The Wall Concert in Berlin

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For other works based on the Pink Floyd album, see The Wall (Pink Floyd).
The Wall: Live in Berlin (1990)
The Wall: Live in Berlin (1990)

On 21 July 1990, Roger Waters produced a massive concert staging of The Wall in Berlin. The event's purpose was to commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Contents

[edit] History

Held in Potsdamer Platz (a location which was part of the former "no-man's land" of the Berlin Wall), this concert was even bigger than the Pink Floyd era ones, as Waters built a 550-foot long and 82-foot high wall.[1] The show had a sell-out crowd of over 200,000 people, and right before the performance started the gates were opened to the concert and an additional 100,000 to 500,000 (estimates vary) people were able to enter. The concert was also broadcast live in 35 countries, which enabled another 500 million people to watch the concert live from their homes.

The concert was staged entirely at Waters' expense, and while he subsequently earned the money back from the sale of the CD and video releases of the album, he has donated all profits past his initial investment to World War Memorial Fund for Disaster Relief.

Initially, Waters tried to get guest musicians like Peter Gabriel, Rod Stewart, Joe Cocker, Bruce Springsteen and Eric Clapton but they were either unavailable or turned it down. Also, on the first airing of the making of The Wall on In the Studio with Redbeard in July 1989, Roger said "I might even let Dave (David Gilmour) play guitar." On June 30, 1990 backstage at the Knebworth Pink Floyd performance at Knebworth '90, Gilmour responded to Roger's "I might let Dave play guitar" statement by saying "he and the rest of Pink Floyd (Nick Mason and Rick Wright) had been given the legal go ahead to perform with Roger but had not been contacted." A few days later, on July 2, 1990 Waters appeared on the American rock radio call-in show Rockline and contradicted his Gilmour invite by saying, "I don't know where Dave got the idea."

In the end, the guest artists for the performance included Ute Lemper, The Band, The Hooters, Van Morrison, Sinéad O'Connor, Cyndi Lauper, Marianne Faithfull, The Scorpions, Joni Mitchell, Jerry Hall, Paul Carrack, Tim Curry, and Bryan Adams.

This performance had several differences from Pink Floyd's original production of The Wall show. Both "Mother" and "Another Brick in the Wall, Part II" are extended with solos by various instruments and the latter had a cold ending. "In The Flesh" has an extended intro, and "Comfortably Numb" features longer dueling solos by the two guitarists as well as an additional chorus at the end of the song. "The Show Must Go On" is omitted completely, while both "The Last Few Bricks" and "What Shall We Do Now?" are included (The Last Few Bricks was shortened). Also, the performance of the song "The Trial" had live actors playing the parts, with Thomas Dolby playing the part as the teacher, hanging from the wall.

The Wall: Live in Berlin was released as a live recording of the concert, although a couple of tracks were excised from the CD version, and the LASERDISC video in NTSC can still be found through second sourcing.

[edit] Set list

The Wall Live in Berlin album cover.
The Wall Live in Berlin album cover.

[edit] Personnel

The Company

The Bleeding Heart Band

  • Rick DiFonzo: Guitars.
  • Snowy White: Guitars.
  • Andy Fairweather-Low: Bass guitar, guitar, backing vocals.
  • Peter Wood: keyboards, organ, synthesizers.
  • Nick Glennie-Smith: Keyboards, organ, synthesizers.
  • Graham Broad: Drums, electronic percussion.
  • Stan Farber: Backing vocals.
  • Joe Chemay: Backing vocals.
  • Jim Haas: Backing vocals.
  • John Joyce: Backing vocals.

Others

[edit] Performance notes

  • In the actual concert on live television, the second song, "The Thin Ice" and part of the third song, "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 1)", were disrupted when a circuit breaker tripped. It was reset, but immediately tripped again so they had to rewire some equipment. Those two songs had to be re-recorded for the issue of the videotape.
  • The live performance of "Mother" was also hounded by a power failure. Roger Waters tried to get Sinéad O'Connor to sing her parts anyways, or mime the song, while the error was being fixed. Offended by being asked to mime, she didn't return after the show to re-record the performance (which is how "The Thin Ice" was saved for the CD/Video release.) Instead, the release version of "Mother" comes from the dress rehearsal on the previous night before the concert. Consequently, the large projection of Gerald Scarfe's mother character that was projected on the screen during the concert cannot be seen on the video or DVD versions.
  • The Wife's part of "The Trial" had to be redone in studio, because the image of the live recording had poor quality. What is seen in the video issue is a close-up of Ute Lemper, against a dark background, lip-syncing to the original live sound.
  • Shot on Potsdamer Platz, the no man's land between East and West Germany, the producers didn't know if the area would be filled with mines - no one did. Before setting up, they did a sweep of the area and found a slew of munitions and a previously unknown SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler bunker. The Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler started as Hitler's elite personal bodyguard but were later diverted to Eastern and Western fronts. There is a misconception probably due to the SS division's name that the bunker found was the Führerbunker or the place were Adolf Hitler committed suicide which is false. The Führerbunker was in another location.[2]
  • At the request of the concert producers, part of the Berlin Wall was kept in place as a security fence behind the stage.
  • Paddy Moloney, bandleader for The Chieftains, is listed as a guest performer in the show. Although The Chieftains played a daytime set before the concert, his solo contribution to the main show remains a mystery.
  • During the final chanting of "Tear down the wall!" in the Trial sequence, the wall has a projection of a concrete and graffiti marked semblance of the Berlin Wall, just before it is torn down.
  • The live Van Morrison version of "Comfortably Numb" is used in the Martin Scorsese film The Departed.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

 v • d • e Roger Waters
Discography
Studio albums: The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking | Radio KAOS | Amused to Death | Ça Ira
Soundtracks: Music from "The Body" | When the Wind Blows
Live: The Wall Live in Berlin | In the Flesh Live
Compilations: Flickering Flame
Singles: The Tide Is Turning | What God Wants, Pt. 1 | To Kill the Child/Leaving Beirut
Videos and DVDs
Pink Floyd The Wall | The Wall Live in Berlin | In the Flesh Live | The Making of The Dark Side of the Moon
Tours
In the Flesh | The Dark Side of the Moon Live
Related articles
Pink Floyd | David Gilmour | Alan Parker | Gerald Scarfe | Ron Geesin | The Final Cut | The Wall | "Hello (I Love You)"
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