Roger Waters (born 6 September 1943) is an English musician, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and composer. In 1965, he co-founded the progressive rock band Pink Floyd; following the departure of Syd Barrett in 1968, he became their lyricist, conceptual leader and co-lead vocalist as well as their bassist. Amid creative differences within the group, Waters left Pink Floyd in 1985 and began a legal dispute with the remaining members over their intended use of the band's name and material. They settled out of court in 1987, and nearly eighteen years passed before he performed with them again. Waters' solo career has included three studio albums. In 1990, he staged one of the largest and most extravagant rock concerts in history, The Wall – Live in Berlin, with an official attendance of 200,000. In 2010, he began The Wall Live; and in 2011 Gilmour and Mason appeared with him during a performance of the double album in London. As of 2013, the tour is the highest-grossing of all time by a solo artist. (More from Wikipedia)
The concert event The Wall – Live in Berlin, a July 1990 performance of the 1980 Pink Floyd album The Wall took place at the site of the Berlin Wall that had come down eight months previously. The concert was organized by Roger Waters, who had been the frontman for the band during their hitmaking period in the 1970's and early 1980's, though he left Pink Floyd in 1985 over creative differences and attempted to prevent the other bandmembers from continuing to use the name (they settled out of court in 1987).
Roger Waters had said during an interview in July 1989 that the only way he would perform The Wall live again was "if the Berlin Wall came down" – and four months later, it did. Attendance at the concert site itself was a record-breaking 450,000, and it was also broadcast live worldwide. Scorpions opened the concert with "In the Flesh" and also performed on three other songs. Guest artists included Cyndi Lauper, Marianne Faithfull, Thomas Dolby, Sinéad O'Connor, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Bryan Adams, and Levon Helm and Garth Hudson of the Band. Tim Curry, Albert Finney, Ute Lemper and Jerry Hall are actors who also performed, mostly during "the Trial" sequence toward the end. As the concert was performed, a gigantic wall (550 feet long and 82 feet high) that appeared to be made of large styrofoam blocks was completed; at the end of the trial, the judge declared: "Tear down the Wall!", and the wall was pushed over, row by row.
(April 2013)
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While they never quite reached those heights again, their later albums explored Gordon Gano's upbringing as the son of a Baptist minister. James Christopher Monger writes in Allmusic of their second album (released in 1984): "After the surprise success of their landmark debut, Violent Femmes could have just released another collection of teen-rage punk songs disguised as folk, and coasted into the modern rock spotlight alongside contemporaries like the Modern Lovers and Talking Heads. Instead they made Hallowed Ground, a hellfire-and-brimstone-beaten exorcism that both enraged and enthralled critics and fans alike. Like Roger Waters purging himself of the memories of his father's death through [the Pink Floyd albums] The Wall and The Final Cut, bandleader Gordon Gano uses the record to expel his love/hate relationship with religion, and the results are alternately breathtaking and terrifying."
(November 2014)
