Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)My expectations were rather muted going into this. Primarily due to the "Celebrity" cast. I also had some real concerns over sound quality since it was recorded almost 15 years ago. The sound however is flat out amazing though. Although my issues with the Celebrity cast did not disappear, the quality of the sound and enormity of the production itself made the cast of characters seem less important. The list of those performers seems really stale today, but at the time of the show, they were all "A" list. I think some complaints I've read hold little merit or were the product of lack of understanding of the original source material. Someone said the scorpions attire was in bad taste for such an event. Well folks, that was on purpose! They were the "Surrogate" band which was supposed to be representative of all of the excess in rock and roll that has at one time or another caused many of us to lose sight of the music.
Although, I've never been a Sinead O'conner fan, I thought she was a perfectly appropriate representation of the child in Pink. Her vocals were also very moving. Again, I'm not a Brian Adams fan, but his gritty voice was an excellent fit for "Young Lust". And, no he wasn't really playing guitar, or at least he wasn't wired for sound. He, like the scorpions were there simply to provide vocals and window dressing. The music was thankfully performed strictly by Roger's amazing band. Joni Mitchell's performance was flat out creepy (in a good way)perfect for "Goodbye Blue Sky". Cindi lauper was nothing but annoying. Van morrison (who I love), seemed painfully out of place in this production. I ached for the return of David Gilmour's silky voice during Van's performance of "Comfortably Numb"
My biggest issue with the DVD was the camera angles and distances used for the bulk of the show. The show was so enormous that I think the best overall perspective would have been maybe a hundred and fifty feet or so from the stage. This view was curiously entirely absent. Everything was shot either up close (Like most concert footage), or so far away that the perfomers were merely a speck in the camera lense. These longs distance shots were used primarily between songs though and really did give the viewer an idea of just how huge the show was. In fact I would say the production was probably 4 to 5 times the size of Pink Floyds original prodution. All of the tight camera shots made me feel too much like I was watching a concert video rather than experiencing the show. Another interesting perspective was the footage shot behind the wall after the band had been completely closed off from the audience. It really made me appreciate how weird that must have been for Both Pink Floyd in the original performance and for Roger's band in this version. I mean here you are playing your heart out and you can't even see your audience, and you know they can't see you either. I would liked to have seen a little more of the audience perspective during this part of the show.
And to those Floyd fans who don't think the wall should be done without the original band, I do sympathize. But the fact is, they were asked to perform, and declined. Understandably, the bad blood between the Waters & Floyd camps was too much to overcome under such short notice, even for such a meaningful event and cause. But, the bottom line is that "The Wall" is Roger's brain child. You can count both the musical & lyrical credits of other band members for the double album on one hand. The wall is the least musical of the Floyd creations due to the lack of input of those other band members. But in pure lyrical and conceptual terms, I still feel it is once of the most brilliant and important works of my generation. I still hold out hope that some day, all of the members including Roger will be able to put their egos and bitterness aside and re-unite to produce new music and tour. Until that day however, I feel very fortunate to re-live the wall experience in this powerful incarnation.
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