O2, London

Sometimes reviews can be totally unnecessary. For instance, global events like The Royal Wedding. No one reviewed that. Or the Kennedy Assassination. Or the supposed Moon Landing. We've all seen them. Endlessly. And so it was with this. Ok, Roger Waters bringing his The Wall show to London was always going to be a special and emotional evening. And Thursday 12th May 2011 was going to turn out to be just that bit more so. It's pointless trying to hide what happened that night, because so much has already been written about it. So much has already been seen on websites such as Facebook and YouTube. We all know that, for one night only, Roger Waters was joined on stage by old bandmates David Gilmour and Nick Mason. The former reprising his seminal guitar solo during Comfortably Numb. The latter, who had merely been a part of the crowd, coming up at the end to shake a tambourine during the Outside The Wall finale.

Initially, the stage was set with a partially built wall on either side, with the large round projection screen dominating the backdrop. Then the lights dropped and the show started off with "The" speech from the film "Spartacus", which saw most of the crowd joining in with the "I'm Spartacus" bit. Then a lone trumpeteer started the intro to In The Flesh? before BANG! Fireworks, lights and action! The song burst into life, Roger centre stage, all in black with leather clad, crossed hammer flag waving goons high up on podiums infront of the giant crossed hammer logo. The song climaxes with more fireworks, searchlights and a third size ME109 crashing into the wall. Yes, really crashing! "The Thin Ice" brought with it moving stills of those who have lost their lives and loved ones in various conflicts, recent and old. This version of The Wall is turned into an anti-war rant, rather than the stardom induced isolation of the original. And it is the better for it, as the world has lost patience with it's fragile "stars" going off the rails, and a wall full of the dead and grieving means more to us all now. For Another Brick In The Wall (Part 1) the stage is bathed in red, while a helicopter spotlight scans the crowd at the end of The Happiest Days Of Our Lives. Then it's the first "big" number, Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2) where the band (and the rest) are joined on stage by an infaltable schoolmaster and a dozen or so dancing schoolkids sporting "Fear Builds Walls" t-shirts and "singing" the chorus. It's all good fun, and ends up with them taunting the school master. Before a backdrop of "iBelieve", the crew started assembling the wall, brick by brick.

Roger takes a breather before introducing Mother, where he is alone on the stage, playing the song on an acoustic guitar, while footage of "Angry Roger" playing the song at Earls Court in 1980. This is infront of a backdrop of am eerie cctv camera scanning the crowd, with "Big Mother is watching you" is projected on the wall to the right. Goodbye Blue Sky is accompanied by images of bombers dropping bombs in the form of dollar and pound signs, as well as Shell, McDonalds, Mercedes logos, crosses, Star of Davids and more. This went into What Shall We Do Now?, the longer, harder, version of Empty Spaces. This is played to the "flowers fucking" animation from the film, and it was noticable how much of the wall had been built up, almost unnoticed. The wall was put to excellent use during the closing parts of the song with fairly graphic shots of a certain "Roxy" giving the hot blooded men in the crowd something to look at. A friend of mine later claimed not to have noticed it. I can only assume that they didn't show it on the Wednesday. Or that he'd gone for a slash! All the while, the wall gets bigger, and it was interesting to note that there was a pause after each block was put on before the projections showed up on it. If anyone knows how or why this was, let me know! Young Lust is previewed by the groupie bit on the screens, Thankfully, it's not overacted by Jerry Hall this time! Then One Of My Turns kicks in then Don't Leave Me Now slows it down again, with a solitary Roger sitting on an unfinished peice of the wall, while an inflatable wife mocks him from the side. More TV News based projections are shown during Another Brick In The Wall (Part 3). They play The Last Few Bricks while the last few bricks are put into place. This time the backdrop impressively shows the wall, all in red, with random bricks dropping back into nothingness. I've probably said this already, but the way the projections are woven into the show is nothing short of breathtaking at times. Finally, there is Goodbye Cruel World, which sees the final brick put in place.

Then, after a break for beer and bogs, it's back for part two. Hey You starts it, with all the action taking place behind the wall. It's a litle weird to see the spotlights following the musicians around, without actually seeing them. Luckily the visuals are good enough to keep us occupied. Spotlights search the crowd during Is There Anybody Out There? and a random brick is removed to show Snowy White on the guitar, while a hotel room opens up in the wall for Nobody Home. Then it's back to the visuals for Vera as they showed kids being reunited with they returning soldier fathers. In the most heart-wrenching of them all, we see a young girl in a class at school literally burst into tears as her dad walked into the room. The 7' guy in front of me burst into tears, and I almost joined him. Bring The Boys Back Home was played out infront of a montage of starving children, overlaid with a speech by Dwight D Eisenhower "Every gun that's made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed". It finishes with "Bring The Boys Back Home" in massive letters.

Then it's obviously onto the highlight of the show. Comfortably Numb. At this point, we didn't know what was going to happen. My friend Sally had texted me to say that a friend of hers had been invited to the backstage party, and that David Gilmour was there. But that rumour must have gone out every night since word leaked out that there was the chance of an appearance one night. Then it got to the first chorus, and there, on top of the wall, bald head shining like a prog beacon, was Gilmour! You know it, you've seen it on YouTube. Singing and playing THAT solo. Sorry Mr Kilminster. You're damn fine, but this was the real deal. He even looked like he was enjoying it! Ok, I couldn't see his face, but you could tell. Then during the second solo, Waters pounds on the wall, and it explodes into a kaleidoscope of colour, an orgy of yellow, red and blue falling masonry! Breathtaking. Again. The standing ovation for the pair of them has to be heard to be believed. Spine tingling.

If it had ended there, then I don't think anyone could have complained that they'd been short-changed, but, as they say, The Show Must Go On and it did with the hard hitting In The Flesh, the ensemble returning to the front of the stage replete with Facist style black uniform with red armbands. The crossed hammers symbols adorn the stage, like banners between columns, while Waters sings, dressed in a full length black leather coat. The grafitti adorned radio controlled flying pig is let loose overhead while Waters machine guns the crowd. Run Like Hell sees "iLead" "iProtect" "iResist" "iBelieve" "iTeach" mottos shone up onto the wall. At one point, the footage of the unarmed reporters being gunned down by American airmen in Iraq is shown. Hammering the anti war message home.

The band left the stage, one by one, introduced by Waters, and while Gilmour and Mason got the biggest cheers, the rest of them didn't do to badly either!

I hope that you all have had to chance to see this show in one place or another. I'm convinced it will be just as wonderful without the special guests, but Gilmours appearance made this one of those events that you will tell your grandchildren about in years to come. And they'll look at you like you're a senile old man. Which you will be.