London show two…..

 

Sorry for the lack of posts but blogger has been down the last 24 hours, will get something up tomorrow/Sunday but enjoy the pics below for now.

  

  

 

Outside The Wall

London pre show meet up pictures show 2

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London show 2 pictures

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London show one, WOW!!!

 

Pre show meet up pictures album, click below:

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London show one pictures album, click below:

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London tube (Subway) strike canceled

Just to let everyone know, the proposed London tube strike that was due for the 17th and 18th of May--which would have affected transport to and from the O2 Arena--has been canceled as of 45 minutes ago according to Sky News .

Copenhagen show….

So after both the Moscow and Norway’s shows I'd heard a lot of talk about the “extended wall” that had been used at said shows. Id missed Moscow due to not being able to get a Visa in time and missed Norway due to being in the USA. Id watched videos on YouTube of the Moscow show and had seen how much bigger the wall actually was but nothing had prepared me for what it actually looked like when i saw it in person last night in Copenhagen!

The venue was a football stadium with a retractable roof and the capacity for the show tonight was  somewhere around 45,000 people! the size of the place was immediately evident as we walked through the tunnel onto what was normally used for the football pitch. It was  massive! the rear  seating section looked like it was  nearly quarter of a mile away from the stage, and the stage itself was about half as big again as it usually is! i say the stage but i mean the actual wall itself.

The normal portion of the wall made up with bricks  was extended at either end  with boarding that was made to look like bricks but was a huge painting/printed effect and at the far left of that section was a huge camouflage type cover extending it even further!

The extended wall and the stage

         

The venue and seating:

      

The show started at 9pm tonight so it was gonna be a late finish, could have done without the late start as i had to be up at 5am tomorrow to catch a 7:30am flight back to London. The band came on around 9:05 and i noticed one of two things.One, the sound whilst sounding great quality just didn't seem loud enough for a venue this size and the pyros and effects  for In The Flesh seemed lost, again due to the size of the venue. This just confirmed what I'd heard in that if they were to do this show in the South American outdoor stadiums as they are saying they are going to then the wall does indeed have to be twice as high and twice as long, which is something they are working on right now!

What i also noticed was that for the first time they were projecting the “actual” show onto each side of the extended part of the wall! Something didn't look right to me though and within 60 seconds it became obvious (to me) that the show they were projecting onto the wall was NOT the actual show we were watching! It was very clever how they had done it but it wasn't live, it was a fully edited recording from an earlier show! At first i thought the differences were due to a time delay effect but it then became clearly evident that the roger we were seeing on the stage live was not doing the same things as he was on the projected show! I'm pretty sure 99% of the audience were fooled but not this gig goer!! obviously as the band work to a click track and Roger being the gluten he is for the same nuances every night  and his perfection for timing the show is more or less the same each night.

Is it live or is it Memorex!

 

The crowd were far more lively than the previous two nights in Stockholm, i didn't expect anything less to be honest, i don't think it was possible! Standing at the shows makes all the difference to the crowd and there were apron 30.000 people standing on the floor tonight! (the total attendance was 47,000!)

Kevin, Phil, Lila and i watched the first few tracks from the second row to the left of the stage, i then decided to make my walk half way back to see the effect of the extra wall and the video projections. Its amazing the difference when you see this show from half way back and tonight was no different, the video they were projecting on the sides looked fantastic!! they had even reversed the video on the right side of the stage so it looked great when you saw both sides together! I had to laugh as i watched One Of My Turns as i knew the video that was being shows hadn't been filmed recently just due to some of the things i saw and i wondered what the crowd would think when they saw Roger on the video standing up singing but onstage sitting down on the chair that he’s now been using, well guess what, the chair came out onstage but he didn't sit on it! 

Look at the size of this thing!

I made my way back down towards the front and met Kevin on the way, he was coming to the rear to see what it looked like, we both headed back and he was totally blown away by how it looked from further back.I did notice that Roger has now added the golden arch symbol of Mc Donald's to the dropping symbols from the sky during  Goodbye Blue Sky! haven't noticed that before and think its the first show he’s done that,

The part where the wife comes down and the wall turns green looked amazing tonight, the wall just looked to go on for ever!

          

After intermission Phil and i managed to make our way 2nd row a lot nearer the centre, again at these shows even though they are standing, the people in Europe give each other room to move about and your not stood there getting crushed!

Seeing the huge wall gave a totally amazing aspect to Bring the Boys back home and especially the part in Comfy Num where the wall all breaks up, it was incredible, gave me chills just thinking what an even bigger wall would be like out in South America

The crowd were very appreciative of Dave’s solo during CN but the sound really wasn't loud enough to give it that punch that was needed in such a big venue. The chant of “hammers, Hammers” came through the PA at the end of Run Like Hell and Roger tried the best he could to get everyone to join in but they didn't, i think one of the problems of this is a lot of people don't know what the word is they are chanting! The wall came down again all forward and there was lots of it! The band looked real happy Outside The Wall Dave K and Snowy especially having a good chuckle to themselves at Roger trumpet playing tonight as they do most nights when he plays a bum note or it sounds like he’s just warming up!

I really hope more people are able to experience a show with the extended wall, it really does turn this show from an amazing experience to a phenomenal one.

Panorama of the venue post show

More pictures from tonight in the album below:

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George and Philippe at 1 A.M. trying to keep warm

The pissing penguin of Copenhagen!

Amazing show last night in Copenhagen

Will blog about it later on today, but here is a panorama of the venue post show.

Stockholm to Copenhagen

We took the 10 A.M. train to Copenhagen today. It was a 5-hour trip, and we arrived for about 3:30 P.M. There was WiFi on the train, at least, which made the journey go so quick!

They had a great display on the walls in the train station in Malmo where we stopped for a minute--kind of hard to explain, but there are projections on either side of the station wall of animations that make it look like you're in a train that's moving when you're not! The video below gives you a rough idea, but it can't convey how cool it actually looked!

The "art" at Malmo train station

We arrived at Emil and Kit's around 5 P.M. to meet up with Phil, Laila, Philippe, Rainer, Judith, Emil, Kit, and Lars. Emil has an awesome home stereo system that he took outside, enabling all of us to listen to music for the party :)

The banner in Copenhagen train station declaring a “RogerFree Zone” and the sign on Emil's door telling us where they were and to watch out for the rotating knives!!!

 

Emil's outdoor entertainment system!

Laila, Lars, Kit, and George                                                               Rainer and Judith

   

Kit cooked an amazing amount of food for us all, the weather was fine, the sun was out, and we had a great few hours down in the garden. George from Austria joined us later on, and around 9 P.M. Phil and I took the metro to the airport to meet our friend Bibi flying in from Switzerland for the show.

When the three of us got back the party was in full swing. The Belgium Palm beer was flowing, as was the homemade schnapps--Kit and Emil make their own. Emil showed us his “real” stereo system--he blew us away with Amused To Death on vinyl on the most amazing system. It sounded incredible.

Emil's CD and vinyl collection                                                                                        Bibi arriving at the airport

     

30 minutes later, Rainer, Judith, and I  went to sleep in one of the spare rooms. I woke around 2 A.M. to hear Kevin and the others still partying! It's now 9 A.M. I'm all showered, shaved, and ready to go, and the rest of the gang are all still sleeping on the floor. I love being a morning person :)

Looks like it was a good night!                                                                    Homemade schnapps

    

Stockholm 2nd show

Didn't do much at all today during the day. The weather wasn't great--it snowed the day before we got here, so it wasn't exactly sightseeing weather.

We headed out to the venue around 5:30 and got there around 6. I had a 5th row ticket for tonight, but went to watch the first half of the show from an empty seat on the right side of the stage just for a change. The sound wasn't great there, but I love the view from that block right next to the wall--especially when Roger comes right over to the side of the stage.

Tonight's venue

Not sure why they've done it, but when the subway train comes along and you hear the gunshots at the end, the sound is now only heard through the rear quad speakers. It sounds very odd--it's quiet and doesn't sound anywhere near as good and as before! It was like this for the last two shows, but we’ll see if it was a glitch or not after tomorrow's show.

Pink arriving onstage

   

I spoke with Dave K. before the show about the vocals on Hey You from the night before, and he said it was definitely Robbie! Dave said he'd been listening to Gilmour earlier that day and was trying to perfect his style of singing! He did a damn good job! Dave also mentioned that Rush were playing in Stockholm, and a lot of their road crew were here to see the show tonight.

The crowd were very reserved again. Before Mother Roger said, “Wow it’s so quiet in here--you can hear a pin drop.” And you could! It was deadly silent, but even after his comment there was very little feedback from the crowd. Roger just grinned to himself and carried on with his intro to Mother. There was a good 10 seconds of feedback during the middle of Mother--didn't cause any other problems--it was just painfully audible. I forgot to mention--last night, just before Mother when Roger was talking about that “fucked-up young Roger,” he played the first few notes to WYWH before going straight into the opening chords of Mother!

Roger's still adding little nuances to his performance--he's added an audible “sniff” to accompany the line “a silver spoon on a chain,” and during Nobody Home, he mimics snorting up some substance. He's continued to gesture his middle finger in a suggestive way during the line “trying to pick her locks,” although tonight he picked someone out on the front row and bent down to do it at them!

Kevin and I got talking to a nice guy we saw the night before who, like us, has his own band he follows around the world--Ultravox. He’s seen more than a hundred of their shows and totally understood our passion. I have to apologize for forgetting his name, but he’s pictured below with Kevin before the start of the show

Roger tried his best to get the crowd on their feet tonight to no avail. He laughed to himself a few times when the odd person shouted out in-between tracks. Even the line “can you stand up, stand up” and his gesturing for people to stand up didn't work at all! His timing for the machine gun fire was totally off tonight--he didn't try to correct it, either. I'm not sure if the click track was off or what, but the first gunfire noises came, then he pointed the gun, then “shot the audience” as there was silence. He then lowered his gun just as the gun shot noise returned. It's the first time I've seen him mess this up. He did, however, point his gun in the air and shot up a few extra times tonight--I then heard the sound of a bird squawking over the audio, and a  few feathers dropped down from the roof adding to the effect. I kid you not! Who said The Wall on Broadway wouldn't work as a comedy?

The crowd were so polite that at the end of Waiting for The Worms when Roger normally throws down his shirt and armband onstage, he threw it up in the air, and it landed in the arms of two people in the front row. What happened next? The people stood up and handed it  back to the security in front of them! Can you imagine that happening in the US? Or anywhere else, for that matter? I think not.

The wall fall was the same as the night before--the first few rows fell forward straight away, then the remaining rows teetering backwards and forwards before it all came crashing down. Honestly, I think they've perfected the fall too well now. There's no randomness to it--no chaos--it's all too perfectly controlled. It all stays within the barriers, and there are very few bricks that have to be thrown backwards to the rear of the stage before the band come out. If you're going to tear down the wall, TEAR it down without the 'random precision'!

As I stood outside waiting for Kevin, a guy came up to me and asked, “Hey, are you the guy doing the blog?” "Yeah," I replied. “Great--keep it up. I read it everyday,” he said. I just wanted to thank you for making my night. It always makes me smile when things like that happen--makes it all seem worthwhile!  Sorry I didn't get your name or a picture, but thanks for reading the blog!

At the moment it's 11 A.M. Friday, and Kevin and I are on the train to Copenhagen. It's always nice to get on the train and see other fans--especially ones we’ve met before at shows all around the world.

Joakim on the train with us.