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Home arrow 2012 WALL TOUR arrow May 19th - MEMORIAL COLISEUM, LOS ANGELES, CA, USA
May 19th - MEMORIAL COLISEUM, LOS ANGELES, CA, USA Print E-mail
Memorial Coliseum
Roger Waters - Los Angeles 2012 ticket
Roger Waters - 2012 The Wall Live Tour

Capacity: TBA
Concert starts: 8pm

Address of venue: 3939 South Figueroa Street, Los Angeles, CA 90037. MAP

Website: lacoliseumlive.com

 

COMMENTS

Roger's tour of The Wall arrives in Los Angeles for a show at this large American Football venue. The last time it reverberated to Pink Floyd's music was back in 1988, when the band performed there. It's also possibly the oldest venue, built in 1921.

The RogerWaters.com presales have taken place, with advance tickets available to those who had registered their interest in particular cities. General sale tickets went on sale on November 14th (or possibly November 18th) at 10am through this link to Ticketmaster.com. Exact dates and outlets can be found via Roger's website. The public sale will also see a limited number of VIP packages made available for each show on the tour. Our thanks to Elliot Tayman for the concert poster shown to the right.

SET LIST - highlight the following with your mouse to read...
FIRST HALF: In the Flesh, The Thin Ice, Another Brick in the Wall Part 1, The Happiest Days of our Lives, Another Brick in the Wall Part 2, Mother, Goodbye Blue Sky, Empty Spaces, What Shall We Do Now, Young Lust, One of My Turns, Don't Leave Me Now, Another Brick in the Wall Part 3, The Last Few Bricks, Goodbye Cruel World
SECOND HALF:
Hey You, Is There Anybody Out There?, Nobody Home, Vera, Bring the Boys Back Home, Comfortably Numb, The Show Must Go On, In The Flesh, Run Like Hell, Waiting for the Worms, Stop, The Trial, Outside the Wall.

 

WARNING - SPOILERS AHEAD!

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

Night forty of the tour, and there were delays getting the show going to ensure it got nice and dark. As our friend Simon Wimpenny reported from the scene, they added a good four extra songs to the preshow music selection to help elongate it. Simon said that it was an "awesome show tonight, one of the best ever! Roger's mic went down at the beginning of The Thin Ice and he stopped the show for a few minutes while talking to the crowd..." Another friend of BD, Stephen Humphries, reports below - filing his report as he arrived home - and gives a little more detail on the technical issues which occurred...

The Daily Breeze were there from the media, and reviewed the show. They noted that "Roger's vocals were spot-on, his backing band utterly perfect, and the artistic innovations mesmerizing with surround sound, spine-tingling effects and, of course, a giant inflatable pig flying overhead. Usually a rock singer half Waters' age is ready to make his walk into the sunset, but there the British frontman was, singing his ass off, owning every inch of the massive stage and pushing the very boundaries of passion as a near-capacity crowd of more than 50,000 went wild. Who knows how Waters does it? He was spotted sipping a glass of wine at a backstage party afterward, and perhaps it was nectar of the gods because however this guy is pulling it off, it's rather amazing."

They conclude by saying that "This was not just a concert, it was a triumph. The key creative force behind two of the biggest rock albums of all-time, "The Wall" and "Dark Side of the Moon," Waters has nothing to prove. But he did so anyway Saturday with a performance for the ages that cements Waters' status as one of rock's all-time greats."

If you went to this show in Los Angeles, please let us know what you thought of the event, and if anything interesting or different happened if you've been to previous shows and can compare.

CONCERT REVIEW by BD CONTRIBUTOR, Stephen Humphries

Suffice to say it was a terrific show, although the production lost some of the relative "intimacy" of the indoor shows. That said, the wall was double as long - a true wall - which was very impressive. There seemed to me to be a few changes in the graphics on-screen here and there. Also, at the end of "Another Brick in the Wall (pt. 2)," there was a new acoustic section tacked on to the end of the song in which Roger borrowed some lyrics from the song. Cool to have him branch out and add something to it rather than play the show exactly like the original album, which they did on the first leg (apart from the guitar jams in "Another Brick....pt 3," of course). I could be wrong, but it also seemed to me that White and Kilminster added their own little jammy spin to pt 1. of "Another Brick," too.

There was one notable event tonight: In the middle of "Thin Ice," Roger suddenly shouted "Stop, Stop, Stop." And the band stopped playing and the projections froze. Roger complained that there was no sound in one of the mics on stage and he wasn't hearing the sound properly on his monitors. So, for at least two or three minutes, the tech crew were trying to figure out that sound issues even as Roger apologized to the audience. In the end, they decided to start the song all over again from the very top. It was shocking to see such a well-oiled show come to a grinding halt like that. Probably the only time that has happened as I imagine tech hitches of that magnitude are few and far between...

CONCERT PICTURES by BD CONTRIBUTOR, Robert Maiolo

Roger Waters - Los Angeles 2012 Roger Waters - Los Angeles 2012
Roger Waters - Los Angeles 2012 Roger Waters - Los Angeles 2012

 

CONCERT REVIEW, PICTURES and VIDEO by BD CONTRIBUTOR, Simon Wimpenny

Mine and Eric's seats tonight were very high up in the venue, right at the back. I'd seen the show in Buenos Aires from this very position and loved it.

At around 8:45 after the extra few tracks of pre-show music the lights went out one by one in the stadium. The great thing about this show outdoors is when the lights go out it's SO dark! There's very little light comes from anywhere and tonight there was just the glow from a few of the merchandise stands down below. We were all warned about setting our cameras to "Flash Forced Off" and then the Spartacus intro started.

It was great sitting up so high and seeing the spotlight all around the stadium shining on and off people and the shouts of "I'm Spartacus!" relayed around the arena through the surround towers.

Pyros shot up from the to In The Flesh and then continued to shoot out of the roof of the canopy, this is a great effect that's often missed if you're within the first 20 rows or so. Eric had missed it at the San Fran show and I think was suitably impressed.

Roger Waters - Los Angeles, 2012

 

The crowd were fantastic and erupted in cheers as the pyros went from one side of the stage to the other towards the end of In The Flesh, this lit the whole audience up and once again it was great to be able to see the faces of the people watching and their senses overloaded both visual and audio as the airplane noises ran around the stadium in the surround speaker stacks from one side of the stadium to the other. I turned to look at Eric and saw the amazement on his face, I don't think he'd heard surround like this ever before.

We were in a great place to see the plane go down to crash into the wall. As it was a stadium it was mounted right at the back and took at least twice as long to get from the back where it was mounted, to the bricks on the wall!

The crowd went wild at the end of In The Flesh and I have to say it was probably THE best version, musically, crowd wise, and visually. I knew from then on that the show was going to be special and I wasn't wrong.

I'd forgot how the crowd were in LA as regards arriving at a show, they are very laid back and even though the show had started 30 minutes late there were still people walking up the concrete steps looking for their seats, pushing past us and wandering around seeming to care more about spilling their cardboard plate of nachos rather than watching the show.

The Thin Ice started as normal musically, however when Roger went up to the mic and started singing, there were no vocals at all (proving it's one of the songs that doesn't have vocal assist tapes!) the band played on for at least 30 seconds before Roger stepped back and waved his arm in the air sweeping it across the stage from side to side, "stop, stop, STOP" he said several times until the band realised he wanted them to actually stop. There was clearly a problem with his mic as the audio from his mic was non existent. He stated to the audience that there was obviously some problem and he wanted to get it fixed as he "wanted to sing this song". He talked to the crew through the onstage monitors asking them what the problem was and to get up here and get it fixed. He also told the audience that he had some of the finest technicians there is and that they would start the track from the beginning when they had fixed the problem.

The technical hitch lasted just under 4 minutes long, the band started The Thin Ice from the start and everything was back to normal. I love when things like this happen, it just makes the show a bit more special and unique, you also know that Roger and the whole band are gonna perform the best they can after something like this happens.

Roger Waters - Los Angeles, 2012

 

The rest of the set went without a hitch with the exception of the crew having big problems getting the last brick in the wall at the end of Goodbye Cruel World. Took them a lot longer than normal and they were hitting the others bricks side to side around the last one to enable it to go in, they got there eventually.

At intermission Eric and I made our way down to the floor to meet up with Mr Hooter and Eric's wife Lisette. We hung around on the floor for a while and decided to stay on the floor for the 2nd set. There was an area to the left side of the front floor blocks set aside for guests and Eric and I pulled up a plastic lawn chair and sat what seemed like 10 feet from the wall, realistically it was probably 60 feet!

Roger Waters - Los Angeles, 2012

 

Eric later told me it was a bit too close for him for the size of the wall but it was an experience and he was happy that he was able to see the show from all different positions.

I'd noticed a couple of shows back that Roger has taken sometimes to not hitting the wall with both fists to crack the wall but he's started "sneaking" up on the wall and touching it gently with his finger, as you can see in the picture below. The graphics have also changed as to how the huge wall breaks up into boulders, it's not changed for the better either I don’t think. Whilst the left side breaks up and scatters around and falls similar to how it used to, the right side now cracks and all falls downwards toward the bottom of the stage. I'm not the only one that’s noticed this either, my friend Tommy emailed me and wondered if it was just him seeing things as he thought the motion had changed and didn't look anywhere near as good as it used to. I went back and watched a few clips on Youtube and until you see some of the older shows you don't realise just how much of a difference there is! I really hope they are still playing with it and change it back.

Roger Waters - Los Angeles, 2012

 

I have to say I really enjoy being this close a lot more than being further away, as much as I do like seeing the wall from afar at the stadiums there's just something about the energy that's there when all you see in front, to the left and to the right of you is WALL! Kind of like an IMAX screen, you can look as far left or as far right but the wall totally fills your field of vision.

The 2nd half seemed to go ever so quickly too, before I knew it I was on my feet throwing my arm in the air shouting "tear down the fucking wall"! The wall fell great tonight, the top few rows going forward then a couple backwards and then one huge piece falling forward! I do have to say though I miss the "good old days" of 2010 when the wall was unpredictable, it's a lot more controlled now and takes away that element of surprise as to where its going to fall and when.

I have to say this show was definitely in my top five shows, probably top three, the venue itself was so ideally suited to this show, the technical glitch, seeing the show with Eric, and the sheer size of the wall all made up for a fantastic night.

- Make sure you check out Simon's excellent blog at SimonWimpenny.blogspot.com where you'll find full details of all his travels, along with more pictures and videos.

CONCERT REVIEWS and PICTURES by other BD CONTRIBUTORS

Hopefully coming soon - we welcome all contributions!

YOUR HELP NEEDED! We want to cover Roger's concerts the best we can, to share the experience with everyone, especially those who won't be able to attend the shows. We'd love to see ANY pictures, tickets scans, reviews, newspaper reports, and anything else you come across for this show - we look forward to hearing from you!

Last Updated ( Saturday, 02 June 2012 )
 
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