Monday, February 19, 2007

Dark Side of The Moon

I must admit at first, that i am quite new to the Pink Floyd scene, and i should have let Neeraj write this first, as the numero uno Pink Fan here from our batch, and one of the lucky few attendees to have witnessed Roger Waters live at mumbai ( of course, we were there too). But as luck would have it, i am here on my computer while he is right now lounging at the Nirmal Lifestyle mall, so i get to write about it first.
So here goes. This Sunday, was the performance by Roger Waters. It was billed only Dark Side of the Moon, however he played a number of other songs too, most notably his own solo ones. Anyways, beginning from the beginning of the euphoric end, we as in myself and my roommate reached Bandra MMRDA grounds here and met up with Neeraj and his school freind who also had come for the show. having got in quite early we settled down to watch the show. There was no seating, but then seeing the no of speakers around and also the two large screens that would afford the veiw of the stage, we thought it would not be that bad. The show began band at 7 in the evening, with the band initially playing some jazz, and some retro and well as new-age indi pop. Simultaneously, ( and this we only realised a little later), the main screen on the stage showed a very old classic radio in a small room, complete with a bottle of whiskey and some cigarettes and an ash tray. ever so often, a hand would come and tune the radio, in sync with the change in the songs being played initially. and then it started, as in Roger Waters came on stage and started hi part. He had with him, one person on the drums, one on guitar and one on the saxophone alongwith three ladies who served as the chorus.
The performance began with some songs from "The wall-final cut". I had not heard most of these so could not connect with the lyrics though the music was awesome. of course the sound system featured the trademark sounds of planes and bombing and all. Then came the ever so longing " Shine on you crazy diamond", with pictures of Syd Barrett on the main screen. This screen served to really connect the songs with photos and shoots kinda portraying the mood of the song being played. So with every song you could literally feel it happening. "wish you were here" was good and so were the other songs. Another notable feature was the Pink Pig Baloon, which was kinda indianised, with graffiti mentioning stuff like " Do away with the cast system" as well as the usual " Bush must be impeached". Was good that one.
After about an hour and a half the group took a break for 15 minutes before coming back to playing what i had come for " Dark Side of the Moon". And were they good? Breathe simply took my breath away. So did the others "on the run", "time", " money" "Us and them" " Eclipse" etc. Their were some changes in the music, changes and enhancements that simply made the expereince a "wow". All the songs had the audience swaying from head to toe. and so did we. Having listened to this album, more than any other i really enjoyed each one of them. When the final words " theres no dark side of the moon, in fact its all dark" rang out, we thought it was over. But then as one of my seniors wo saw the same concert in the US had said, Roger Waters came back again to play " Another Brick in the Wall" and one more song before finally closing it out with " Comfortably Numb".
Was just amazing the show was. The only Disappointment? they should have allowed us to carry cameras, simple ones that is. I wanted to click so many snaps. Guess its time i got a mobile phone camera. Neeraj had one but due to lack of battery we could only take a couple of shots. Still all in all, a memorable expereince.

1 comment:

Dreamer said...

coz u wrote my name:

http://bizarrefeelings.blogspot.com/2007/02/dark-side-of-moon-as-visible-from-india.html

:)