of the visual, the sound quality, and the whole integrity of the show production. On the other hand, maybe because of the size of the show, I missed the intimacy and communication between the musicians and the audiences that usually quite intense in the smaller shows.


Concert set list:

First set:
- In the Flesh
- Mother
- Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun
- Shine On You Crazy Diamond Parts 1-5
- Have a Cigar
- Wish You Were Here
- Southampton Dock
- The Fletcher Memorial Home
- Perfect Sense Part 1 and 2
- Leaving Beirut
- Sheep

Second set:
The Dark Side of the Moon

Encore:
- The Happiest Days of Our Lives
- Another Brick in the Wall, Part II
- Vera
- Bring the Boys Back Home
- Comfortably Numb


Musicians:
Roger Waters – Vocals, bass guitar and acoustic guitar
Andy Fairweather-Low – Guitar, bass and backing vocals
Snowy White – Guitar
Dave Kilminster – Guitar, vocals and additional bass
Jon Carin – Synthesizer, guitar, lap steel guitar and vocals
Harry Waters – Hammond organ and synthesizer
Ian Ritchie – Saxophone, EWI and additional bass
Graham Broad – Drums and percussion
Katie Kissoon - Backing vocals
P. P. Arnold - Backing vocals
Carol Kenyon – Backing vocals