Christopher Mackay’s Blog

I took in Roger Waters’ performance at the Skydome in Calgary Saturday night.There was a notice posted to the effect that the show was being recorded for television, and that entering amounted to consenting to be filmed. I don’t know if this has been the case elsewhere. Perhaps a live DVD is in the works?The 2 and-a-half-hour show consisted of three sets; the first was a variety of favourites from the Pink Floyd canon and a few of his solo tunes. The second set was a complete run-through of Dark Side of the Moon, and there was a four-song encore.The set list was identical to what was printed in the official programme, so I’m sure it’s been listed elsewhere. One of the surprises was how much Leaving Beirut changed since it was recorded (in September, 2004)… I wondered how a 12-minute song that few audience members would be likely to know, which consists largely of Roger speaking in French, would go over, but the French gave way to English and there was some nice, aggressive Andy Fairweather-Low guitar book-ending the piece. In fact, while some audience members predictably took advantage of Roger’s Final Cut pieces (The Final Cut and The Fletcher Memorial Home) to relieve themselves or get more beer, people were paying full attention to Leaving Beirut. For me, it was the clear high-point of the evening.