IN THE FLESH - LIVE

As if Roger Waters fans weren't already depressed enough, it seems that the once proud purveyor of everything`Pink has resurfaced as a mere caricature of himself, offering up barely recognizable renditions of Floyd classics, this time heavily laced with female accompaniments designed to mask Roger's vocal inadequacies. It is also worth noting that the female backing vocals on this entire recording were mixed so loud that they often drown out the music. I tried to ignore it at first, but it is so overpowering that, at times, it ruins the songs. To make matters worse, the solo material included in this set sounds no better than it did when Roger performed it on his failed solo albums.

Nonetheless, this collection has a lot of redeeming value, especially present on Roger's new version of Set the Controls, which goes into an Ozric Tentacles style trans sequence during the guitar solo. While I agree with the other reviewers that Pulse is a better live album, and that the remaining members of Pink Floyd sound more like the original band than anything that Roger has done since the Wall,this CD set contains a lot of nice tracks that the Gilmour band intentionally avoided performing on either of its two tours. Dogs is very well performed, but I still prefer the early version that was recently released on the deluxe edition of Wish You Were Here. Finally, I note that Roger is simply unable to imitate Gilmour, the way Gilmour was able to Roger on a few of the tracks in the Pulse Tour. It is disconcerting to hear these vocal parts sung by "no name" session performers that were in Roger's band and I agree with the earlier review that Roger should have attempted to sing these parts in his own style.

This collection will be of little interest to casual fans. If you are a Pink Floyd diehard, however, you will enjoy hearing some of these renditions.