– An Auditory And Visual Extravaganza –

By John Voket

HARTFORD — Nearly a dozen shows into his tour supporting the 30th Anniversary of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” — scheduled to run into next summer — plenty of reviews have already surfaced describing the musical performances of Roger Waters and a dozen musicians and singers who deliver an almost note-for-note replication of this, one of the top selling albums of all time.

A number of items have also been published, like this one with a courteous spoiler alert, revealing certain high points of the accompanying stage show. But until now, few if any have focused on the cast and crew of technicians and stagehands who on October 15, provided a visual concert experience rivaling any ever mounted, anywhere, by any artist.

That evening’s show at Hartford’s XL Center, appeared to run flawlessly from SoundSpike’s vantage point, which was directly overlooking the massive pit of computer operators, lighting and sound technicians who coordinated the multimedia extravaganza which was so complex, it was challenging to take it all in during just a single performance.

During a quick chat with one of the crew members whose job it was to manually animate some of the huge puppets that are among the most unique aspects of the show, he related that each evening’s set-up begins about 15 or 16 hours before curtain – preferably at about 3 am. The only minor break the crew gets, he explained, is an occasional opportunity to get into an arenas the night before the next show, if the room is not in use and the venue management is agreeable.

Showtime Approaches

As the clock ticked down to what was advertised as an 8 pm sharp starting time, activity in the command center began buzzing as a couple of the technicians popped pieces of chewing gum, while others sipped from bottles of water and cups of coffee or tea.

At one moment, an individual who was later identified as the lighting director waved his arms about while looking up towards the spotlight operators in the XL Center’s rafters while communicating some last-minute instructions via a headset.

And at the next, the room went momentarily dark before one of those spotlights illuminated a white hot point at center stage where a leather trench coat stood on a partial mannequin, and the screaming of fans drowned out the drummer’s count giving way to the explosive opening number “In the Flesh.”

This number engaged numerous stage hands all similarly suited from head to toe in black, standing in shadowy formation across a lighting truss above the band, each holding a huge flags with the familiar crossed hammers. With red rockets blazing and spotlights raking across the ecstatic crowd, Waters walked to the center and donned the trench coat and dark aviator shades, inviting everyone to “...go to the show...”

The number ended, as it has in many of the Pink Floyd and Waters solo shows, with a replica sized airplane “flying” above the audience and crashing with an explosion and flames backstage.

“The Thin Ice began with a series of images flickering across the huge round video screen hovering at center stage, featuring  what appeared to be the military death record of Waters’ father who was killed during the battle of Anzio, Italy in World War II. Dissolving into similar records of a US Marine killed in Iraq, followed by several dozen others including a New York firefighter killed in the 9/11 attack, the song ended with each of the individual projections appearing on individual bricks of the wall.

Menacing Schoolmaster

The first of the aforementioned puppets, “The Schoolmaster” rose up more than 20 feet from its hiding place at the side of the stage, as a crew of young children entered from the opposite corner all wearing T-shirts that proclaimed “FEAR BUILDS WALLS.” As the band launched into “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 1,” a backdrop of projected hand bills flashed the message “Capitalism – Trust Us.”

With the dancing children surrounding Waters, the entire crew raced toward the menacing schoolmaster with fists pumping, as the looming puppet’s eyes flashed bright light from behind its thick-rimmed glasses.

As stagehands worked from behind the existing facade with elevator platforms placing brick after brick, slowly completing the wall, the show continued with Waters finally addressing the crowd with a brief greeting leading into a moving rendition of “Mother.”

“Goodbye Blue Sky” utilized one of the most effective video tricks of the show, with various segments of bricks appearing to peel off and fly into space, revealing huge jagged black gaps. Although the sequence was projected on the already finished wall surface, backlighting gave the visual impression that the wall had actually shed several huge pieces.

At the same time, crew members removed an actual chunk of the wall so the two guitarists could be seen playing the delicate classical backing arrangement to the five-man chorus that provided most of the backing vocals.

The fist “record” of the two-part set wrapped with a single brick remaining to be placed as Waters crooned “Good-Bye Cruel World,” bathed in yet another pool of white light. And precisely as he uttered the final “good-bye,” that final brick was popped into place and the entire room went black again before house lights came on to signal the intermission.

The second set opened with “Hey You” playing out to the audience from behind the wall, and it may have even been a taped version because there was no visual orientation to anyone playing behind the completed facade.

“Nobody Home” revealed Waters for the first time, reclining in an easy chair in a cozy living room set with a neon palm tree and television broadcasting a World War II dogfight as the artist confessed his “strong urge to fly” to the audience.

Tear Down The Wall

Waters returned to the front of the wall for “Bring the Boys Back Home,” accompanied by a tear-jerking montage of videos showing the hysterical faces of school children as they first catch glimpses of their parents returning from active service duty. “Comfortably Numb” featured Waters trading verses with one of his backup singers perched way atop the wall, flanked to one side by backlit guitarist Dave Kliminster, who duplicated the wailing David Gilmore lead with intense precision.

A flying pig took flight, bobbing and weaving just above the audiences reach during “In the Flesh,” leading into Waters’s second contact with the crowd, dedicating “Run Like Hell” to anyone “suffering from paranoia.”

As the event built to its ultimate finale with explosions and the tumbling wall, numerous other projection effects were utilized on the completed surface which appeared to be a full 30 feet high and possibly more than 100 feet wide. Among the most striking were endless corps of marching crossed hammers, and huge shiny worms snaking in and out between shadowy columns.

After all of the visual and auditory buildup, by the time the cue came for the wall to come down, it was almost anticlimactic. Certainly it was something to see after all the hard work of the crew to get it in place, but its deconstruction, which took all of ten seconds, failed to rate as one of the top visual spectacles of the show.

Once the wall came down at the end of “The Trial,” Waters sauntered back through the rubble with a few of his bandmates all playing acoustic instruments to signal the end of the show with a heartfelt rendition of “Outside the Wall.”

The music and emotional intensity of this landmark musical concept album brought to life could have easily held its own on a barren, empty stage with the outstanding musicianship displayed. But the integration of hundreds of visual effects delivered with state-of-the-art expertise by a backstage crew that may have numbered 50 or more all working in their own choreographed ballet of technical wizardry, made Rodger Waters’ celebration of “The Wall” one of the not to be missed concert experiences of a lifetime.