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« on: June 13, 2015, 05:49:17 PM »
Roger Waters
In the Flesh - Live
Concert film (directed by Ernie Fritz)
Recorded: 27 June 2000, Rose Garden Arena, Portland, Oregon
Released: 5 December 2000
Band
Roger Waters (guitar, bass)
Doyle Bramhall II (guitar)
Snowy White (guitar)
Andy Fairweather Low (guitar, bass)
Jon Carin (keyboards, lap steel, acoustic guitar)
Andy Wallace (keyboards)
Norbert Stachel (saxophone on "Set the Controls" and "Money")
Graham Broad (drums)
Katie Kissoon (backing vocals)
P. P. Arnold (backing vocals)
Susannah Melvoin (backing vocals)
All tracks authored by Roger Waters, except where noted.
Songs included (in order of appearance)
In the Flesh
The Happiest Days of Our Lives
Another Brick In the Wall (part II)
Mother
Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert
Southampton Dock
Pigs On the Wing (part I)
Dogs (Waters, Gilmour)
Welcome To the Machine
Wish You Were Here (Waters, Gilmour)
Shine On You Crazy Diamond (parts I, II, IV, VI and VIII) (Waters, Gilmour, Wright)
Set the Controls For the Heart of the Sun
Speak To Me (Mason)
Breathe (Waters, Gilmour, Wright)
Time (Waters, Gilmour, Wright, Mason)
* Includes a reprise of "Breathe".
Money
5:06 AM (Every Stranger's Eyes)
Perfect Sense (parts I and II)
The Bravery of Being Out of Range
It's a Miracle
Amused To Death
Brain Damage
Eclipse
Comfortably Numb (Waters, Gilmour)
Each Small Candle
Review
This film, coincidentally recorded on my 11th birthday, documents Roger's In the Flesh tour. While it wasn't in support of any particular album, he was aiming to showcase Amused To Death, which never had its own tour. The four Amused songs are mixed in with a selection from all of his other albums, both with Pink Floyd and solo, since The Dark Side of the Moon. There is also one from A Saucerful of Secrets, and one previously unreleased. A pretty balanced set list all around.
The band is pretty solid, with a good mix of old and new blood. Snowy White is the most seasoned Floydian, having worked with the band as early as Animals. Jon Carin has joined Roger after his work with Gilmour-led Floyd, and rejoining Roger after working with him on K.A.O.S. are Andy Fairweather Low, Graham Broad and Katie Kissoon (who also appeared on Pros and Cons). P. P. Arnold had previously appeared on Amused To Death, while Doyle Bramhall II, Andy Wallace, Norbert Stachel and Susannah Melvoin are the true newcomers.
As usual, Roger has selected the most boring guitar player to play most of the lead parts, which for this tour is Doyle Bramhall II. The most interesting feature of his guitar playing is that he plays a right-handed guitar in left-handed style, so that the strings are the wrong way around. You can hear his chords being strummed from highest to lowest at times as a result. Thankfully, Snowy White also gets his fair share of lead parts, with Andy Fairweather Low also having a few moments in the spotlight.
The first few pieces are fairly routine, without much deviation from the album versions. The exception is Another Brick In the Wall, which somehow manages to sound even more boring here than it does on The Wall. The selections from The Final Cut are somewhat bizarre, as both Filthy Hands and Southampton Dock serve as little more than filler on that album. Something like The Fletcher Memorial Home would have fit in far better.
Things take a serious turn for the better once Roger picks up an acoustic guitar to play Pigs On the Wing. The band here recreates the entire side A of Animals, and the contribution Gilmour made to the Pink Floyd sound was never quite so appreciated as it is here. Clocking in at over 16 minutes, this version of Dogs features Doyle and Snowy harmonising together on the powerful guitar sections, looking very symmetrical with Doyle holding his guitar left-handed. Also, during the keyboard solo, Roger, Doyle, Snowy and Andy F all partake in a game of poker on stage while Graham, Jon and Andy W keep the song going and the irrelevant ladies watch from afar while sipping cocktails.
The Wish You Were Here section is mainly played as on the album, although Welcome To the Machine has a more steady beat, given the band's inability to rely so much on studio effects. I also find it interesting that Roger's arrangement of Shine On is much better than David's was for Pulse, due to a combination of Roger being much better at singing the lead vocal than David is, and stepping back to allow his band members some kickass improv during part VI (which segues in somewhat jarringly from the end of part IV).
Those part VI solos are one of the highlights of the entire film, with Jon Carin taking two solos (first on synth, then lap steel), followed by Doyle Bramhall II on guitar. Finally, Snowy White steps up and seems to challenge Doyle's tactics of relying on his chops to disguise his lack of talent by opening with a single, long note that says more than Doyle's entire solo. The segue into part VII, heralding the final verse, is just as powerful as on the album. This may be my all-time favourite Shine On live arrangement.
Pulling another rabbit out of his hat, or perhaps Snowy White's hat, Roger decides to bring back an old favourite of his that never quite did anything for me back in the '60s. Set the Controls has been transformed from psychedelic wankfest into Eastern-influenced rock 'n' roll, and while Norbert Stachel's sax solo seems kind of pointless, Snowy White livens up the piece with a very interesting and unexpected guitar solo. This is, without qualification, my favourite version of this song.
Next up comes the first of the Dark Side selections, which couldn't be more routine. Roger takes lead vocal on Time, a somewhat questionable decision, but ultimately it doesn't matter very much because the arrangement fails to produce anything of value anyway. The one high point is that Andy Fairweather Low takes a guitar solo in Money which can only be described as "explosive blues", played in that distinctive rhythm guitarist style that Lennon uses on "The End". Likewise for the Amused To Death section; Roger might as well have just put on the album and walked off stage for a while.
Brain Damage/Eclipse is another story. While it's still played very faithfully to the album version, it's noteworthy because it's substantially better than the Pulse version, on which David sounds like he's thinking about what to eat for lunch instead of focusing on the music. By contrast, you can tell that Roger is immediately engaged with the theme of these lyrics, and that makes all the difference.
The show finishes up with a better-than-average rendition of Comfortably Numb, made worthwhile for the guitar duel between Doyle and Snowy at the end (Snowy wins, of course). Then we get a horrific preview of the direction Roger's career is going in; Each Small Candle is a newly written song, in which Roger has discovered that if he repeats the same phrases and riffs over and over for nine minutes instead of three or four, he can bore even more people to sleep before the song finishes.
This performance is very inconsistent. When it's good, it's some of the best work Roger has released solo, but when it's bad, it's like The Final Cut all over again. This probably isn't worthwhile unless you already know you like the material being played, but if you are a Pink Floyd fan, it is most certainly essential. I enjoyed it.
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