On the day of the concert there is still a bit of symbolic politics. The new Berlin Senator for Culture, Joe Chialo (CDU), condemned Waters’ appearance in a press release: “I condemn in the strongest terms the appearance of an artist like Roger Waters, who lets balloons in the shape of pigs with Stars of David rise up. Because these actions – just like the BDS campaign he is associated with – are nothing but anti-Semitic.”
Well roared lion! Dirk Stettner, another politician from the CDU, even wants to cancel the 79-year-old’s appearance. Welcome to Berlin shadow boxing!
Word should have gotten around among the admonishers and whisperers that a court in Frankfurt had ironed out the ban request by the city of Frankfurt as the operator of the local festival hall in the run-up to the guest performance on May 28th. And the quoted “Star of David” is no longer part of the Waters program.
After the half-time break of the “This Is Not A Drill” tour, the famous rubber pig flies through the wide circle. But instead of religious symbols, US armaments companies such as Lockheed Martin are now being branded as pigs. The capital letter slogan “Steal From The Poor – Give It To The Poor” painted there instead seems doubly awkward to Waters.
Who’s playing the sarcastic Robin Hood? A perpetually “I’m right!” music-making agitator who has a conservative estimated net worth of around $250 million! In financial media there is talk of stock deals and large estates. In addition, the lucrative partial sale of the song rights from Pink Floyd. All this in the back of your mind at the strangest major concert in recent years: Welcome to the mega-multimillionaire’s absurd political show.
Anyone who only wants to hear Pink Floyd is not welcome
A stage in the shape of a cross stands in the middle of the well-filled but not terribly sold-out hall. With a few exceptions, the audience cannot be identified as a fan audience, and the T-shirt factor is surprisingly low. With Helene Fischer or the horse dressage show “Apassionata”, the style and glam factor is likely to be significantly higher. A middle-aged gentleman wears a striped shirt with “Third Man Records” written on it. If Jack White only knew…
On the huge LED light structure, which hovers over the Maestro, his seven fellow musicians and two background singers from the opening song “Comfortably Numb”, the fronts are clarified right at the beginning. Anyone who just came to bathe in good old Pink Floyd bliss should “piss off at the bar”. Roger Waters wants everything from his disciples. The LED also announces that the Frankfurt verdict on the concert there has clarified that he is NOT an anti-Semite. Which, however, was NOT part of the reasoning behind the judgment. Waters makes things fit as it suits him.
>>>Roger Waters: The best pictures of the Berlin concert
Here is a quote from a report on the Hessischer Rundfunk website: “The Nazi symbolism quoted by the administrative court in Frankfurt comes from the album “The Wall”. Long projected onto screens at concerts accompanying the songs “In the Flesh” and “Run Like Hell,” it is said to caricature authoritarian ideologies and blind allegiance. It is therefore understandable that the court criticized them in the context of the Festhallen story, but classified them as not justiciable…”
It’s just not impossible to simply pay attention to the songs and, like music critics, enjoy the clear and rich hall sound or the excellently played guitar gibberish. A fit Waters, all in black, plows the various outskirts of the stage like a Southern evangelical preacher. Again, after the twenty-minute break, he plays the mad dictator in a long leather coat with a red armband. A mixture of Reich Citizens Gala and Nazi Party Congress.
“Sheep” is the new pig
Even the historical film clips from the crazy-psychedelic era of Pink Floyd congeal in the face of the constant agitation to concrete memory. With an LED announcement, Waters even takes in the legendary ex-member Syd Barrett, who died in 2006 in a mental haze and therefore cannot defend himself against this historical falsification. “Syd & I” is sent optically repeatedly. Drummer Nick Mason or guitarist David Gilmour, on the other hand, remain unmentioned; while a lengthy medley of the Pink Floyd classics “Have a Cigar”, “Wish You Were Here”, various parts of “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” and finally “Sheep” are performed in a routine and musically deeper way. “Sheep” is the new “pig” by the way.
It flies around as a balloon controlled by a drone and, loosely based on George Orwell’s “Animal Farm”, symbolizes the stupid, stupid masses that follow some evil regimes and stupid people.
In his announcements and clips, Waters throws himself at all sorts of unsuspecting personalities such as Anne Frank, Wim Wenders, Rainer Maria Fassbinder and Jean Luc Godard. He fights for victims of racism like George Floyd and garnishes it with furious anti-Americanism from the tried and tested Querfront modular system from Antifa to AfD. With fury he castigates all US Presidents of the last five decades one and all as “mass murderers” and “war criminals”. Ronald Reagan, for example, “killed 30,000 innocents in Guatemala”, not to mention El Salvador Nicaragua and Honduras”.
One wonders: Who is he telling this to? His gold card audience in the closed-off premium sector on the rows of chairs in front of, left and right of the stage?
There is mostly polite, but only partially euphoric applause when the emotive word “Palestine” is mentioned or the Lacota Sioux are supported with a piano ballad in their rebellion against the land grabs by some US authorities along with the beaten police.
Toxic Mixture
Roger Waters is the guy at the bar who just can’t stop telling another story about the badness of this world. And another one. Coupled with Pink Floyd’s decades-long musical era, this is a truly “toxic” mix. The original rubber pig from London’s Battersea Power Station was pure (luxury) pop when the album ‘Animals’ came out in January 1977. 46 years later, it has become a symbol of Waters stubbornness.
Even if you don’t want to take the (often cheap) criticism of your anti-Israel streak or Putin fanboy habit so seriously, it has become impossible to retreat to the position of the unsuspecting Pink Floyd good finder. Waters doesn’t seem to notice anymore that he’s just annoying with his self-righteous demeanor.
On the Berlin Ausleger stage, Roger Waters looks like a caricature of an evil rock grandpa. When the camera zooms in on his face, you see the looks and gestures of a driven man.