Roger Waters (Pink Floyd)... amazing music + terrible politics?

Wed, 13 Sep 2006 19:06:01 -0400

Let's be honest: I love Pink Floyd's old music (Dark Side Of The Moon, The Wall etc) & I had the amazing privilege of having floor seats to his performance at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday Sept 12th!

To hear Roger Waters play his old Pink Floyd music is a dream come true for a fan like me. Knowing that he has recently released new music, my sole hope for this concert was that he'd play old music and none of his new music.

I was relieved to read in the pamphlet (which was placed on my seat) that the line-up for the night was 2 sets - the first set being a random assortment of old Pink Floyd music and the second being Dark Side Of The Moon in it's entirety with the original Pink Floyd drummer, Nick Mason!

The show started off amazingly, the music was amazing, the crowd was amazing and the song selection was amazing. Then Roger decided to let us know he'd be playing a new song "leaving Beirut" [the song was literally just a musical version of a comic strip he wrote]... ok.... the words are obviously political and slanted... then comes "Oh George! Oh George! That Texas education must have f***d you up when you were very small" WHAT?

At that point I was furious... the song ended with half of Madison Square Garden booing Roger Waters. Politics aside, no one is paying to hear Roger Waters' political views or propaganda - everyone at MSG was there to hear his old Pink Floyd music, period.

The show progresses and during a lot of negative words/parts of songs, ("All that you hate"... "All that you distrust" etc) big pictures of President Bush were shown. Once again, politics aside, no one purchased Roger Waters tickets to hear his political views.

There is a reason that these people are musicians and not politicians. Musicians like him are simply abusing the fact that people like their music to portray their agendas and views.

I still love Roger Waters' old work & the Pink Floyd music, but boy do I hate the fact that he thinks he can use it to push a political agenda.

The story goes that the concept for "The Wall" came to Roger after he spit in the face of an unruly fan... perhaps it's time that the fans start spitting back.

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Roger Waters (Pink Floyd)... amazing music + terrible politics?