As you can see from the pictures below, mine and Eric’s seats tonight were very high up in the venue, right at the back. Id seen the show in Buenos Aires from this very position and loved it.
At around 8:45 after the extra few tracks of pre show music the lights went out one by one in the stadium. The great thing about this show outdoors is when the lights go out its SO dark! there’s very little light comes from anywhere and tonight there was just the glow from a few of the merchandise stands down below. We were all warned about setting our cameras to “Flash Forced Off” and then the Spartacus intro started.
It was great sitting up so high and seeing the spotlight all around the stadium shining on and off people and the shouts of “Im Spartacus” relayed around the arena through the surround towers.
Darker than normal due to the late start Eric has the stadium in his arms
Pyros shot up from the to In The Flesh and then continued to shoot out of the roof of the canopy, this is a great effect that's often missed if you’re within the first 20 rows or so. Eric had missed it at the San Fran show and i think was suitably impressed.
Pyros from top of stage Smoking aftermath for several minutes
The crowd were fantastic and erupted in cheers as the pyros went from one side of the stage to the other towards the end of in The Flesh, this lit the whole audience up and once again it was great to be able to see the faces of the people watching and their senses overloaded both visual and audio as the airplane noises ran around the stadium in the surround speaker stacks from one side of the stadium to the other.I turned to look at Eric and saw the amazement on his face, i don’t think he’d heard surround like this ever before.
We were in a great place to see the plane go down to crash into the wall. As it was a stadium it was mounted right at the back and took at least twice as long to get from the back where it was mounted to the bricks on the wall!
The crowd went wild at the end of In The Flesh and i have to say it was probably THE best version, musically, crowd wise, and visually.I knew from then on that the show was going to be special and i wasn’t wrong.
I’d forgot how the drown were in LA as regards arriving at a show, they are very laid back and even though the show had started 30 minutes late there were still people walking up the concrete steps looking for their seats, pushing past us and wandering around seeming to care more about spilling their cardboard plate of nachos rather than watching the show.
The Thin Ice started as normal musically, however when Roger went up to the mic and started singing their was no vocals at all(proving its one of the songs that doesn't have vocal assist tapes!) the band played on for at least 30 seconds before Roger stepped back and waved his arm in the air sweeping it across the stage from side to side, “stop, stop, STOP” he said several times till the band realised he wanted them to actually stop. There was clearly a problem with his mic as the audio from his mic was non existent. He stated to the audience that there was obviously some problem and he wanted to get it fixed as he “wanted to sing this song” he talked to the crew through the onstage monitors asking them what the problem was and to get up here and get it fixed. He also told the audience that he had some of the finest technicians there is ad that they would start the track from the beginning when they had fixed the problem.
The technical hitch lasted just under 4 minutes long, the band started The Thin Ice from the start and everything was back to normal. I love when things like this happen, it just makes the show a bit more special and unique, you also know that Roger and the whole band are gonna perform the best they can after something like this happens.
The rest of the set went without a hitch with the exception of the crew having big problems getting the last brick in the wall at the end of Goodbye Cruel World. Took them a lot longer than normal and they were hitting the others bricks side to side around the last one to enable it to go in, they got there eventually.
At intermission Eric and i made our way down to the floor to meet up with Mr Hooter and Eric’s wife Lisette. We hung around on the floor for a while and decided to stay on the floor for the 2nd set. There was an area to the left side of the front floor blocks set aside for guests and Eric and i pulled up a plastic lawn chair and sat what seemed like 10 feet from the wall, realistically it was probably 60feet!
Our view for the second set.
Eric later told me it was a bit too close for him for the size of the wall but it was an experience and he was happy that he was able to see the show from all different positions.
I’d noticed a couple of shows back that Roger has taken sometimes to not hitting the wall with both fists to crack the wall but he’s started “sneaking” up on the wall and touching it gently with his finger, as you can see in the picture below. The graphics have also changed as to how the huge wall breaks up into boulders, its not changed for the better either i don’t think. Whilst the left side breaks up and scatters around and falls similar to how it used to, the right side now cracks and all falls downwards toward the bottom of the stage. I’m not the only one that’s noticed this either, my friend Tommy e mailed me and wondered if it was just him seeing things as he thought the motion had changed and didn’t look anywhere near as good as it used to. i went back and watched a few clips on you tube and until you see some of the older shows you don’t realise just how much of a difference there is! i really hope they are still playing with it and change it back.
I have to say i really enjoy being this close a lot more than being further away, as much as i do like seeing the wall from afar at the stadiums there’s just something about the energy that’s there when all you see in front, to the left and to the right of you is WALL! kind of like an IMAX screen, you can look as far left or as far right but the wall totally fills your field of vision.
The 2nd half seemed to go ever so quickly too, before i knew it i was on my feet throwing my arm in the air shouting “tear down the fucking wall”! the wall fell great tonight, the top few rows going forward then a couple backwards and then one hugs piece falling forward! i do have to say though i miss the “good old days” of 2010 when the wall was unpredictable, its a lot more controlled now and takes away that element of surprise as to where its going to fall and when.
I have to say this show was definitely in my top five shows, probably top three, the venue itself was so ideally suited to this show, the technical glitch,seeing the show with Eric and the sheer size of the wall all made up for a fantastic night.
