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Home arrow Roger Waters 2008 arrow May 18th - THE O2 ARENA, LONDON, ENGLAND
May 18th - THE O2 ARENA, LONDON, ENGLAND Print E-mail
02 arena
rw ticket 180508
liverpool and london roger waters poster 2008

Capacity: 23,000

Concert starts: 7:30pm (doors open 7pm)

Address of venue: Peninsula Square, London, SE10 0DX. MAP

Website: www.theo2.co.uk

Tickets for this concert went on sale to the general public on Friday, February 29th at 9:00am, through the box office: www.livenation.co.uk or 0844 576 5483 (all tickets subject to a booking fee). Our thanks to Kevan Porter for the ticket scan shown to the right.

PRE-SALE: However, to thank faithful website visitors, there was a special pre-sale, which allowed you to purchase the best seats before they go on-sale to the general public. This pre-sale went live from 9:00am on Wednesday, February 27th at www.livenation.co.uk/rogerwaters.

SET LIST - highlight the following with your mouse to read...
FIRST HALF: In The Flesh, Mother, Set The Controls For the Heart Of The Sun, Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Have A Cigar, Wish You Were Here, Southampton Dock, The Fletcher Memorial Home, Perfect Sense parts 1 and 2, Leaving Beirut, Sheep.
SECOND HALF:
Dark Side of the Moon. ENCORE: The Happiest Days Of Our Lives, Another Brick In The Wall (Pt 2), Vera, Bring the Boys back Home, Comfortably Numb.

WARNING - SPOILERS AHEAD!

Do not read on if you don't want surprises to be spoilt, regarding what the band played!

Roger's 2008 mini-tour hits London and the impressive O2 Arena, which sits in the middle of what was the Millennium Dome in the dockland area of Greenwich. Reckoned as the best concert venue in the world in various polls, the show was very quickly a complete sell-out.

The audience was quite typical of a weekend concert in London - whilst there were many many faithful fans loving every minute, weekend shows in the capital do tend to sometimes feature audiences sitting back waiting to be impressed. However, once the likes of Perfect Sense came around, so did the crowd, and so the atmosphere improved significantly.

The sound was pretty loud, but for some reason wasn't totally clear. After speaking to a number of people in different parts of the arena, to see if it was a localized problem, it was felt that there was a harshness to the sound which came to the fore particularly in the louder and "busier" moments of the music.

Having said that, it didn't distract from a great show which beforehand was the subject to various unfounded rumours of who might join the band as a special guest!

CONCERT REVIEW by BD CONTRIBUTOR, Kevan Porter

The third and final(?) installment of Roger's ambitious Dark Side of the Moon three year world tour hit the 02 Arena in London last night for the first of two shows there. I'll not go into the content of the show itself as it is exactly the same as the 2007 version which I've covered before on this site. Well, not exactly the same! The song 'Leaving Beirut" has a slightly heavier riff but more particularly a fabulous new ending consisting of ascending vocal harmonies which really lift the song to a new hymn like level. The famous inflatable airborne pig has some tasty new "Obama' graphics and also during 'Sheep', the confetti that drops into the audience includes miniature Obama voting slips! How the UK audiences will react to that remains to be seen. (The people sat next to me had no idea who or what Obama meant).

As before Roger seemed jubilant and appreciative of the massive adulation showered upon him by what must be his largest ever solo UK audience (not counting Live8 with Pink Floyd), but with a little more modesty this time around.

Unusually for Roger's shows, the sound quality was quite poor. It was very loud and the top end, particularly on the vocals which were very sharp and sibilant. Perhaps that will be addressed at the next show.

However, the overriding feeling for me though is this was another fantastic show that I do not tire of seeing or hearing. Roger has put together a great selection of songs from both the Floyd canon and his own solo compositions, mixed with brilliant visuals and effects to create a stunning show. One that feasts the eyes and ears whist simultaneously provoking serious thought. I do hope this show, in one form or another, makes it onto DVD, it would make an essential addition to the 'Floyd' catalogue and a great lead into Roger's next solo album.

If you get a chance, you must try and catch, what might be the final UK performance of, this fabulous show tonight at the 02.

CONCERT PICTURES by BD CONTRIBUTOR, Aaron Collett

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CONCERT REVIEW by BD CONTRIBUTOR, Rob Sadler

02 (the new Earls Court!!) - Last night was worth getting into bed at 3am: worth every wrinkle under my eyes!!! WHAT A GIG!!!

The arrangement for each song seemed to have been changed making it more of a team effort more vocals more rhythm more something... even an "in the gods" seat gave us an excellent show!! I was really surprised at how that place filled up and musically the room was set up for a guitar rock sound!! The visuals were excellent as normal! I have seen this concert 4 times now and it is on par with Earls Court last year when Nick came on.

The Dark Side tracks were powerful more like the album than ever before, the vocals were spot on. Breathe was fantastic - but the funniest thing was when everyone got up to leave at the end of DSOTM!! It emptied then they came back on and the mad rush to get back to their seats was funny!! ABITW was a good sing along and the Vera callouts seemed to make Roger smile as opposed to his usual wince! C Numb was an excellent ending as normal! With virtually all around me singing along at full blast... worth the drive, worth the lack of sleep, worth every penny!!

So what next? New material? Will he tour again?? We wait with baited breath still with the worry that he is in his mid 60's but the comfort that he can command full attention from a full audience! Please keep going Roger - perhaps tour with the best from The Wall?! Or is it retirement!? No Nick, but it didn't matter!!

CONCERT REVIEW by BD CONTRIBUTOR, Will Poole

First night at the O2, fourth time seeing the show in London. Didn't have brilliant seats as up in the tiered section, so didn't feel the atmosphere as much. Thought the crowd were a bit quiet, none really stood until the encores.

The sound was brilliant, the 3D effects really work well in the O2. Seeing the pig and astronaut from above was a bit odd and the prism was great.

Not a big fan of the new backing singer, thought she didn't add anything to Mother. AFL's replacement ripped a load of good chords. The band were very tight, almost too tight in places, you could have almost turned the CD on and let it play instead.

Rumours that DG would appear came to nothing.

Overall, a great show, but I did prefer the Hyde Park and Earls Court shows. We'll see how the second night goes, have front row seats for it and specially made t-shirts!!

CONCERT REVIEW by BD CONTRIBUTOR, Simon Penrose

I went to see Roger at the 02 arena last night - we only stayed for a few songs as the sound was so poor, so I hope we didn't miss any special guests! I've only been to the venue once before to see Zep who clearly spent some time trying to the the sound right in that god-forsaken, soulless wig-wam. I'm not sure what the sound was like for those at floor level, but sitting up on the sides where we were, things were dire. I'd be interested to know what other people thought.

I recall that zep made the effort to install a mass off speakers hanging down from the roof (like an upside-down Christmas tree) to project sound at all those sitting up on the sides but I was disappointed that Roger's PA, by comparison, was tiny. I understand that the venue is mostly to blame but we couldn't help but think that Floyd would never allow themselves to sound so shitty - or even consider playing there. I saw Floyd on their last tour (when I was 15!) and I can recall being towards the back of Earls Court and the sound was just shaking right through us - incredible. So you can understand our disappointment when seeing Rog last night that no effort was made to immerse everyone with music. It was like listening to a very loud hi-fi from great distance. We also agreed that Rogers band seemed bored and 'going through the motions'. Maybe I'm just getting old and grumpy but I get the feeling that Rog didn't have anything new to offer...and what a terrible venue. The fact that they keep the lights on so you can see where you are treading also really kills the atmosphere. Well, that's my Monday morning rant over and done with. Thanks for listening!

CONCERT PICTURES by BD CONTRIBUTOR, Tara Samaha

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CONCERT REVIEW by BD CONTRIBUTOR, Kevin Rees

It's the 3rd time I've seen the DSOTM concert now, Hyde Park '06, Earls Court '07 and last night in the O2. I felt that the atmosphere was very flat for the first half, it seemed that the majority of people around me only wanted to hear songs they knew ie Money/ABITW etc, it picked up after Us and Them people actually got off their arses and showed some emotion! One gripe, the ticket clearly stated 7.45pm start so why do people just amble in at 8.10pm and get in the way? The atmosphere was nowhere near as good as Earls Court and and don't feel the O2 is as good a venue as Earls Court, that said the Quad was more prominent last night. Highlights for me were Have a Cigar, Leaving Beirut, Us and Them (Carin is a legend!) Vera and BTBBH. Overall 7/10 for atmosphere and crowd, 8/10 for show and 8.5/10 for sound.

I will finish by saying that I feel Roger has really flogged this tour to death now, time to get in the studio, bring out the DVD and then concentrate on a new album.

Last Updated ( Friday, 23 May 2008 )
 
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