Roger Waters: In The Flesh

ROGER WATERS: IN THE FLESH (2000)

CD I: 1) In The Flesh; 2) The Happiest Days Of Our Lives; 3) Another Brick In The Wall, Pt. 2; 4) Mother; 5) Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert; 6) Southampton Dock; 7) Pigs On The Wing, Pt. 1; 8) Dogs; 9) Welcome To The Machine; 10) Wish You Were Here; 11) Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Pts. 1-8; 12) Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun.

CD II: 1) Speak To Me / Breathe; 2) Time; 3) Money; 4) 5:06 AM; 5) Perfect Sense, Pts. 1 And 2; 6) The Bravery Of Being Out Of Range; 7) Itʼs A Miracle; 8) Amused To Death; 9) Brain Damage; 10) Eclipse; 11) Comfortably Numb; 12) Each Small Candle.

General verdict: A passable live effort from Roger, but seriously flawed because of professional jealousy, a clumsy setlist, and questionable choices of backing musicians. 

Iʼd like to begin this with the amusing observation that my digital copy of In The Flesh has almost the exact same running length as my copy of P.U.L.S.E. — two hours and twenty-seven minutes, differing by just a handful of seconds. Of course, this is basically just the running length of two fully stuffed CDs, and is essentially just a coincidence, but still, it is hard to get rid of the feeling that Roger was feeling jealous of his bandmatesʼ promotional successes — and that the explicit depiction of an eclipse and a pig on the front cover of his new live album was supposed to remind the public of which one, after all, was Pink.

Alas, I got bad news for you, Roger: in a live setting, you and your band are no match for David Gilmour. The only time when you can outshine him is when you are performing material from Animals, an album that is so much you that the Waters-less Pink Floyd could never bring them­selves to tackle even one track from it. Everywhere else, when it comes to replicating Daveʼs playing and even Daveʼs singing, your backing band is... well, just a backing band.

I mean, somebody like Snowy White is obviously a very skilled and not untalented guitarist (otherwise they wouldnʼt have vetted him for the Wall concerts back in 1980), but it only takes the first ten seconds of the guitar intro to ʽShine Onʼ to tell the difference between the average guitar professional and the one-of-a-kind guitar God. Snowy has a generic, screechy tone instead of Daveʼs silky-caressing one, his timing of the opening notes is just abysmal (is he really in such a hurry to get things done?), and he has no idea of how to do a Gilmour bend, which is totally indispensable in this context. I almost literally cringe when I hear that sound; and I actually liked Snowy Whiteʼs guitar work in late-era Thin Lizzy. The other guitarist is Doyle Bramhall II, who does a guitar battle with Snowy over ʽComfortably Numbʼ, and the two turn it into some sort of friendly Guitar Hero sparring that is fun for a while, but ultimately has nothing to do with the expected emotional message of the song.

Of course, Roger himself probably couldnʼt care less about all them guitar solos. His point was completely different — he had to demonstrate the continuity and coherence between classic Floyd material, from Dark Side to The Wall, and his solo career: there are a few bits here from both Final Cut and Pros And Cons (conspicuously no Radio K.A.O.S., though), and a large chunk of material from Amused To Death, interwoven between Floyd hits so that, once again, the world might truly understand who is the legitimate heir to Floydʼs legacy, and who is an errant and misguided impostor. As far as Iʼm concerned, this does not work, either: every time that a new endlessly stretched out number from Amused To Death comes on, I find myself looking at the time, yearning for Snowy White to come along and do another one of those bad imitations, er, I mean, impressions, uhm, I wanted to say interpretations of Gilmour solos.

I cannot openly give the album a bad rating, because much of this stuff is still listenable, and it would take some really untalented hacks to completely spoil a Floyd-like experience. In fact, I am almost sure that part of the reason why this doesnʼt work is that Bramhall and White actually want to introduce a bit of their own styles into the proceedings, rather than just loyally copy the originals — itʼs just that the material does not lend itself to any such introductions, since it is dangerous by definition to toy with perfection. For what itʼs worth, there is one piece here that really feels out of place, yet it might be the best performance of them all: for some reason, just once Roger feels the urge to dig into the deep psychedelic past and bring back to life ʽSet The Controls For The Heart Of The Sunʼ (actually, I think I know the reason — didnʼt the P.U.L.S.E. tour feature ʽAstronomy Domineʼ? man, that Roger, so predictable in his jealousy!), and the performance is practically irreproachable in its hallucinatory splendor. Why? Because it is more of a polyphonic piece, with next to no emphasis on individual players and their weaknesses.

In the end, though, comparing P.U.L.S.E. with In The Flesh merely helps to reassert the old stereotypes — Gilmour is more about the music and Waters so much more about the message. But even the message is garbled, because it has to clash against the necessity of performing all the obligatory Floyd hits: ʽShine On You Crazy Diamondʼ is definitely not part of the message, but there it is, too, and in a pretty bad way. The one new song specially written for the tour, ʽEach Small Candleʼ, is part of the message — and it is a bad song, a slow bluesy dirge whose pompous coda almost threatens to turn Roger Waters into the very same Andrew Lloyd Webber whom he despises so much. All in all, I cannot shake off the feeling that the quality of the performance is far lower than Roger is capable of — then again, I couldnʼt shake off that same feeling for both Delicate Sound Of Thunder and P.U.L.S.E., and, ironically, my observations are that both Roger and Dave would actually improve as solo live performers as they grew ever older... but let us not run too far ahead.