Roger Waters’ first concert is over. On Friday (March 17), the Pink Floyd co-founder started his Europa course in front of around 20,000 spectators in the Altice Arena in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon. Most media reactions from the UK and Portugal have ranged from forgiving to enthusiastic rock critics.
“A Triumph of Arena Rock” is the title of the London Times. The English-language service of the news platform “Portugal Post” speaks of a “rock opera in two acts, politically tinged, but also with human warmth”.
When looking through the previous concert reviews, it is noticeable that most of the authors refer to the anti-Semitism controversies beforehand, but ultimately come to a “not so wild, it was nice” conclusion.
Mention is made, for example, of Waters’ recorded message. It says that all fans who don’t feel like political content should “piss off at the bar”. The reports also pick up on his apparent endorsement of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and aggressive Israel bashing. As was the attack by Polly Samson, writer and wife of former Floyd singer and guitarist David Gilmour, who tweeted that he was “anti-Semitic to the core”.
But when looking at the entire show, the din is put into perspective in advance.
“The first 45 minutes of the show prove unrelentingly grueling as the overhead screens displayed looping images of police brutality and branded every US President since Reagan (and even the Democrats) as a ‘war criminal,'” he notes “Daily Telegraph”. A sombre first half of the Waters Arena set begins with opening track ‘Comfortably Numb’: disturbingly subdued,” according to the London Daily.
But as the concert “devolves into a poignant throwback to Floyd co-founder Syd Barrett with excerpts from 1975’s ‘Wish You Were Here,’ there’s a certain heartiness to it. An emotional thread that ultimately saves the evening.”
Pink Floyd’s band history is intertwined with Waters’ political interjections. For example when he plays a song from the last album he recorded with Pink Floyd. “Two Suns in the Sunset” from the album “The Final Cut” (1983). Even back then, in the final years of the Cold War, he wrote, “we have never experienced such a dangerous moment as then”. Today, as usual, self-righteous and defeatist, he lashes out in a sweeping manner: “America, Russia, Ukraine and all that shit”. He threateningly asks the audience whether Portugal is part of NATO…
Incidentally, there is no longer any mention of the much-quoted balloon pig as a stage decoration, but rather of the “enraptured moment” when 20,100 spectators listen to the magic of “Us And Them”. Against this current background, the (planned) cancellation of the concerts in May 2023 in Frankfurt and Munich may also have to be reassessed.
A current double interview with Meron Mendel from the Anne Frank Foundation in the “Spiegel” also reads in perspective. “I’m not an anti-Semite” is the message here.
The conclusion of the English “Telegraph”: “Intentional or not: Tonight Waters delivers the best defense against the uproar around him. A lavish and often sublime revue of his music. His thoroughly convincing display of warmth and humanity proves that he has not allowed himself to be completely taken over by politics.”