Hollywood Bowl

Ticket scan thanks to John Koons

Capacity: TBC
Concert starts: 8pm

Address of venue: 2301 N. Highland Ave, Hollywood, CA 90068. MAP

Website: www.hollywoodbowl.com

The first two of three nights at the historic Hollywood Bowl - with the help of Nick Mason - went very well! The venue was last used by Roger way back in 1972, when he and his then colleagues performed Dark Side Of The Moon there in September of that year. At that point, the album was still six months away...

The final night didn't go as smoothly. Reports are coming in of problems with the sound, and with the stage effects not working correctly. Also, it seems someone managed to get on stage!

With the tour almost at a finish, the band are playing extremely well. Audiences are lapping up the performances, and if you are going to either of the final two shows, you are due for a treat. Have a great time and tell us about it!

Picture courtesy of Kurt Lawson © 2006

PRESS REVIEWS

There will be reviews of this show in a number of the local newspapers, and as we have them, we will give you details of these, here. The first of these has appeared in the Orange County Register, and has a couple of nice pictures of Roger in action there, too.

You should also check out this page at the OC Register too, and respected news agency Reuters have posted their review here.

EACH NIGHT'S INFORMATION AND REPORTS:

• October 5th - first night - click here for reviews, details and more
• October 6th - second night - click here for reviews, details and more
• October 8th - third night - click here for reviews, details and more

Our friend Jordan Finkelstein, who runs a Rush fansite, took lots of great pictures at the Bowl. See them at echoesofoldapplause.com.

COMBINED REVIEW and PHOTOS OF ALL THREE NIGHTS

By BD contributor, Arash Danesh

Dream Come True:

What can one possibly say after being fortunate enough to witness three nights of history ? All I can say that I feel blessed to be able to have been there, there is no room for useless dissection of every moment, petty musing, and pompous intellectualizing. I find no point in “song-by-song” reviews as they offer the greatest opportunity for biased reactions, misconceptions, and disappointment. And at this point everybody knows what songs are played and have seen enough clips on YouTube so let’s talk about the overall effect. People whine and moan too much about things that are out of their element: guitar tones, transitions, slips, song selection, etc. Just like “In the Flesh” says:

“Tell me is something eluding you sunshine?
Is this not what you expected to see?”

During the three nights there were some technical mishaps, which should not come as a shocker in any sense, as a show in such scale is an undertaking of mythic proportions, with a myriad of aspects that require the highest levels of skill and execution, so what if Dave Kilminster forgot a verse during “Money” on Friday, or that Roger’s mike was off during the opening verse of “Cigar” on Sunday, or the Roto-tom had a loose cable which resulted in a few cracks…?? Shit happens, especially when operating on a scale that is influenced by so many variables. Nothing can dampen what was achieved during these three nights: Excellence.

Every night there was a lady at the bottom left of the stage hand signing the lyrics with much intensity and emotion….

Before the show on Friday I ran into Jim Ladd (the man Tom Petty proclaimed as “the last DJ” who was in attendance at all three shows), along with Benmont Tench (of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers) who said that they were cherishing the experience as well… I saw Jim on Sunday as well, in great spirit as usual, a true legend, a blessing on the airwaves of Los Angeles. Seeing so many celebrities there, you could not avoid the expression that they were all sharing the same experience as every body else, the air of magic and wonder was so heavy, you could see its impact on every face…

A note on the venue’s staff (the fun police): these people are not there to do what should be their jobs, which is accommodating the audience, but there to relieve their complexes and bitterness via their illusion of “authority” at the venue, as they attempt to control every move that the audience make, they run around like cheap rats scouring through the stands, pointing their flashlights in people’s faces screaming like idiots, oblivious to the fact that people are listening to the music, trying to find someone they can “bust”, felt like the song “Run Like Hell”… a pathetic lot they all are…

There was a report published on Friday that after Thursday’s show, the Los Angeles had warned of taking action if another Pig was set free into the L.A. sky. A case of “Pig” envy maybe… in consequence, the pig was not let go on the following nights, it made its run through the venue and was taken out from the back side.

After Fridays performance of DSOTM concluded and the band stood to take a bow, Roger looked around to get Nick next to him and asked “where’s my old mate…?” a touching moment, a sign of how much their old friendship and shared history is cherished by both men.

Reading all the reviews, it becomes quite clear that the general audience REALLY DON’T GET “BEIRUT”… someone complained that the cartoon with the lyrics was too much, and that Roger needs to believe in his audience more than “bludgeoning” them with understanding… I would make the opposite argument. Just like most of his songs and lyrics, this one finds itself way over the average audience’s head… I’ve had enough of these morons critiquing the song, and whining about how it “lacks” meaning, relevance, being disrespectful, etc. especially those who say “REMEMBER 9/11 ?”…Yes IDIOT… Lebanon did not slam planes into the WTC, … Take a geography course you sorry sod… what goes over people’s head mainly is that this piece is not about pointing fingers, but a plea to reconsider and rethink our actions and motives… the question is “who are we fighting, and what for ?”

It really feels that “In the Flesh 2000” (my first Concert EVER !!) was a practice for this band to arrive where they are today; they have achieved their fully realized strength and potential and have gelled into a solidly cohesive unit, not to take away from the majesty of that tour…

At the end of these three nights, which felt like one long and lovely night, I had the wonderful privilege to meet the band, the Man, and Nick. A class organization through and through, and they will be sharing more of their magic as the band will have two more shows on this leg of the tour, and after a break, they are set to take the show (with possible variations) to Australia… if you get a chance to see them DON’T MISS IT…

[Check out another BD contributor's comments on the 2007 tour, after he met up with Roger at the conclusion of the third show!]

COMBINED REVIEW and PHOTOS OF ALL THREE NIGHTS

By BD contributor, Bob McMurtree

It is my incredible fortune to have been in attendance at all three shows at the Hollywood Bowl. Look, I know that just about everything that can be said has already been said. And, yeah, the technical nuances that vary from show to show are fun to talk about and allow us to make the inevitable comparisons.

But the feeling that I have today is of overwhelming emotion; awe and excitement over the enormity and precision of the staging, keeping the legend alive, nostalgia because those old guys on the stage are my tenuous connection to the hope, joy and idealism of the post-war period that somehow either faded or were just bombarded by the realities of the last 40 years, and a bit of sadness because this kind of experience just doesn't come around often enough.

Music from Pink Floyd and Roger Waters' solo is not conceived, created, nor performed in a vacuum. It is truly of our times, but also transcendent in its message that we are the sum product of the decisions we make, and that we have the opportunity to change our thinking and confront the folly of making the same mistakes over and over.

What I'm getting at is that THIS MUSIC MATTERS! He's not up there just going through the motions and playing his greatest hits; he's putting out a passionately personal message that urgently needs to be heard in these trying times. My 16-year-old son went with me all three nights, and he all he could talk about was how powerful the first set was every night. And he's right! Combining satire, metaphor and spectacle, Roger Waters' message is that war is ultimately futile, yet we continue to allow and encourage our governments to flex their military muscle instead of confronting divisive issues as equals....and it just keeps happening with each successive generation.

One emotion that I'm not feeling is "Gee, if only it could be Pink Floyd instead of just Roger." I caught the Gilmour shows earlier, and they were fantastic! The reunion just isn't in the cards, but what a great year it's been! I read earlier where Floyd fans were like children of a divorce, and both parents are trying to spoil us this year. As the "Kilminster/Snowy aren't as good as Gilmour," complaints pile up, the divorce thing takes on a funny dimension. Like when Dad enters a new relationships and the kids "like" the new girlfriend, but "what I really want is for you and Mom to get back together!!!"

For what it's worth, i'm glad they don't sound enough like Gilmour because when I've got a "Comfortably Numb" solo in my head, it's the one Gilmour plays. And that's exactly how it should be. And I'll say this. Because he's such a prolific songwriter, Waters wears the rap that he's not that good a bass player. I completely disagree! One of the great joys of the last 3 nights was listening to Roger playing a ton of lyrical, creative, and prominent-in-the-mix bass, and loving every minute of it!

I'm thankful that Roger Waters is a guy that has a lot to say and the platform from which to say it. I loved every minute of it, and the sights, sounds, and emotions of the past three evenings will stay with me for a very long time.

SHOW PREVIEW

By BD contributor, Jordan Finkelstein

It's very difficult to sit and write this because something really exciting happened this last Sunday night when I was browsing around the Internet.

People may remember how excited I was when I got tickets to two consecutive nights to see David Gilmour perform his "On an Island" solo tour at the Kodak Theater and Universal Amphitheater, both up in Hollywood about six months ago.

It seemed as though Roger Waters, legendary creator and mastermind of concept albums "The Wall" (1980) and "Dark Side of the Moon" (1974) and bassist of Pink Floyd, "retaliated" and shortly after Gilmour's tour dates were set, Waters set his own dates, announcing that as part of his solo tour he was going to perform "Dark Side of the Moon" in it's entirety as one half of the show. Truly a masterpiece of a concert concept, like the two above-mentioned albums. One of these "can't miss" shows, in my opinion.

There were real ticket snares trying to get a seat for Waters' show. All this American Express pre-sale stuff, pre-sales passwords, pre-sales auctions, then the usual on sale date frenzy. Not to mention the EXHORBITANT price of admission, which I won't even mention because it's just too much to think about. Money, so they say, is the root of all evil today. Suffice to say that Page and Plant's $95 ticket price for their first reunion tour in 1994, followed by Rush's performance at Radio City Music Hall in 2004 at $150 a pop is chump change in comparison. The on sale date came and went and me and my friend Charles just blew it off because of all the B.S. surrounding the whole thing. Plus, the money was an issue as well, a bit of a bit of a turn off, quite honestly. So it all got put on the back burner and forgotten about.

But last night I took into consideration that I have not been to too many concerts in the last year or so. My latest experience, though, was sitting at a fourth row table at Embarcadero Marina Park bayside downtown, under the gorgeous, clear, summer, star-lit San Diego night sky, sipping a Jack Daniel's tall double in a sports jacket, and listening to the (tired and understaffed and unexciting) San Diego Symphony come to life when they were joined by 80s rocker Randy Johnson (of Zebra fame) and his six piece nationally touring troupe that performed an evening of Led Zeppelin tunes.

Suffice to say that it was an extremely enjoyable evening and the reproduction of the ageless tunes of the Mighty Zep were outstandingly close to the original works. You could barely hear the orchestra, which in fact, was a blessing. It was a very, very nice way to spend a Thursday evening, especially when I got to meet the entire six member entourage, talk to them, and get all their autographs after the almost three hour long collaboration. Interestingly, I was well overdressed, and hilariously, one of the youngest audience members! Watching 50 and 60 year olds dance around and sing 25 year old lyrics - well - made me feel young!

Oh, but back to Waters. I regularly receive email updates from a variety of sources announcing upcoming concerts "in my area" because of the Donald Trump like fortune I have spent with ticket agents and services since I turned 14 or so. And then it hit me. "Isn't that Waters concert coming up here in October?" I cocked my head in saying so out loud, and surfed out of the email program and on to the Ticketmaster website, where of course I have an account on a credit card with a balance and a credit limit that garners a small mortgage payment each month. It's just one of those things in my life that's just there, and will remain there, probably until the day I die. Which might be soon. Like maybe this Thursday night. I have a rough draft of my will, it's somewhere on my computer.

The single ticket request I put in came up at about 9 p.m. Pacific Standard Time as a 7th row center seat in what is called the "Pool Circle" at Hollywood Bowl, the first of three nights Waters is playing L.A. I just about had a coronary right there, with the combination of a serious score and of course, the ticket subtotal about to be charged to my Concert Credit Card. I actually didn't believe it because of all the previous crapola regarding getting some of these tickets, and I was in shock. I didn't actually believe what I was seeing. Was this just a flashback or a hallucination, or was this really going down in my living room?

So I quickly surfed to my Rush website to actually look at the ticket that I got in a similar situation with Rush, also at Hollywood Bowl, in 1994. Virtually the same thing happened back then and the system coughed up with two front row seats, Pool D, Row 1. I didn't stop shaking for six months after that one.

Then I immediately called Charles. Like maybe in 10 seconds. I routinely purchase two tickets at a time to take people with me. But have learned that people bail, don't want to pay, make excuses, can't get away, etc., even for the most stellar of performances. But not Charles. He went with me to Gilmour, and is also a pretty big Floyd fan. All I needed to hear him say was the "FUCK YEAH I'M GOING, DO IT!" yelling through the phone the minute he heard my query and I went back in and pulled up two tickets, came up with the same one previous plus one next to it, and history was made in a quick cyber click. The most expensive pair of concert tickets ever, plus an evening of listening that will feature the ENTIRE "Dark Side of the Moon" album played as the second half of the show. Just like Rush, the tickets are currently at the Will Call window. In the 20 seconds it took me to buy them, Charles concluded that I have some type of Ticket Karma for Hollywood Bowl, and that we should go see EVERYTHING there. Not a bad idea!

Mostly I think, as most of you know, this Ticket Karma tends to follow me around most everywhere, with the exception of the PMB Bank Pavilion in St. Louis, where my friend Jill and I got HOSED and settled for lawn tickets for the first of 10 shows on the last Rush tour. I'll never live that one down. Those were the worst seats I've had since I was 15! Nothing less than 7th row the entire rest of the tour. Just a small little glitch in that Karma.

It, however, is not the magnitude of hearing and seeing "Dark Side of the Moon" that has me really feeling the Floydian love. It's the fact that the set list for the rest of the night is almost exclusively hand picked from "The Wall." Which of course, is probably the record and/or CD that has occupied my life and record players, cassette players and CD players, walkmans and radio interest longer than anything else. What can I say. I'm a Wall freak.

After doing more online research and immediately looking for concert reviews in the post-purchase buzz, I realized that this concert is going to be a phenomenal event. DSOM has occupied Billboard Magazine's Top 200 best selling albums of all time for over 30 years, continuously selling thousands upon thousands of copies per year. I never got to see the Wall Tour in 1980, and missed the tour in 1987. That was a real bummer not going to that show.

There really is so much information that links all the songs in the nightly set list that it's hard to describe, other than it's completely rebellious and socio-political. Waters is involved in a lot of peace movement activities, and that was part of Pink Floyd's historic reunion at the huge Live 8 concert in Hyde Park on July 2nd, 2005, promoting peace and an end to hunger in Africa when the G-8 Summit went down in England simultaneously with the huge concert.

Waters' tour and the DSOM theme concept and the theme concept of the Wall COMBINED - Greed (song: "Money"), and War (a large portion of the Wall concept, besides isolation) is what Waters' focus is on. This is not just some metal band touring around and playing, it's not just some summer festival tour with 10 bands and teenage kids headbanging. This is a political event, brought on by violence and war in Iraq and Israel. And also, in my opinion, by Gilmour's own solo tour, if you ask me. There's conflict and isolation between Waters and Gilmour, I don't think anyone can argue that point. Waters and Gilmour. Page and Plant. Sting and Summers and Copeland.

And if anyone is familiar with "The Wall," either the movie or the recording, it is truly stunning to see Waters present his concert by combining his two pieces of work, and it makes it look like today we are indeed experiencing World War III. Which basically I'm convinced we are witnessing not all at once, but little by little, brick by brick, things are falling down around us. It's no wonder Waters is on tour.

Just seeing portions of the set list freak me out. Who could have possibly thought that I might ever possibly hear songs off "The Wall" live, including "Vera," "Bring the Boys Back Home," "Another Brick in the Wall part II," "Mother," "In the Flesh" and of course, the ever mandatory "Comfortably Numb," which I have seen live with Gilmour just recently, and on the last official Pink Floyd "Division Bell" tour in 1994. It's almost more than one could want or ask for.

The lyrical, musical and timeless application of these songs and two albums is, in my mind, incomprehensible. Look, people have been listening to Mozart and Beethoven for two centuries. We are in just the youth of the music of the Floyd, which is amazing to think about. If the world lasts long enough, then DSOTM will still be on the charts and people will still be buying "The Wall" in 4,000 A.D. Don't you think that's true?

It has also come to my attention that Pink Floyd's original drummer, Nick Mason is appearing at sporadic shows, including New York and Hollywood. This is incredible to me. Because after the Waters show this coming Thursday, I will have seen ALL the remaining members of Pink Floyd on stage and performing within the last eight months. Original Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright was on with Gilmour.

Which in and of itself, these combinations of band members, tours and songs is nothing short of ASTOUNDING. Quite possibly as psychedelic as the band and the music itself. Gilmour and Wright. Waters and Mason. I'll have to get a copy of the Gilmour set list and combine it with the Waters set list and put it all together, although I must say Waters is going to be covering a WHOLE lot more Floyd distance than Gilmour. Also, on the Gilmour tour, you know he played his WHOLE new album, "On an Island" and Waters is doing the entire DSOTM (of course, those in the know can associate all this "solo" stuff together - "On an Island" "Dark Side of the Moon" "The Wall" - OMG!).

The question I'm asking myself is, was this all planned? The two consecutive tours? The two albums played in full? The original band members split two and two? I can't help but put that thought out there for others to ponder. Or is the distance between Gimour and Waters so great that both of these individuals have given us the chance to see them separately rather than collectively, within a relatively short period of time? Is that their way of letting us see Pink Floyd, if in fact, difference will keep Gilmour and Waters apart?

It's all a bit of an overload if you ask me, but that's appropriate! Gilmour played "Comfortably Numb" as his last song, and of course Waters is doing the same (oooo, they have something in common!). But what better song to end with than THAT? No other band on the face of the planet can finish a night like that.

And here's a special note to Steffen (my step brother, about four years older than I am). When I was growing up he used to send me cassette tapes of music. Lynryd Skynard, the Who, Cream, Hendrix, Parliament - the list goes on. I really didn't know much who was playing or what it was, but I know that I really liked it, about age 12 and 13. The cassettes would arrive with cryptic like handwriting on them in the mail in box completely taped up with masking tape, small little things, maybe 6x6x3 inches. There was this one that I played over and over and over and over, it had all these strange sounds and animal noises and stuff on it. For the longest, longest time, I had no idea of what music this was, but it found a special place in my heart, and it's still there.

My second favorite Floyd album of all time, that's what that cassette became. My favoring it was eclipsed only by the release of "The Wall." That album is "Animals." It took me half a lifetime to figure out what band was on that cassette, which was probably Steffen's original intension. And when Waters plays "Sheep" or anything else off that at the show, I'll be thinking alot about my brother Steffen and that cassette. Me hear a song LIVE from "Animals?" You've GOT to be kidding.

And for my ever-supportive mother who has always loved and embraced my own love of music and concerts and touring, (please send money!), I give her dedication to the song of the same name. Every time I hear that song off "The Wall" ("Mother") I, like millions, if not billions of people, stop and think about how it describes and makes me feel about my own mother.

I think maybe the tickets have paid for themselves even before I've set foot inside Hollywood Bowl. What do you think?

But alas, if only I could hear "Hey You" and "Goodbye Blue Sky." That would be my final wish as a Floyd fan.

The 7th row seats cost $283.50 EACH. I really don't know if that's too much or too little at this point. But I DO know that I have two of them!

The same tix are going for $600 to $1,000 each at assorted brokers, scalpers and Ebay locations. So I guess I got a bargain and shouldn't worry about the Money. I'll have more words and photos after we go to the show. If there's been any incorrect factual information - my apologies!