At $3 a ticket, Jim Morrison got away with being an egotistical a$$hole. At $15 a ticket, Axl Rose got away with it as well. Neither were political but were repulsive.
Waters, with the help of his bandmates, wrote some classic songs that sold millions of albums, until his ego and a$$holism caused the band to dissolve, eventually continuing without him. Even though the band then made less than classic albums, when they toured at the same time he did, the audiences voted with their wallets and attended the Floyd shows en masse instead of his.
At $100 + a ticket, as his art has declined and his attitude is insufferable, don't be surprised if this is his last tour. His behavior is overly political as well as repulsive.
orgillian197 - My suggestion for you is research artists personal beliefs before you buy their music or attend any live event. Do the same with actors before watching television and movies. Research CEO beliefs and positions before buying any of their products. That way, you will not be conflicted or experience discomfort as you move across the entertainment and product spectrum.
Gents, I drilled down pretty deep into this in a earlier (long winded) post, but have a few additional (short) comments.
The country is divided. It’s not getting better. Our common links and connections are fragile and being compromised on a daily basis. Concerts are one of those areas where magnitudes of people can still gather and share their passions, experiences, and (positive) energy, regardless of their background or belief systems. As far as performers are concerned, there’s a diffferce between talking TO your audience (Graham Nash) and talking DOWN to your audience. The goal of a concert should be to have a greater sense of unity and loyality to the artist than before. If this didn’t happen, something is amiss. There is no problem with someone sharing their view of life provided they make EVERYONE in attendance feel welcome, and valued. Stomping around, breaking links and connections, and having your audience feel guilty about foreign policy decisions and government corruption that happened well above their paygrades (or, before they were born) is not showing proper respect for the audience who are just there to show admiration for YOU and your music.
When thousands (or tens of thousands) attend their concerts to celebrate the artist and their work, the musical content (and, comments about all things related to the music) should be "the thing". I take issue with the assumption that it’s THIER concert and they can do what they want. The concert goer paid for tickets. Its a business transaction and the performers is "on the clock". I don’t think many of you would enjoy a restaurant owner walking up to your table and spreading mayo all over your steak "because it’s his business and he can do what he wants to". They have an obligation to deliver for the customer. PAID entertainment should be no different.
Waters is an artist and not merely a paid entertainer. It is facile to compare going to a Waters concert with a visit to a restaurant.
If you don't like his art then you might be better off going to see an entertainer instead.
There's no shortage of those.
Waters on the other hand, to me, is more like edgy Lennon to Gilmour's crowd pleasing McCartney.
Together they are fabulous but apart they're somewhat diminished.
A bit like Simon and Garfunkel, Morrissey and Marr or David and Bacharach, it's their differences that makes their work interesting: but those differences often also end up eventually driving them apart.
If you really want to go see Pink Floyd, well, you can't.
However there must be plenty of tribute bands out there who will do a good job. I saw one myself about 10 years ago, and they played the Barrett era/pre Dark Side Floyd.
Pretty good they were too, and very loud with it.
I also remember seeing a Sex Pistols tribute band playing in a local pub and they too put on a great show.
However, that's all it was.
Carefully nuanced but fairly predictable fare delivered like a well prepared 3 course meal.
It was nothing like the chaos I imagine that an original Sex Pistols gig would have been like.
Listen to Roger Waters' soundtrack contribution to the film, When The Wind Blows. Given the current political machinations and sabre-rattling of the war pigs, it'll scare the crap out of you.
The music he created which is some of the most iconic in 50 years was created with all members of Pink Floyd. One could not have done without the other.
Have to face facts. Once in a lifetime artists are eccentric. Their music was created by and for a generation who was not concerned with over sensitivity or consumer entitlement.
If you like them listen to them. If not then don't spend your time complaining about them
I can deal with a political position that differs form my own . In my life have held most of them - absent hard right or left - at one time or another.
But Mr Waters' recent backing of Putin re: Ukraine is so far outside the Overton Window for me. It makes me so angry.
We are a nation of free expression though and he can say what he wants. and we are free to stop going to his shows. Which is what I fervently hope will happen.
What burns me is after fans paid $250 and up for a Waters concert, they are told if you don’t like his political beliefs to eff off at the bar. Why didn’t the advertising for the concert state that? He took everyone’s money before that fact was disclosed. Shame on him and shame on the fans who put up with it. When I saw David Gilmour perform his “ On An Island” tour with Rick Wright on keyboards, there was not one political statement uttered by him. Just the music and his sweet guitar and keyboards. The tickets were not anywhere starting at $250.00 either. Like I said before, a very big FY to Waters.
Rodger Waters has definitely gone off the rails and seems to go out of his way to bite the hands the feed him. As he grows older, he goes on rants and makes statements that not only piss of fans, but he also starts to tarnish the name Pink Floyd in the process. His resent comments have even lead to the possible cancelation of a 500 million dollar sale of the rights to the Pink Floyd catalog. I was going to go to the show, but videos and resent interviews led to the decision not to.
Pink Floyd was a group and together they made great albums. However, in his mind, he was the only one that mattered and the other members of the band where not really members but just hired hands he tolerated till he "kicked them to the curb". I would much rather to listen to David Gilmour's solo records or even PF sands Rodger as it is just a better musical experience without hearing how we all suck and are terrible people.
All one has to do is look and listen to music from "The Division Bell" tour an Rodger's most current tour and one can easily see Division Bell is vastly superior in every measurable data point.
Also - a few commenters mentioned U2. While I agree that there was a period of political ramblings, it was Bono who lead the charge just like Rodger. The difference is Bono matured and his message improved. He also puts his money where his mouth is, donating vast amounts to charities and performing good deeds around the world. So, in Bono's case, I give him a tone of slack as I think he is a good cat but can not say the same for Rodger.
I will still listen to Pink Floyd but feel Rodger is doing himself and the band a disservice.
We’ve truly -on the personal level of being humans- run out of sides to take, here.
FYI, if one watches, reads and searches solely via the most ’popular’ search engines (google, Microsoft, etc), or just watches the mainstream media...then you’re probably not (near 100% certainty) getting the real actual news on how dangerous and desperate this moment has become. Western media has been pretty silent on how this is all going, regarding the level of danger and how close things really are.
We’re starting to see that change, in the outbursts from some quarters that are beginning to break from the narrative and overall silence about the level of danger... but it’s no where near enough.
Eg, Mullen, the ex joint chief of staff for the military in the US, during bush II and Obama’s time, is telling Biden to quit the shameful game that is being played out and get to the negotiations table and put this Armageddon rhetoric and actions down. He’s about as worried as it is possible to get.
*Sigh* Brushing aside the mainstream media is boring the hell out of me, it‘s such a lazy manoeuvre to give weight to arguments (which it just does not).
As an artist Waters can do what he wants, he can go on stage with a two hour pantomime show. I actually like to be challenged and surprised. Waters obviously doesn‘t want to be the guy that plays greatest hits with an orchestra and I applaud him for that.
The fact that he is preaching is known and at least now we know as an audience if that‘s something we want to see and pay for.
I definitely do not. Waters - to me - not only draws wrong conclusions from what he reads and hears. His backing of BDS alone would bug me and asking Ukraine to give in to the oppressor is a daring thing to ask. Imagine the US being attacked and then asked to give in to stop the bloodshed. That suddenly would sound far fetched.
On top of that Waters seems massively ill-informed about what‘s going on. He full of conviction calls the massacres in russian occupied territories „lies“, for example. If things like that is what alternative media tell you, well, that says a lot about these media. And that‘s one big reason to not give a thing about what Waters has to say about current events. If you agree with him you can have a great night out. And I will defend you for having the right to, there‘s no censorship here.
He obviously has unpopular opinions which I disagree with, and it costs him big time. I sam him a couple months ago and was able to get excellent seats for a very reasonable price. I don't think it was close to a sell out. If he kept his mouth shut, he would have made way more money and sold more tix at higher prices and more tshirts. He doesn't need the money and wants to perform and spew his crap. His banter with the audience was very cordial.
I have seen him a few times and the shows are among the best I've seen. I ignore the political BS. Like all else, some of it is true (a small part).
People who have reached the pinnacle of being wealthy and famous often have an expanded, and oftentimes overinflated, view of their impact on the world outside of their profession. They also have the choice of being "uniters" or "dividers". While they certainly have no professional or moral obligation to be "uniters", their actions are often disruptive, and (intentionally, or unintentionally) cause division.
There is a fine line between being a successful individual who energetically inserts their viewpoints into a venue of admirers, and textbook narcissism. I don’t believe in absolutes and understand the unavoidable consequences of gray areas. Particularly in human emotional and intellectual interactions. So, do we grant creative individuals who have had an enduring impact on our culture more freedom than the "average Joe on the street" to express themselves in the professional environment, and give them a pass even when they’re being cruel and insensitive to their "customers", or when those comments are incoherent, irrational, or untrue? Maybe so.
There are a lot of exceptionally brilliant, sane individuals who have a lot to say, can change the world for the better, and will never have the platform to say it. Or, if they do, they’ll be looking for a career change after they get cancelled, or fired. They’ve not quite reached celebrity status so their voices are muted. Or worse.
Actually his opinions is are not unpopular, otherwise there would be zero people at his shows.
With regard to him not having them in Poland, that was not his decision, that is not why they were cancelled.
As for the ’everybody go home, nothing to see here’ statement about alternative news sources, that’s just arm waving with empty projections.
The lame-stream media, as it is more properly known, is monolithic in it’s positon which means it is psychotically aligned and lock step with politics which is literally impossible in a real world and world of free press (see the history of your own US media for that) unless the situation is fascist and moving in on true totalitarianism.
The attacks on waters here, all while pretending to be humane and easy going... are getting into real scary areas of being misinformed, and a desperation to hold onto a world position, that is in the final stages of complete dismemberment. One where it is about to talk and walk itself off a cliff.
Where it is doing everything in it’s power to take the rest of us with it, through it’s desires for total control of the situation and the desire to get exactly what it wants.
I for one, quite correctly strongly disagree with that position and I stand against it, again, quite correctly - with all the force my life can muster.
I’m not American and I don’t suffer the deeply misinformed outsized stuffed chest Stockholm syndrome I see here in this thread.
The petrodollar is now the walking dead.. and you better figure that out fast, as that thing is getting world threateningly dangerous in it’s death throes.
the Cuban missile crisis was no where near as critical and dangerous as this situation is now.
Yet, americans are going about their lives as if nothing is going on, as the media and the politics are not letting them know how desperate things are.
Why is that? Why would one’s own politicians, corporate media, and military not let the people know what is really going on, and how dangerous what they are doing -- really is?
If one is reading this post and is angry with me on some level (apologies, I care about you and your children, that's why I'm speaking), well, I expect that within two weeks your position on all of this will change in some way, possibly in a fundamental way. That is, if we manage to last two weeks without a major incident..
ie, France is on the verge of giving up entirely on the G7 (massive protests have begun), Bulgaria has given up on it or is in the process of giving up on sanctions, and there’s more. Much much more.
The kind of stuff that US mainstream media is not going to ever cover. Europe is not really interested, any more, in being that college kid on the escalator in total recall, for the us controlled NATO. But don’t worry, your media will spin it into looking like something else.
1. Overusing the F word and playing bad music and singing off key is not edgy or artistic.
2. The US - Europe relationship bears no resemblance to the clip from Total Recall. Does anyone think that Stalin would have stopped the Red Army at Berlin if it hadn't come face to face with the US Army? If the US Army had gone home the summer of 1945, all of Europe, including the UK, would still be part of the Soviet Union. If the US ever stopped providing security for Europe, Europe would revert to the old rivalries and Russia would expand westward.
Sorry to take this further off topic, but I had to get those two opinions out.
Free Speech. Though you did pay for it. So sorry. But then you called him out. Free speech. And neither Roger nor you will end up in jail. Wonderful country ours. But not perfect, and our past needs honest examinations as it most certainly colors the present. The love it or leave it argument...sickening, perverse understanding of US.
Our government is a radical, liberal experiment relying on checks, balances, a free press, and amendments to account for change in culture. Not an oligarchy using the constitution as a personal ATM.
Yet, americans are going about their lives as if nothing is going on, as the media and the politics are not letting them know how desperate things are.
What makes you say that? I talk to my fellow Americans (of all political persuasions) and I can tell you from my experience that there exists a good bit of angst at, first and foremost, the nature of politics in our own country. The "current affairs" interest right now is American/micro-, not globally/macro-. That said, if you think Americans are simply..... oblivious..... to world affairs because we're not out marching the streets (which is what I get out of your commentary) then you are sadly mistaken and would serve yourself well by re-evaluating your opinion of us.
I would start by taking a close look at some of that media you're using to "inform" your opinions. I agree with the comment above re: the wholesale dismissal of the "mainstream media". It's not hard - for anyone devoted to the practice of critical thinking - to siphon off the left or right editorializing from any solid, long-standing American media outlet (NYT, WaPo, WSJ). Contrary to what you might believe - and it certainly comes off this way - by and large we're not stupid. However, I will agree that there are a WHOLE lot of people bumbling around the good, old USA who I sorely wish didn't have voting cards, but I digress. In my experience with "alternative" media sources, I have reached the well-informed (and well-educated) conclusion that they are hardly the sources to use to honestly and objectively inform one's opinion. They are replete, often chapter and verse, with partisan distortions, half-truths, outright lies, and a burgeoning affinity for simply re-defining words to fit whatever narrative is being pushed. Language isn't new, and words mean things. They have for a long time, and personally, I see little value in spending time on outlets who subscribe to "alternative facts" under the guise of being a "real" or "honest" alternative to the "mainstream media". That's synonymous (to me, any way) with a "parallel universe", where up is down and back is white. When a "media source" feels compelled to play that card in their struggle to control the narrative (or create one out of whole cloth)...they've lost me.
I think you're hyperventilating a little bit. Breathe.
"However, I will agree that there are a WHOLE lot of people bumbling around the good, old USA who I sorely wish didn’t have voting cards, but I digress."
It’s been said that Democracy only works as well as the mean sanity level of a society. If you take a sample group of the "most tethered to reality" and offset that with an equal number of misfits, it’s the rest of us that need to have our act(s) together. This group is circling the drain at present and pretty close to the event horizon where there’s not sufficient numbers to push back against the forces of the Weapons of Mass Division, and misinformation.
Rigid partisanship is a factor here. And, I believe we can establish a scale where the more rigid the partisanships, the less willingness there is to seek the truth. Add to this the element of "risk tolerance", and you have air-tight bubbles where the only information that makes it past the "toll gate" is a digital bitstream of misinformation plugged directly into our brains to confirm our biases. We're no longer concerned with "protecting Democracy". We're only concerned with protecting the party.
"Free speech" is more "free" to some than for others. Wealth and celebrity has it’s privileges.
@teo_audio It appears you’re quite passionate about your ideas. My "hot button" is the fragility of our common links and connections, and distain for those who benefit from intentionally breaking them. "Division pays dividends".
I’m glad this thread is still active. I’ve learned a lot from you guys.
"Yet, americans are going about their lives as if nothing is going on, as the media and the politics are not letting them know how desperate things are."
Quite true. Thanks for that well thought out post.
However, there might come a point where the political actors can no longer distract their audience from the fact that the theatre is on fire.
What particularly bothers me is the seemingly irreversible increase in the national debt of countries such as the UK and the US.
At some point the interest repayments threaten to become unmanageable.
What happens then?
The old plan of invading other countries is becoming very difficult to sell these days.
As for the dangerous situation in Ukraine, it's disheartening to see that the western governments seem to have no interest in any attempts to broker peace.
Nor in the welfare of their own people.
Even during the darkest days of the Cuban missile crisis Kruschev and Kennedy managed to maintain a line of communication that eventually saved the world.
The situation here in the UK is now approaching critical as this weeks events illustrated.
We need more people of Waters' calibre inviting debate, not less.
Entertainers these days are no longer obliged to perform as the band on the Titanic once had to.
Saw "The Wall" in Phoenix with my son in 2012 - was it really that long ago? I do not recall it being saturated with his world views. Enjoyed it enough to see him again in 2017 because my wife had not gone in 2012. Found an email to a friend about his 2017 concert in Phoenix. Said I wouldn't go to another concert of his for the same reasons as you, so at least he's consistent. Your comments confirm my decision to vote with my pocketbook this time when I chose not to go. On the other hand, I have driven to LA and made it a long weekend to see David Gilmour....
I guess it boils down to if you agree with his political views you probably don't mind his political rants and if you don't agree with him you probably want him to shut up and just play music. I personally don't want to listen to political speeches at a music concert but it's not like it's illegal to do so -unless you say something that upsets the media and twitter weirdos- and I really want fans not to copy the ideologies of these musicians and just find their way of thinking. It's a shame but probably fans will copy him or others no matter what.
I really want fans not to copy the ideologies of these musicians and just find their way of thinking. It’s a shame but probably fans will copy him or others no matter what.
I remember reading Hunter Davies Beatles biography when I was around 16/17 and being disappointed to find that they didn’t offer much by way of political advice.
Instead the message that was repeated by all of the fab four was that you must think for yourself.
Back then that was a disappointment because I didn’t know what to think, and I wasn’t comfortable with uncertainty either. I was just ready and eager to jump on any bandwagon my heroes suggested.
Grown up politics made no sense at all.
Wars made no sense as the gains were disproportionate to the losses I reckoned.
The economic system was totally unfathomable at 16, and school hadn’t taught me anything that would help.
It was almost as if the teachers themselves didn’t know.
Anyway, with the passing of time, that advice has proved itself to be correct.
Absolutely correct.
The young can be very impressionable and musicians should bear that in mind. It’s probably not such a big deal in Waters’ case as I imagine his audience would be mature enough not to be swayed so easily.
In her time Joan Baez spent a lot of energy campaigning for her beliefs. Ultimately it’s doubtful whether it did them any good, but they certainly impacted badly on her music.
I haven’t, but I mean to listen to Animals in the near future.
For some reason I’ve laboured under the impression it was recorded in between Piper at the Gates of Dawn and Dark Side of the Moon. That initial post Barrett period is not my favourite.
In fact I only recently found out that Animals was released in 1977,
and there’s also a new 2018 remix released with an updated sleeve.
The only other Floyd albums, apart from a couple of compilations, that I’m familiar with are Wish You Were Here, The Wall, A Momentary Lapse of Reason and The Division Bell. I think I’ve heard The Final Cut but if I have, it’s left very little lasting impression.
Anyway maybe I’ll give Animals a spin next week. I’ve been busy listening to another ’missed’ album this week, Ian Dury’s ’New Boots and Panties!!’ which was also released in 1977.
@idigmusic64 - Animals is actually a good album, and perhaps in some ways a transition or bridge album from Wish You Where Here to The Wall. While everyone has their favorites it is hard to go wrong with the Meddle to The Wall period and the last two; A Momentary Lapse of Reason and The Division Bell.
Earlier albums are good as well. I will not criticize The Final Cut but it really did not grab my attention but you might like it. Some listeners tend to feel it is more like Rodger Watters first solo album.
While you are at it check out David Gilmour's solo efforts as well. They have a good deal to offer.
In any case, Animals is worth while and you might as well start with the most resent release.
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