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ROGER WATERS - MADISON SQUARE GARDEN 2022

February 14, 2023 – 6:09 am

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ROGER WATERS
New York 2022 [A Mr Railing Recording, 2CD]
This Is Not a Drill Tour. Live at Madison Square Garden, New York, NY; August 31, 2022. Very good audience recording.

Thanks to Mr Railing (seaweed1010) for sharing the show at Dime.

Mr Railing noted:

I rarely do large scale shows anymore, but couldn’t resist my favorite railing seats for cheap. So, I brought the family, even the kids. Figured it would blow their young child’s fragile eggshell minds. Mission accomplished! Recording came out nice using a four foot mic split. Good instrument separation with no up close crowd or clapping. Enjoy and have a Happy New Year! Thanks to nfagdtrfb for making this sound better than it did.

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Joe Lynch, billboard.com:

Before Roger Waters even took the stage Wednesday (August 31) night for the second Madison Square Garden show on his This Is Not a Drill tour, the British rocker’s genial yet prickly voice issued forth a pre-recorded warning from the speakers: “If you’re one of those, ‘I love Pink Floyd but I can’t stand Roger’s politics’ people, you might do well to f–k off to the bar night now,” he said with a laugh.

It was a fair warning, as the 78-year-old legend’s current tour - rescheduled from 2020 due to the pandemic - is as heavy on no-holds-barred political commentary as it is on music from the influential psych-rock band that made him famous. And there’s certainly no shortage of Floyd songs (which account for more than half of his setlist) over the course of his generous two-act show involving harrowing dystopian visuals, remote-controlled floating animals and a ton of smoke. (Well, the smoke wasn’t so much from Waters’ 140-person crew as it was the gray-headed fans who sparked up the moment he began singing “Another Brick in the Wall” near the top of the show.)

If there were any “shut up and sing” types in the audience that night, they were either strangely silent or took his advice about f–king off to the bar. The crowd’s response was either supportive or respectfully neutral to images branding everyone from Ronald Reagan to sitting President Biden a “war criminal.” There were claps, and even tears, when he ran footage of police officers mercilessly beating unarmed, nonviolent civilians along with the names of murder victims from George Floyd in Minneapolis to journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in Palestine. All of that went down during a driving, funky take on “The Powers That Be” from his 1987 solo album Radio K.A.O.S., which sounds pretty dated if you’re listening to the studio version (the MOR ’80s rock production is strong on that one) but boasts a weightier urgency when delivered by his current touring band.

Waters deserves credit for forcing 20,000 nostalgia-seeking Floyd fans to face uncomfortable realities that most concerts serve as an escape from. He reminded everyone that MSG (and all of New York City) sits on land stolen from the Munsee-Lenape people centuries ago. And during a thumping version of “Run Like Hell” that segued into an acoustic “Déjà Vu” from his most recent solo effort, Is This the Life We Really Want?, he made us Americans confront the bone-chillingly blasé footage of US troops gunning down two Reuters journalists in a peaceful public space after they mistook cameras for weapons back in 2007. (After Chelsea Manning’s decision to leak the footage caused a reckoning three years later, a spokesperson for US Central Command said, “We regret the loss of innocent life,” although no one was ever punished for the deaths. A “Free Julian Assange” message accompanied the footage).

Significantly less laudable, however, are Waters’ ongoing comments on the war in Ukraine, which he doubled down on Wednesday night. Fresh off a euphoric, laser-laden performance of the entire second side of The Dark Side of the Moon, Waters chided the US and NATO for not ending the war in Ukraine. “What we are doing, poking sticks in Russian bears, is completely insane,” he offered, while seated at a piano toward the end of the show.

All in all, Waters’ This Is Not a Drill tour serves as a reminder of two important truths: His visual and musical art remains as vital, timely and invigorating as ever, and if someone talks politics at you for two hours, they’re eventually going to say something that does indeed find you wishing you were at the bar instead.

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Cover picture by Theo Wargo, posted at billboard.com.

Lineage:
AT943cards > SP-SPSB-10 > MM-AT-1 > H2n [24/48]
Transfer: wavelab > r8b > cdwav > TLH [8] > flac
Location: Mics on ledge four feet apart on popsicle sticks between plexiglass barriers

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Disc 1
Track 101. intro 1:25
Track 102. Comfortably Numb 8:12
Track 103. The Happiest Days Of Our Lives 1:29
Track 104. Another Brick In The Wall Part 2 2:14
Track 105. Another Brick In The Wall Part 3 1:39
Track 106. The Powers That Be 5:01
Track 107. The Bravery Of Being Out Of Range 5:44
Track 108. The Bar 9:41
Track 109. Have A Cigar 5:29
Track 110. Wish You Were Here 4:59
Track 111. Shine On You Crazy Diamond (parts VI-VII) 8:36
Track 112. Sheep 11:15
66 mins

Disc 2
Track 201. intro 2:08
Track 202. In The Flesh 3:50
Track 203. Run Like Hell 5:53
Track 204. Déjà Vu 7:40
Track 205. Is This The Life We Really Want 5:49
Track 206. Money 6:41
Track 207. Us And Them 7:18
Track 208. Any Colour You Like 3:25
Track 209. Brain Damage 3:52
Track 210. Eclipse 3:18
Track 211. applause - Roger talking 5:54
Track 212. Two Suns In The Sunset 6:18
Track 213. The Bar (reprise) 7:29
Track 214. Outside The Wall 5:15
75 mins

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