Roger Waters - In the Flesh Live
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Free Music Notes for In the Flesh Live
Free Music Review: No revelations, but pleasant sampler of post-Floyd Waters
Hit: 4 Stars
This is aimed at a large demographic, of which I'm a member: Pink Floyd fans who don't care about Pink Floyd without Waters, nor Waters without Pink Floyd. Mostly we bailed out at _The Final Cut_ (I bailed with _The Wall_), and after listening to Roger's solo work, _Pros and Cons of Radio Amusement_ etc, we said, "No thanks." Now Roger wants us back, and he offers a small sampler of his post-Floyd material, cunningly sweetened by being integrated with better-known Pink Floyd-era material. The first disk is all Pink Floyd material, though the two tracks from _The Final Cut_ are solo Waters in all but name. Guitarist Doyle Bramhall II opens with a note-for-note Dave impression on "In the Flesh". This exact imitation of the Gilmour sound seems meant to demonstrate that Waters doesn't need his former collaborator. But the very perfection of the Dave imitation (also convincing on other Gilmour work-outs like "Dogs" and "Comfortably Numb") seems a little ... sterile. I'd have preferred Bramhall to re-think some of that music, to bring something new to it. Which doesn't happen.
The cover versions are comparable to The Other Three's (Gilmour-Mason-Wright's) versions on _Pulse_: good, with little gained from live performance. An exception is "Mother", from _The Wall_. In its original form "Mother" struck me as filler, more tuneful than most of _The Wall_ but that's not saying much. In this version "Mother" gets a new lease of life. The main difference is that "mother's" lines are handled by chanteuse Katie Kissoon, so that what was a song in which a middle-aged man whines about his mother turns into a dialogue in which the mother has a voice too. That small difference makes a huge difference.
And with Kissoon singing it sounds much better. In fact the backing singers, Katie Kissoons, Susannah Melvoin, and the legendary PP Arnold, are one of this album's strengths, bringing warmth and a discreet groove to some music that badly needed those qualities.
But even with their efforts, and those of Waters' fine backing band, the two tracks from _The Final Cut_, "Get Your Filthy Hands off my Desert" and "Southhampton Dock", still don't really convince me. They have adequate but uninspired lyrics, and they have no tunes. But at least they sound better here than they did on _The Final Cut_. Wisely, after two tracks Waters abandons shaky _Final Cut_ territory for stronger ground: two tracks from _Animals_, followed by two from _Wish You Were Here_. These are possibly a little better than the live versions on The Other Three's _Pulse_ and _Delicate Sound of Thunder_, though generally not as good as the studio originals.
There are some advantages; occasional variants in music some of us know a little too well, and the backing vocals really do add a welcome touch of (not terribly deep, but good just the same) soul. Unfortunately the warmer, funkier approach doesn't work so well with one of Water's earliest classics, the psychedelic "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun". In its original version on _Saucer Full of Secrets_ and even more on the _Ummagumma_ version, this was a chill-out classic: haunting, strange, mellow but icy cold. It doesn't respond well to "warmth", let alone the smoothed-over funk feel it is given here, and unfortunately this version doesn't work. It's an unexpected detour into the land of cheese.
The second CD sandwiches post-Floyd solo songs between highlights from _Dark Side of the Moon_. The _Dark Side _ covers are fine, not very different from The Other Three's cover versions, not adding much to the original studio versions. However the music from _Pro and Cons of Hitchhiking_ sounds better than it did on the original album. I'm still not grabbed by it, though. "Perfect Sense" is better, with a decent chorus, and "The Bravery of Being Out of Range" is nasty and pretty good. "It's a Miracle" and "Amused to Death" are both unmemorable. (Why not "What God Wants", surely his best post-Floyd song?)
Part of the problem with these post-Floyd tracks is that Waters came to overrate his own lyrics, and decided to concentrate on words to the detriment of his music. Unfortunately, while the lyrics aren't bad, I don't really care about The Thoughts of Chairman Waters. I used to like The Tunes of Bassist Waters. Look, if Schopenhauer made an album I still wouldn't listen to it twice, not if the music was as ordinary as this. And Schopenhauer's pessimism is a lot better written than Roger's.
We go out with the last three tracks of _Dark Side of the Moon_, "Comfortably Numb" with another good Gilmour impression, and finally a new song, "Each Small Candle", which expresses warm and positive sentiments, which is nice. Not much tune, but.
Summary? Waters can assemble a group of musos who play Pink Floyd covers as well or better than The Other Three. One song, "Mother", is much improved by the new arrangement. The post-Floyd Waters songs sound much better with this band than they did on their original albums, but they're still not very gripping. In every way Waters' new material is eclipsed by the superiority of the classic Pink Floyd material.
So I've heard Roger's invitation to explore his post-Floyd work, and on the whole I still say, "No thanks". I've given this release four stars, despite the only mildly enthusiastic tone of this review, because as an album of covers it's always pleasant listening, especially when the backing singers are in full flight. And while the sampler of the later Waters hasn't sold me on that body of work, I'm still pleased to have a few of those songs played by a good band, and made more bearable by being surrounded by better songs.
Cheers!
Laon
Free Music Review: A good album
Hit: 5 Stars
a little slow but i can always listen to Roger Waters!Free Music Review: Roger Waters sounds much better than he did on ATD
Hit: 5 Stars
Besides many others, there are two main reasons why you must buy this album : Welcome to the Machine & Dogs. As a Pink Floyd (read Roger Waters) fan, you may already know that Dogs (from Animals) has been sung by David Gilmour in the studio album. The way Waters sings Dogs is very very, lets say - Waterish. Also Welcome to the Machine (Perhaps the weak link in Wish you were here) is one of the best songs in In the Flesh. Waters sounds much much better than he did in ATD.
I saw the concert in Bangalore, India and just had to buy this.
Free Music Review: Roger Waters -lighting the corners of the darkness
Hit: 5 Stars
In 1983, Roger Waters stepped away from Pink Floyd, one the world's most influential rock bands. He embarked on a solo career, which led him through the recording of three albums, the last and best being 1992's Amused to Death. He later entered a musical silence that came to be broken with his "In the Flesh" tour, which has been sampled in this album. With this tour, the giant from Cambridge embarked on a trip that would help him escape from his "disillusionment with rock shows in vast open-air football stadiums," (in his own words.) Waters says: "We, as individuals, generally find it necessary to avoid or deny the painful aspects of our experience, and in fact often use them as bricks in a wall behind which we may sometimes find shelter, but behind which we may just as easily become emotionally immured."
The best songs from the classic albums Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, and The Wall, were being impeccably interpreted in this album by Waters and band of musicians that make time travel possible just by closing your eyes and letting go.
Of the musicians that accompany him, most impressive is the versatile Jon Carin, who sings and plays most of the keyboards, acoustic guitar and slide guitar; Texan Doyle Bramhall II, who dignifies David Gilmour's guitar parts during the concert; and PP Arnold, a woman with a 30-some years musical career, who does backing vocals.
A moment worth noting is the interpretation of "Dogs," from the album Animals (1977), in which the surrounding sound of dogs makes you turn around looking to see from where it emanates.
Closing the first CD is a song extracted from the very deepest part of the chest of memories: "Set the Control for the Heart of the Sun," composed by Waters in 1969.
After visiting the Dark Side of the Moon with the interpretations of "Breathe," "Time," and "Money," he walks the listener through some of his solo material, devoting more time to the album Amused to Death.
It's hard to imagine the concert giving more than it had up to this point. However, the concert's encore (the last song of the album) seems to have been the reason that brought him back on the road altogether. Deeply impressed by a poem written by a man who had been tortured he put together the song "Each small candle lights a corner of the dark." And so beautiful is this moment, that all I can do is invite you to go to Waters' home page to read the entire lyrics, so that you may share the emotions that crossed my heart when I first heard it.
Free Music Review: Buy the DVD instead
Hit: 3 Stars
This is a good, but not exceptional live CD for Roger Waters and Pink Floyd fans. The thing is, don't buy it. Like most live CD's, it would be better if it was condensed into a single CD, but that isn't why you shouldn't buy it. Instead, buy the DVD version. The DVD is cheaper and is very well put together. The 5.1 sound is especially important for this show since his shows (with Pink Floyd or otherwise) have been using surround sound since 1968. Combine the extraordinary sound with above average concert footage and a decent selection of extra goodies and you have one of the best live DVD's available today. If you still like CD's, you can always make a CD out of it anyway.