Concert review: Roger Waters performs 'The Wall' at United Center
Roger Waters performs "The Wall" at the United Center on Sept. 20. View more pictures of Roger Waters and '"The Wall" at the United Center HERE. (Scott Strazzante, Tribune)
Roger Waters showed up Monday to begin a four-night residency at the sold-out United Center, but the lean, silver-haired former Pink Floyd mastermind was no match for the spectacle he created.
Waters took second billing to “The Wall,” the soundtrack, and The Wall, the edifice that was built fabricated brick by fabricated brick until it towered over the performance, sealed off the performers, and then – spoiler alert! -- collapsed during the finale. Who needs “Wicked”? This was mega-Broadway staging with a stadium-rock score and a top ticket price to match -- $250 plus service fees.
Is it worth it? If you loved “The Wall” in its original 1980 stage creation you’ll probably love it now, if only as nostalgia on the grandest, gaudiest possible scale; Waters treats his score like a sacred text, not to be messed with in any way, certainly not by the hired guns he employed to replicate it (the Chicago run closes with performances Tuesday, Thursday and Friday).
How well has it aged? As multimedia extravaganza, it was in many ways a spectacular update, rather than an overly faithful replication of the original stage show. Parts of “The Wall” soundtrack came off as a period piece, an overwrought relic of a rock era when size mattered. There’s enough filler in this wall to make its eventual collapse seem inevitable. But for a work about madness, excess is to be expected and "The Wall" creates its own world convincingly. Its musical high points are still stirring, whether it’s the plaintive cry of “Mother,” the alternately desperate and menacing "Hey You," the paranoid gallop of "Run Like Hell" or the epic, stately descent into madness that is “Comfortably Numb.”
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