Roger Waters photos
Rex Features - 2002
Click on the link above, or indeed here to get to Rex Features 32 pictures of Roger - including eight shots from the Wembley concert, including the Waters/Mason reunion, nine pictures from Glastonbury, three from Bangkok, and a selection of older pictures. Naturally, from the resulting page, you can also search for their pictures of Mr Gilmour, Mr Mason, Mr Barrett, but oddly, not Mr Wright.
Roger Waters pictured at Glastonbury
eFestivals - 1 July 2002
Click here or on the above link for a very nice selection of pictures of Roger at Glastonbury.
Roger Waters - Glastonbury, Pyramid Stage
Dotmusic - 2 July 2002
There are those at this year's Glastonbury who've never heard of Roger Waters. There are others who've made the trip just to see this part of the former Pink Floyd bassist's 'In The Flesh' tour. Floyd's continued feud and Waters' stubborn ego, combine to ensure that his shows are always a greatest hits package and so the Floyd freaks are here, licking their lips.
Even the biggest indie kid in the land recognises 'Another Brick In The Wall' (cue looks of 'oh. so that's who he is' as the school choir kicks in on the chorus), while those of us in the know can't help but chuckle when the old stage master employs the in-field PA stacks to fire disconcerting sound effects of diving fighter plans and barking dogs at full volume in glorious surround-sound, terrifying some more delicate souls.
'Mother' reminds us that at the heart of classic Pink Floyd, lays some beautifully simple songs - Roger strumming a gentle acoustic here - while the inclusion of top of the range session guitarists Chester Kamen and Snowy White ensure that the full Floyd sound can be replicated when needed. Witness the white hot playing on the classic 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond' - what an opening, clanging riff, and only three notes.
'Dogs' concludes with more bafflement for the uninitiated as Roger and the band sit centre-stage and play poker, swigging vodka, while a keyboard interlude noodles away. Coldplay fans are now shaking their heads in disbelief - "they're playing bloody cards!" 'Wish You Were Here' picks up the thread as the rain starts but Roger, resembling a veteran Guy Richie getaway driver, and the band are a compelling spectacle, even in this cut down version of their show.
The classic 'Money' kicks off some late evening, 'what the hell' boogie all around before we marvel at Snowy White's contribution on 'Comfortably Numb' and admit, in some cases begrudgingly, that the old guys can still entertain and surprise a crowd with a few long-forgotten tricks. If only Rod Stewart had been watching.
Roger Waters at Glastonbury
New Musical Express (NME) - 1 July 2002
excerpt:
That Roger Waters’ set is preposterous nonsense goes without saying. But if we are willing to accept prog moments from the likes of Radiohead and Doves then we have to accept the dark side.
After the initial shock of thinking the trees behind you are falling down, you realise you’re witnessing an epic rock experience in full audio surround sound. After three days and no sleep in a field, it almost feels normal. But as the initial comedy makes way for a second plodding hour, the prospect of getting the tent packed up early is almost irresistible.
Roger Waters at Glastonbury
Glastonbury Web site - 3 July 2002
All the old hippies are loving this. They've been hanging around all day, hungover, desperate to get home to hot baths and clean toilets, but this is their last chance to experience some prog and use up their gear.
Roger Waters solo career has never been particularly interesting has it? A strange state of affairs considering that his work is the most popular and certainly the most impressive in the Pink Floyd camp. By the time Radio KAOS came about though, everyone who even had a vague idea of what was going on and where the songs were, seemed to keep it to themselves as a well guarded secret because the rest of us scratched our heads in bewilderment. There were one or two glimmers of hope, such as the Berlin Wall gig with the cast of, well, everybody, but essentially things like this seemed a terribly shallow attempt to make some money off the back of the Pink Floyd name or the last act of a desperate old man to regain some credibility by saying "Look at me! I wrote this! I did, honest!"
Gilmour/Mason's Floyd of course, have (or had) the backing, the promotion, the budget, the stage show, and of course the name to make serious impact in whatever they do. They both surround themselves with seriously talented session musicians to try and make us forget that they're not together any more, so the end result live is that both bands play the same songs, in the same way, with the same levels of quality and the only difference is that Floyd have stage technology so advanced that God considers them show-offs, while Roger has a big screen, some Hipgnosis film and some quad sound. There's one less ego.
Apprehension runs high tonight. There is a clear division between the people who are genuinely excited about Roger and those that are just standing there with arms folded like a bouncer blocking a nightclub doorway, saying "Come on then old man, impress me.", daring him to prove it.. There are others of course, but they're still on the floor, with a vague inability to stand up, wondering who Roger Waters is.
He's here of course to promote some new stuff like any sensible fellow and to play some of the Floyd back catalogue. The tour has been going since February and climaxes here tonight, so he's got a very happy air about him, has Roger. He's looking well too, not quite as haggard as he used to look, and from a certain light, I heard it said that he looks like Richard Gere, but with less inclination to insert animals into his interior plumbing. However, the first hour has one purpose only and that's to keep the Floyd fans riveted so that's exactly what we get, with the odd dash of bizarre surrealism thrown in for the crack.
It's predominantly and predictably, a collage of images spanning the various stages of Floyd in no particular chronological order, accompanied with and highlighted by the aforementioned visual video imagery just in case you're forgotten what song it is. Selections from everything since Dark Side Of The Moon, are executed perfectly and there's an incredible amount of delicate thought being woven into every one. The voice and guitar work of Gilmour is more than adequately replaced by Snowy White with Chester Cayman and, yes, even Andy Fairweather Low, to create a super-slick facsimile of the Floyd experience and yes, you can even try it with your eyes closed to check that it really is as consummately perfect and polished as it seems.
It's all very safe material. "Another Brick In The Wall", "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", "Wish You Were Here", "Time", "Money" it's all there. Precise and perfect but not clinically so, allowing certain eccentricities to play mischievously around the structures before returning to their rightful place and pretending nothing's happened.
Waters though, despite being at the biggest British audience he's played to in a long, long time, is taking everything in his stride with a wry smile and bizarre twist. He likes nothing better than to remind us that when it comes down to it, he's a bit of a fruitcake and while taking a mild instrumental break, sits down at a table with a bottle of Stolly and starts to play cards with his crew, never looking at us until he's finished. When he does, it's as if we're the peculiar ones for wondering what he's up to, as y'do I suppose. You see, there's a tiny degree of charm in the way that Waters projects his various peculiarities and I suppose that's what makes his solo work so inaccessible. With Floyd at least there were other maniacs there to keep him in check, while solo he's got a free hand and nobody will have the heart to tell him whether something's shit or not. But Roger doesn't need his ego massaging any more, that's the thing. it shows in his face, and it shows in his performance and that's something that I for one am thankful for.
The solo work is thankfully underplayed tonight. Don't get me wrong, historically it has moments of inspired twisted genius, despite there not being many actual songs there among the experimental soundscapes but tonight it could all too easily have been an outing for him to shove down our throats just how good his new material is, with an hour of overblown bombastic pomposity and maybe chuck in a handful of crowd pleasers. Instead we get the angelically delicate and quite touching "Flickering Flame", placed quite deliberately after "Comfortably Numb" as a reminder that yes, he may have written songs that will follow him around long after he dies but there is still within him a poet, a performer and a person with a heart and soul capable of producing beautiful, precious things.
Roger Waters is not Pink Floyd, but then Pink Floyd are not Pink Floyd. They'll never reform and even if they did, it probably wouldn't be for the right reasons so we should stop making comparisons and let Roger at least carry on doing what he does, whatever that may be. We cant write him off just yet and he'll never have sales that even hint at his former heyday, but he is focused and happy with himself and that's always a sign that things are on the up creatively.