Pink Floyd: Roger Waters (left) with band members Nick Mason, Syd Barrett and Rick Wright

The huge cost of producing the show, in which a vast wall of blocks is built across the stage, meant it visited just four cities when first performed.

But now Waters is to revive the show for a 30-city tour of Europe next year. It will follow a series of US performances.

Six dates in the UK and Ireland are planned with three shows in London, two in Manchester and one in Dublin.

Floyd’s double album The Wall – which dealt with chart unfriendly issues such as alienation and isolation – spawned number one single Another Brick In The Wall Part II, and featured tracks such as Comfortably Numb.

The huge effort in staging The Wall meant the show was performed only in Los Angeles, New York, Dortmund and London during 1980 and 1981. After leaving the band, Waters staged it again close to the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin in 1990.

He said today: ‘Thirty years ago when I wrote The Wall, I was a frightened young man.’

‘In the intervening years it has occurred to me that maybe the story of my fear and loss with its concomitant inevitable residue of ridicule, shame and punishment, provides an allegory for broader concerns: nationalism, racism, sexism, religion, whatever.’

‘All these issues and ‘isms’ are driven by the same fears that drove my young life.’

Waters made his last live appearance with Pink Floyd at the final performance of The Wall at Earls Court in 1981, until they reformed for a one-off show at Live 8 in 2005.

Waters’ touring band will include his son Harry on keyboards.

The European leg of the tour will begin in Portugal on March 21 2011.

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Syd Barrett le premier Pink Floyd / Syd Barrett, le Rock et autres trucs – interviews avec les auteurs!

DOSSIER
24 pages spécial rétrospective 2006-2007-2008 pour replonger dans l’actu de ces trois années exceptionnelles

MAIS AUSSI…

• La Black Strat
• A Momentary Lapse of Reason
• Oh By The Way

• Coffret Piper
• Look Of The Week ’67
• les claviers de Rick part 1 – Les orgues
• Madcap’s Last Laugh

• The Australian Pink Floyd Show en France
• Sorties livre et DVD
• Figure libre
• etc…

Ça fait envie hein ? Ben moi je l’ai déjà lu^^ Vous pouvez le commander depuis le site du fanzine. Tarifs (frais de port compris) : 8€ pour la France / 10€ pour le reste de l’Europe.

Chapeau-bas et merci à toute l’équipe du fanzine pour ce beau projet :)

To try to get a grip on these similarities, I did some extensive searching for summaries or synopses of the stories told by each album.  The following were, I feel, the simplest but most helpful.

TOMMY

British Army Captain Walker is reported missing in action during World War I, and is not expected ever to be seen again. Shortly after his wife, Mrs. Walker, receives this news, she gives birth to their son, Tommy.  Approximately four years later, Captain Walker returns home and discovers that his wife has found a new lover. Captain Walker confronts the two and kills the lover. Tommy witnesses this through his mirror. To cover up the crime, Tommy’s parents tell Tommy that he didn’t see it, didn’t hear it, and he will say “nothing to no one ever in [his] life”. A
traumatized Tommy becomes deaf, dumb, and blind.

Tommy’s subconscious reveals itself to him as a tall stranger dressed in silvery robes, and the vision sets him on an internal spiritual journey upon which he learns to interpret all physical sensations as music.

His thoughtless parents leave him to the care of his cousin, Kevin, who tortures him and later to the care of his uncle Ernie, an alcoholic child molester.  Uncle Ernie, like Kevin, takes abuses Tommy (in this case sexually) knowing he will not be caught.

Tommy’s brilliance at pinball is discovered, and quickly defeats the game’s tournament champion, making him an international celebrity, really like a rock mega-star.

His parents find a medical specialist to once more try to understand and cure his symptoms. After numerous tests, they are told that there is nothing medically wrong with him, and that his problems are psychosomatic. However, as they are trying to reach him, Tommy’s subconscious is also trying to reach out to them.  Tommy’s mother continues to try to reach him, and becomes frustrated that he completely ignores her while staring directly at a mirror. Out of this frustration
she smashes the mirror.  The smashing of the mirror snaps Tommy back into reality. Tommy’s cure becomes a public sensation and he attains guru-like status. Thereafter he assumes a quasi-messianic mantle and tries to lead his fans to an enlightenment similar to his own.

Tommy opens his own home to anyone willing to join him, and urges them to bring as many people with them as they can.  His home ultimately turns into a “holiday camp” run by Uncle Ernie, who is apparently motivated by greed and not spiritual enlightenment.  Tommy demands that his followers play pinball and blind, deafen and mute themselves in order to truly reach their spiritual height, but the heavy-handedness of his cult and the exploitation of its followers by his family and
associates cause his followers to revolt against him. Abandoned by his followers and worshipers, Tommy gains a new enlightenment.

Adapted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_(album)#Story_in_chronological_order

THE WALL

From the outset, Pink’s life revolves around an abyss of loss and isolation. Born to a war-ravaged nation that takes his father’s life in the name of “duty,” and an overprotective mother who lavishes equal measures of her love and phobias onto her son, Pink chooses to build a mental wall between himself and the rest of the world so that he can live in a constant, alienated equilibrium free from life’s physical and emotional troubles. Every incident that causes Pink pain is yet another brick in his ever-growing wall: a fatherless childhood, a domineering mother, a country whose king signs his father’s death certificate with a rubber stamp, the superficiality of stardom, an estranged marriage, even the very drugs he turns to in order to find release. As his wall nears completion, each brick further closing him off from the rest of the world, Pink spirals into a void of insanity, cementing in place the final brick in the wall. Yet the minute it is complete, Pink begins to realize the adverse effects of total mental isolation, helplessly watching as his fragmented psyche coalesces into the very dictatorial persona that antagonized the world during World War II, scarred his nation, killed his father, and thereby defiled his own life from birth. Culminating in a mental trial as theatrically rich as the greatest stage shows, the story ends with a message that is as enigmatic and circular as the rest of Pink’s life. Whether it is ultimately viewed as a cynical story about the futility of life, or a hopeful journey of metaphorical death and rebirth, the Wall is certainly a musical milestone worthy of the title “art.”

http://www.thewallanalysis.com/Intro.html

Is it just me, or are there some amazing similarities?  Here are those that jumped out at me.  Both Tommy and Pink lose their fathers who fight for Britain in a world war.  Tommy’s father is only presumed dead so long for his mother to take a new lover; Pink’s father is forever lost.

Most startlingly, the cruelty of parents, relatives and authority figures in general twist and warp the minds of the characters.  Tommy’s parents, indifferent and distant at best, turn him over to be tortured by a bully cousin and sick and twisted uncle.  Doctors torture him with ineffective “cures.”  Pink endures his overbearing mother and viciousness of wicked teachers.

Stardom is the temporary salvation, or at least solace, of each character.  Their celebrity, Tommy’s as a “pinball wizard” (really a rock star) and Pink’s as a rock star, bring them the fame and glory, make them little gods.  As is often the case in real life, that glory eventually becomes their emotional and psychological undoing.

While both arrive at their end point by extremely divergent paths, both cult-like figures, are taken down by their followers.  Tommy’s holiday camp attendees overthrow him.  Pink is “tried” in some fashion of a court for what in essence amount to war crimes.   Tommy is booted from his throne.  Pink’s wall is torn asunder.

At the risk of overstating the importance or depth of these works, there’s no doubt a more scholarly look at them might find more interesting and detailed similarities.  I’m neither a music nor literature expert.  My eyes are untrained to find themes, moods, tone and so on.  Nevertheless, there appear to be enough points of likeness between Tommy and The Wall to merit mention.  I’d love to read anything others might have said on the subject and welcome lots of feedback.

I could never tell you why I never even gave Pink Floyd a chance.  I just didn’t.  The closest thing I had to a reason was that there were just “not my style.”  It’s not as if I’d never heard them.  They’re a staple of rock radio.  I’ve heard a few dozen songs on radio alone and probably bits and pieces of albums that friends have played.  But I never sat down and listened to a single album start to finish.  No, I didn’t even try to watch The Wall synced with The Wizard Of Oz.  Since I’ve never been a head, I suppose I never felt the need to really pay much attention.

Lately, though, I’ve felt like I’ve run out of good rock and roll.  I’m a Beatles fanatic but I’m trying not to OD on the new mono and stereo remasters, which have been in heavy rotation at home, work and in the car for 2 weeks.  I need to pick up the new Black Crowes album and that will quench my rock thirst. . . for a time.

For now, though, let’s see how I like the Floyd.

The Late, Grammy-winning singer Miriam Makeba

great recent tweets…
~BK77: “90 & sunny in LA. why dont i live there? besides the gang violence, smog, crippled economy, crumbling state govt, & bad traffic, i mean.”
~runnerforchrist:”It is seldom indeed that one parts on good terms, because if one were on good terms one would not part.”-Marcel Proust   
          ———-
big music…
(all credit goes to billboard.com via myway.com-and of course, this great site www.thisdayinmusic.com, who can also be followed on Twitter with same name)
~1945, Born on this day, Rick Wright, keyboards, vocals, Pink Floyd, (1973 US No.1 & UK No.2 album ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’, spent a record breaking 741 weeks on the US chart. 1979 UK and US No.1 single ‘Another Brick In The Wall, (part 2)’. Pink Floyd have sold over 200 million albums worldwide). Wright died on 15th Sept 2008 aged 65 from cancer. Wright appeared on the group’s first album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, in 1967 alongside Syd Barrett, Roger Waters and Nick Mason.
Billboard ranks the group’s 1973 album “Dark Side of the Moon” as the longest-charting album of all time. It stays on the magazine’s pop album chart for more than 10 years and sells more than 10 million copies.
          ———–
forwards…we get FWD’s…
(thanks to mannmade)
*Ways to Show You’re a Grown-Up*
~Your houseplants are alive, and you can’t smoke any of them.
~You keep more food than beer in the fridge.
~You hear your favorite song in an elevator.
~Having sex in a twin bed is out of the question.
~Sleeping on the couch makes your back hurt.
~Dinner and a movie is the whole date instead of the beginning of one. 
          ———-
in case you give a rat’s rear end…
*Fads of the 50′s*
Colored streamers for bicycle handlebars
baseball cards in your bike’s wheel spokes (to make a fwap-fwap sound)
TV Dinners
Drive-in theaters
Panty Raids
Letter Sweaters  
Jukeboxes
Fins and chrome on cars
Abstract expressionism
Diners
Teenyboppers
DA Haircut    
Blue suede loafers
Bunny hop
Sock Hops
          ———-
more events for this date…
~1944 Blues guitarist Mike Bloomfield is born in Chicago; member of the Paul Butterfield band and Electric Flag. Played on Dylan’s album ‘Highway 61 Revisited.’  He dies on Feb. 15, 1981, in San Francisco of an accidental drug overdose.   
~1933 1st singing telegram delivered (to Rudy Vallee, on his 32nd birthday), NYC
~1977 1st oil flow through the Alaska pipeline
~1991 Buffalo Bills beat Phila Eagles, 17-13 in American Bowl in Wembley
          ———-
random-ness…
~Lymph (V.), to walk with a lisp.
~”What’s another word for Thesaurus?”-Steven Wright
~”An intellectual snob is someone who can listen to the William Tell Overture and not think of The Lone Ranger.”-Dan Rather
          ———-
and finally…your really big music note on this date…
*1973 A crowd of 600,000 gathers for a rock festival at Watkins Glen* Raceway, N.Y., to hear the Grateful Dead, the Band and the Allman Brothers Band.
 Over 600,000 rock fans attended. Many historians claimed the event was the largest gathering of people in the history of the United States. 150,000 tickets were sold for $10 each, but for all the other people it was a free concert.
(No, that’s not my ticket, but I was there. As the rain slowed-down, we wandered back to the concert site, catching the last of the Band’s set, and getting really close to the stage for the Allman Brothers Band. My biggest and best memory of Watkins Glen was being enthralled with the Allman Bros’ set! It didn’t matter that I had to stand (and sometimes crouch or sit) in the mud for a few hours-they were incredible!  And upon going back to a regular life, remember every week I would buy one of their LP’s…and yeah…they were just as awesome on vinyl as they were ‘live’.
Have some links here, in case you wanted to check out the story of the concert and some photos…Thanks to “Glen” and “Sabre_Fan” and “Mark Spaulding” for posting some great stuff!)
~http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_Jam_at_Watkins_Glen
~http://www.glenphotos.com/summerjam/
~http://www.chronos-historical.org/rockfest/articles/WG1.html
          ———-

Going to wrap it up here with another memory…of Gary having this LP amongst his vast album collection…Caoi for now…

Korg SP250 digital piano

After weeks of deliberating I finally put my hard earned down on a Korg SP250 last week.

Having spent many hours fantasising about owning a Nord Stage or one of the top of the range Rolands, I had an unsual bout of sensibleness and realised that I neither required nor could afford such extravagance.

A trip to the local music shop rammed this fact home even harder as the assistant suggested I try out the Korg which was a quarter of the price of some of the previously mentioned digital wizardry.

Suffice to say I was knocked out enough by the sound and feel of the keys to place an order.  And now it sits comfortably in my home studio.

Having spent most of the weekend learning the intro to Pink Floyd’s Great Gig in the Sky I can honestly say the £559 I paid for the piano was an absolute bargain.  If, like me, you dont possess a fantastic knowledge of pianos and their individual nuances and tonal qualities, the SP250 will do you perfectly.  If the reviews on the web are to be believed, it isn’t that far off the RD700′s of this world.

Inbuilt speakers are handy, as is the metronome and while many will be dismayed at the lack of USB connectivity, it can be hooked up to your PC or Mac via MIDI, as you’d expect, if you wish to use it as a controller keyboard for your software synths.

As previously mentioned, the piano sounds come highly recommended and the electric pianos are more than adequate offering the enevitable Rhodes clone along with a few other punchy patches to boot.  Strings ain’t half bad either and complement the piano sounds nicely when used in tandem.

The organs are probably the weakest of the lot but still perfectly useable.  If truth be told, I have little interest in the other instruments, as my studio already contains everything from full orchestra sections to burning piano samples (courtesy of Omnisphere), therefore everything is covered and it’s not really the reason I bought the piano in the first place.  Those that are expecting a wealth of general midi sounds will be disappointed.  But then, GM is so 90s, isn’t it?

On the learning side of things, I’m still engrossing myself in some of YouTube’s tutorials and, in particular, as mentioned above, The Great Gig in the Sky.  Rick Wright, god rest his soul, wasn’t Mozart which makes his pieces quite a nice way of easing yourself into piano.  He uses relatively basic albeit unusual chord structures which are a joy to play.

Next up – it’s time to book some real lessons.

Cela faisait un bout de temps que je voulais le faire, voici un petit récapitulatif de tous les concerts de Pink Floyd en France disponibles en téléchargement sur le site. Sont également inclus les concerts des membres en solo, les émissions de radio et bon nombre de vidéos !

1970

• Pink Floyd – Broadcasting From Europa 1 – 21 janvier, MP3
• Pink Floyd – Élysées Floyd – 23 janvier, MP3
• Pink Floyd – Live in Paris – 23 janvier, SHN
• Pink Floyd – Live at Saint-Tropez – DivX
• Pink Floyd – Live at Saint-Tropez – DVD
• Pink Floyd – Fête de l’Humanité – 12 septembre, SHN

1971

• Pink Floyd – Live in Lyon – 12 juin, SHN

1972

• Pink Floyd – Poitiers 1972 – 29 novembre, MP3
• Pink Floyd – Live in Poitiers (Palais des Sports) – 29 novembre, SHN
• Pink Floyd – Live in Saint Ouen (Palais des sports de l’île de la Jatte) – 2 décembre, SHN
• Pink Floyd – Lyon Gerland – 10 décembre, MP3

1973

• Pink Floyd – A Night With Roland – 13 et 14 janvier, MP3
• Pink Floyd – Live in Paris (Palais des Sports) – 13 janvier, SHN
• Pink Floyd – Roland Petit Ballets – janvier, DVD

1974

• Pink Floyd – Colmar French Tour 1974 – 22 juin, MP3
• Pink Floyd – The Lost Second Set – 22 juin, MP3
• Pink Floyd – Live in Colmar (Parc des Expositions) – 22 juin, SHN
• Pink Floyd – Live in Versailles (Palais des Sports de la Porte de Versailles) – 24 juin, SHN

1977

• Pink Floyd – Pavillon De Pigs – 22 février, MP3
• Pink Floyd – Paris 1977 – 23 février, MP3
• Pink Floyd – Pavillon De Paris – 24 février, MP3

1984

• David Gilmour – Le Zenith Paris – MP3

1988

• Pink Floyd – Versailles – 21 et 22 juin, MP3
• Pink Floyd – Live in Versailles (Place d’armes du Château de Versailles) – 21 juin, SHN
• Pink Floyd – Live in Versailles – DVD
• Pink Floyd – Live in Grenoble (Stade Municipal) – 15 juillet, SHN
• Pink Floyd – Live in Nice (Stade de l’Ouest) – 17 juillet, SHN
• Pink Floyd – Live in Villneuve d’Ascq (Stadium Nord) – 28 juillet, SHN

1989

• Pink Floyd – Paris Bercy – du 27 juin au 1^er juillet, MP3
• Pink Floyd – Marseilles 1989.7.18 – 18 juillet, MP3

1994

• Pink Floyd – Chantilly Cream – 30 mars, MP3
• Pink Floyd – Bells from Notre-Dame – 30 juillet, MP3
• Pink Floyd – Esplanade des Quinconces, Bordeaux – 11 août, MP3
• Pink Floyd – Comfortablement Engourdi en France – 9 septembre, MP3
• Pink Floyd – France 1994 – 11 septembre, MP3

2005

• Nick Mason chez Ardisson – MPG

2006

• Roger Waters – Magny-Cours – MP3
• David Gilmour – Intronise le REX – MP3
• David Gilmour – La Claque ! – MP3
• David Gilmour – Have You Found It Up There, Andy ? – MP3

2008

• Hommage à Rick Wright sur Classic 21 – radio, MP3

2009

• Sur la route de Pink Floyd – radio, MP3
• Syd Barrett – Sous les étoiles exactement – radio, MP3

Merci à tous les uploadeurs : Roger Keith, Jean-Manuel, Mnzaou et InTheFlesh !

Yesterday’s (Sunday, March 22nd) edition of The Sunday Times of London published a fascinating article about Pink Floyd. Written by Robert Sandall, the article covers a lot of ground, including the relationship of the members of the band with its original leader, Syd Barrett, the death from cancer last year of keyboardist Rick Wright, and the long power struggle for control of the band that was waged by David Gilmour and Roger Waters. The article is a great piece of music journalism and is definitely a must-read for any Pink Floyd fan.

To read the article, click here.

Pink Floyd last performed at the Live 8 concert in London’s Hyde Park in July 2005. Pictured above at that show are (left to right) David Gilmour, Roger Waters, Nick Mason, and Rick Wright. The following year, Gilmour toured with Wright as a member of his band and Nick Mason appeared at some of Roger Waters’ solo concerts. But the rumored reunion tour of Pink Floyd will likely never happen now that Wright has passed away.

by MATT LARKIN

The Final Cut is the highly anticipated follow up to The Wall and what many regard as a low-grade b-side album, but this has to be the pinnacle of Pink Floyd’s catalogue. The opening track The Post War Dream lays the concept of the album out on the table, war, politics and grief.

Throughout the album bassist and songwriter Roger Waters’ voice is the one that is heard while guitarist Dave Gilmour only delivers backing vocals on Not Now John> It was through this period when the two band leaders’ strong personalities were clashing. Keyboardist and founding member Rick Wright was fired before the recording began and tension was high. Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason have said that they were in constant disagreement with Waters who was obsessed with being in control of everything.

And rightly so, as this may even be construed as a Waters solo album, which was performed by Pink Floyd. Many Floyd fans would rank this at the lowest in their list of greatest Floyd albums due to the creative control that Waters had over the album. But to others (including me) that’s exactly why this is their greatest work and why it does, in one disc, a much better job of what The Wall attempted to do in two.

The music itself is fairly simple if even basic, but it’s the simplicity that amplifies the effect of Gilmour’s solos and presence, or the feeling as the orchestra swells up and dissipates over us or when the saxophone rips out an emotional solo on a track like The Gunner’s Dream.

The album is dripping with the theme of War, in particular the Falkland’s and WWII. The writing about Margaret Thatcher does little to hide Waters political and even moral stance on war as he writes about his late father who died in WWII and the others who died have died through war. Throughout the album Waters condemns war, and tyrants like some of the residents in The Fletcher Memorial Home.

The Final Cut is defiantly the most personal writing from Waters, the most tense and dramatic album they’ve ever put in a sleeve, and it’s this that reinforces the most effective and key element of its music, the lyrics. If you’re looking for something to truly listen to and absorb and appreciate then you will listen this, Waters’ finest hour.