Houston day two and show….

It was nice to wake up in the same bed for a second day! i had no plans at all today, no one to meet no one to see no where to be apart from be at the venue at 8:15pm to see the show. I was up and in the Gym by 10:30am, the hotel gym was fantastic and was probably the cleanest and most well equipped Gym I've been in while I've been out here in the US.

I Looked out of the window and the weather while wasn't clear and sunny there were breaks in the clouds and the temperature was in the low 70’s according to Google! There were a couple of people by the pool already as the treadmills in the Gym looked right over the pool area. After working out for 40 minutes i jumped straight in the pool, it was absolutely freezing! felt great though and i then headed over to one of the sun loungers, turned it round so it faced the sun which was now breaking through the clouds a lot and didn't move for about three hours! I did however keep waking myself up with the odd snore here and there, i looked round to see if anyone could here me and fortunately i was far enough away from the other people that were there.

I surfed online for a few hours in the afternoon and had a chat to a friend of mine John in Houston who was due to have gone to the show but had had to have surgery on his hand two days earlier and was stiff doped up on painkillers so he was unable to make the show. My friend Mark Strand had flown in for the show tonight and was also driving up to Dallas and then flying on to Denver for his last show there before going home to Wisconsin. He text me to see where i was and i asked him the best place to get a decent steak as i knew he’d been out there night before for one.

I ended up at a Sawgrass steakhouse after Marks recommendation, its was 5 miles down the road from me and 5 miles nearer to the venue that i was. I ordered the baked potato soup which i have to say wasn't good at all and i left most of it, it was covered in cheese and tasted awful to be honest! I then ordered a New York strip steak with deep fried crispy thin onions and a crab dressing on the steak. This was fantastic and the steak was cooked just how i like it, just pink in the middle without anything ripping out of it!

After dinner i drove the 4 miles down to the venue and parked up in a parking lot across the street from the venue for $10. 

Guys playing basket ball                     Cool sculptures outside venue            The reason i was in Houston!

   

Just before i sat down to diner i had a call from Gabriele, a guy who posts on one of the Roger Waters message boards, he was on his way to the venue and we arranged to get in touch with each other when i got there. I parked the car and gave him a quick call, he was inline outside the venue waiting to see the merchandise. I met up with both him and his son and we had a chat about the show and where he lived etc etc he also told me that when i drove up to Dallas the next day that i must stop in a convenience store on the way up called Buc-ees and make i used the restroom and took my camera!! this caused a little concern and i did wonder what sort of a guy he thought i was! i had visions of a George Michael LA experience!!

Gabriele left to go put his merchandise purchases in his hotel room across the street and we agreed to meet up after the show. Mark arrived 5 minutes later, he had just parked up across the street. We stood outside the venue for 20 minutes and chatted about the shows and the projections before  making our way into the venue around 7pm.

I had a text message when i got in the venue it just said “ hi, were in the lobby where do you want to meet” a few times i forget about people who are coming to the shows who i know and i forget to add their phone numbers into my cell phone so i know a few of you have had texts from me after sending me a text saying “ who are you?” sorry about this,lol Anyway it turns out it was a friend of my friend Tony and Keith, they had suggested he get in touch to say hi so he did. I made the ten minute trek up to his seat in the high 400 section and chatted to Tom and his son for 10 minutes before making my way back down to the floor

Me outside the Houston venue                    Tom and myself.

 

In 2000 i made the trip over from the UK to see Rogers shows in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Vegas. It was a 10 day road trip that i will never forget. At that time i knew only a few people at the shows and didn't know anyone from the band at all. It was the first time i actually got to meet Roger as well in Dallas. We waited outside the venue most of the afternoon and as the vans pulled up he opened the door and posed for pictures and signed a few things including the back of my T shirt. There were a couple of people there that i became friendly with while waiting outside the venue, Patrick from Dallas and Jeff from Dallas.

I didn't get Patricks e mail address so never really kept in touch with him however we actually bumped into each other at the Dark Side show in Dallas! i was walking around the venue to the entrance and there he was! We had a chat and it turned out he had moved away from Dallas and moved to Hawaii a few years earlier. Well as i was walking on the floor tonight guess who i bumped into!! Yup, Patrick! Was great to see him again and we chatted most of the night before the start of the show. He hadn't seen any of the wall shows and had stayed away from every website and picture and video of the show!! i told him he was in for a surprise and would be blown away by the show!

Kipp Lennon came past and i asked him if he wouldn't mind posing for a picture with myself and then with Patrick. I hadn't met Kipp as yet but id met all the other backing singers while been backstage at one point or another along the tour. he was more than willing to pose and we had a good chat for 5 or 10 minutes.

Myself and Kipp                                        Kipp and Patrick

 

I was saying how cool it is that there are new things been added each night and he proceeded to tell us how Roger takes a DVD of the show back to the hotel with him each night, sits and watches it, takes notes then destroys the DVD and then implements changes at the following show!! he des this every night without fail! If you read the link below it tells you how they implement the changes in the projections and how these are rendered at the production studios and then sent out for the show the next day!

Projection details 

It was great to meet up with Patrick again, we exchanged cell numbers and said we would meet up in Dallas as well as maybe LA for the two shows that he is seeing.

Patrick was front row of the second section back, an ideal place to see his first show and i was 13th row right on the aisle between the centre and left section (i swear one night I'm gonna turn up to this seat and it’ll have my name on the back like a directors chair,lol). Kip had mentioned that Roger had again made some changes to tonight's show and i was eager to see what had changed. I totally missed the plane crashing and all the pyros at the end due to focusing on the projections and lighting.

I didn't notice much for the first few tracks  however i did notice some projections changes at the beginning of Young Lust and also some lighting changes during young Lust and Empty Spaces, kinda hard to explain them but they were there and they were apparent and did look better than at previous shows.

  

There was yet another glitch in Dave's guitar at the beginning of Young Lust, not as bad as last night where it cut out completely for 5 seconds but it was a glitch and it was clearly audible.

  

The band seemed real tight tonight, all the endings of the songs were flawless each member of the band played the last note dead on time, i know when i spoke to Dave a few shows back we were talking about the click track and how sometimes its actually difficult to go by as some of the band play slightly slower (Snowy) and some of the band tend to be slightly ahead (Dave and Jon) i guess tonight they were all dead on and this certainly showed.

Got a few nice shot of the flashing projections tonight, a couple of different ones. Still cant seem to get the Toyota logo or the Mercedes Symbols that flash up though.

  

At intermission i went back and saw Patrick for 5 minutes and then took my seat again and read some of the Fallen Loved ones on the wall. The intermission seems to go a lot quicker after they cut it down to 20 minutes and it always amazes me that even though they have an announcement over the PA telling everyone there's five minutes to go there hundreds of people still walking around at the beginning of Hey You!

Patrick and i looking a little stunned at intermission

One thing i haven't mentioned yet is the crowd, they were bad, i mean REAL bad, they sat down the whole time, there was no real interaction or any real cheering just a few appreciative claps and that was it! Obviously they stayed seated for Hey You, if an audience that stands the whole show stay seated for this then Houston was certainly gonna do that!

Hey You, ITAOT, Nobody Home, Vera all went by rather quick, didn't spot any changes at all in these tracks, i love the bit at the end of Nobody Home from  the wall soundtrack where the fighter pilot guy shouts “ where the hell are you Simon” always makes me smile.

Roger now has a metal tube that holds his machine gun by his side during the second half! he still looks down at Robbie to pas it up to him but as also now added flashes of light on the wall behind as he fires the gun off, this looks great and again shows how things are changing each night.

Run Like Hell was fantastic and once again the new graphic was used and i managed to capture it on video tonight.Roger again took his Machine gun and shot down the graphic.

They've also started using the flags at the top of the wall  for the last 5 or 6 shows and this works really well, they have a fan at the end of the wall behind it which blows the flags and keeps the motion going on them.

The wall came down ok tonight, nothing really special but the one thing it did do was get the crowd on their feet!! there were a few people on their feet for Run Like Hell and Waiting For The Worms but nowhere near as many as there is at most of the shows.

Wall falling in Houston

All in all a great gig with the exception of the crowd been pretty laid back. I was due to meet up with Gabriele after the show however my cell phone had run out of battery and i was driving up to Dallas early the next day so headed straight back to my hotel after the show.

Album with all the pics below :

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Couple of random things….

 

Atlanta….

I meant to say in my Atlanta show that i met up with my good friend Matt Jaffe during the show, we haven't met up since the Dark Side shows and we never seem to have enough time to hang out and chat. Matt tried calling me from backstage to tell me to come back and chat and hang out but my cell phone battery had died. It was great to see you again Matt and tell your wife i said hi as i didn't get chance to tell her myself, hope you and the family enjoyed the show! Hope to see you sooner rather than later.

So tonight is show number 39! and I'm not one bit bored of it!

The flight to Denver I'm about to take is my 11th in 9 weeks!

I’ll be attending a friends wedding in Vegas in a couple of days time!!

Thanksgiving in Vegas with my friend Erin and her family.

Just wanted to thank everyone for the comments they leave on my blog entries, i do read them all even if i don't replay and I'm gonna start trying to reply to each of them so make sure you check back  after leaving a comment”

Dallas show review……

So its just over an hour since the show ended, I'm back at the hotel room and thought id try do a review of the show while its fresh in my head!

A friend of mine called Jeff was at tonight's show, i met him in Dallas in 2000 and we hadn't met since! we exchanged a few e mails over the years but that was all. He sent me a text and we met up about 6:30 outside the venue, was great to see him again and meet his wife, cant believe its been over 10 years since we were at the Dallas show together in 2000!! we both met Roger at the same time that day too.

Jeff and I (with a bad hair day!)      American Airlines arena, Dallas

 

Mark Strand joined us around 6:45, he had been in Houston the night before and we had met up and he’s also going to Denver tomorrow, we've seen a few shows together and tomorrow is his last show before heading home to the cold winter weather!

The four of us headed in the venue, mark went to take his seat on the first level off the floor towards the rear and Jeff, his wife and i went down onto the floor. I sent Dave a text and he came out to see my friend Jeff who was a keen guitarist. he posed for a couple of pictures and then headed back to get changed for the show.

Jeff myself and Jeff's wife.                             Dave K and Jeff

   

As we were talking to Jeff  my friend Patrick came over whom id seen at the show last night in Houston, he had chat with Dave K before heading back to his seat a couple of rows in front of mine which was 10th row centre on the aisle. Jeff hadn't seen the show yet and had tried to stay away from spoilers at all costs and i was looking forward to hearing what he thought of it at intermission.

Roger came out for the opening of In The Flesh and has taken to actually running across from one side of the stage to the other, not walking but actually running. He’s done this for the last 3 or 4 shows and is clearly enjoying himself from the second he steps on the stage!

 

The crowd were VERY reserved tonight, the centre and right section all sat down after IN The Flesh and i counted at least 3 people around me all sat on their Iphones/Blackberry's all on Facebook!! WTF!! I tried to not let it bother me and enjoyed the show the best i could while still sitting down!

The kids tonight weren't very good at all, they seem to have really gone down hill the last 4 or 5 shows, not sure why! Three of them did run over to the left hand side of the stage and stood on the riser there and did a bit of air guitar but it wasn't anywhere near as good as Chicago or Philly or some of the other places. Snowy made a couple of mistakes on his solo that were really noticeable, i think that's the first time I've heard him mess that up!

Kids on the riser

When Roger introduced Mother tonight he did the whole Thank you, No Thank YOU thing about four times tonight and at the end of it said, “pantomime, don't you just love it” When he explained what he was going to do with the track Mother he told the crowd  “I'm going to sing along with that poor fucked up miserable Roger “ He was clearly having fun tonight.

   

I noticed the vocal separation a lot more on Mother tonight, usually you cant hear the new and old Roger  vocals much but tonight there was definitely two separate tracks, a lot more noticeable than any other show I've seen and it sounded great. The projections have gone back to the original for Mother as well with the red blood NOT coming in front of the camera tonight!

There's a real interesting read at the link below about the projections and how they are doing it while on tour!

Interesting read on the animation and projections

Goodbye Blue Sky was just as good as ever and i think the symbols at the end falling down works really well now, a lot better than how it was before.

  

I had to laugh tonight and in front of me was a family of three, what i presume was mother, father and son. When the images of the naked women came on the wall  during Young Lust the father covered the kids eyes and wouldn't let him look at them! i thought he was joking at first but he was being serious, the kid was probably 11 or 12 and his dad just wouldn't let him see them!! as soon as they had gone he took his hands away from his eyes!!

Don't look at the pictures below  if your younger than 12 please!!

 

Just as the last brick had been placed in the top row of the wall there was a huge problem!! it looked like the whole middle section  of the wall was going to fall down! It juddered and the whole middle section raised up about 6 inches!! I'm not sure if one of the hydraulic lifts moved when it shouldn't have done or if one of the  hydraulic rams that go through the bricks was caught on something but it could have been a huge problem if the bricks had cone down and it really wasn't far off from that happening! the roadies came out and started to manoeuvre the bricks on the first 5 or 6 rows back into place and soon sorted it out.

One thing I've been meaning to mention is the lyrics in Empty Spaces specifically the line “ send flowers by phone” it still amazes me that that line was written 30 years ago and has so much relevance even today as its something that's done even more so these days, the lyrics are just timeless!!

Few random images from the quick flashes on the wall. i only just realised that the lyrics go “I have seen the writing on the wall” when all these are shown! i didn't even notice this in all of the 38 shows I've seen!!

At intermission i went over to see Jeff and his wife, they were absolutely speechless and were completely blown away by the whole show! I know Jeff's and  HUGE Gilmour fan and i knew he as a touch worried just how well Dave K handled the guitar parts  but after hearing the first half of the show he wasn't worried a bit and was really looking forward to hearing Dave’s solo on Comfy Numb.

I went back to my seat with a couple of minutes to spare before staying seated for Hey You, Is There Anybody Out There and Nobody Home, the crowd finally started to rise out of their seats at the end of Vera and remained standing for most of the second half which was great!

  

Dave missed a couple of notes on the Comfy Numb solo last night in Houston and he commented on this when we were chatting before the show, i love when this happens as you just know that he is going to be putting 200% into the next nights solo and he did exactly that it was absolutely fantastic.

Roger during Comfy

 

Dave during Comfy

The second half was totally faultless, and the more i hear it the more it is m favourite half of the show, i was actually never a huge fan of Waiting for the Worms or even the Trial but its so much better live and takes on a whole new meaning seeing it performed and acted out in front of you.

He again used the  light flashes when he uses the machine gun and i managed to capture it on a video clip tonight, it does look a lot better in person at the shows though.

Gunshot flashes

The new images that have been at the last three shows.

The crowd had just about woken up during Run Like Hell and i have to say i think more people were clapping along with Roger than at any other show I've seen! i looked around the venue when Roger encouraged everyone to “enjoy yourselves” and  it looked like at least 75% of the crowd were clapping!

I love seeing the hammers when they are full screen all the way across the wall, i never tire of seeing these projections! As i said above i also enjoy the trial a lot more now after seeing it performed live!

The way the wall came down tonight was excellent, the top 3 rows fell forward and then it looked like the rest of the rows were all going to fall backwards but just before they did they actually al fell forward, i counted about 8 rows falling all in one block onto the front of the stage, i got a great “wall wind” about  ten seconds later!

The band then came out and the confetti came down.

   

Roger has started to talk the last few shows about the alienation he felt 30 years ago and how he doesn't feel this any more but feels the connection to the audience (see the video clip below)

Rogers speach

Full album with more pictures:

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