THE WALL LIVE IN BERLIN

As most of us did not get a chance to see the spectacle that was the Wall live in 1980, and the majority of bootleg copies are so poor that they are unwatchable, this DVD of the BErlin show must suffice. I for one must say it is an amazing exibition of the concept Waters had in mind for his magnum opus. A long time fan of the album and film, I was suprised at how well this works in a live environment, showing the organic growth of the album and the live show simultaneously. Seeing this brought an even deeper nuance to a work that I felt I had exhausted.

First, the drawback. As stated in previous reviews, the choice of artists eaves a little to be desired, but as many of the giant fundraisers of the time (which Roger had very publicly ridiculed) it needed to cover every possible base to attract the largest audience. The ones that fall very short are Cyndi Lauper's shrill performance of ABITWII, Jeri Hall blazing through the groupie speech, Bryan Adams generically going through What Shall We Do and Young Lust, Joni Mitchell quavering through Goodbye Blue Sky, the Scorpions rote version of In The Flesh, and the ungodly version of The Tide Is Turning. And is it me, but did Van Morrison look like he needed to belch all the way through Comfortably Numb? I did however, very much enjoy Ute Lemper's recital of Thin Ice, Sinead O'Conner's tempermental (see the documentary) version of Mother, and Paul Carrack's Hey You.

Waters' performance throughout is fairly wooden, especially on the costume songs (looks as if he going to be swallowed up by the General garb he wearing in In The Flesh), but he does much better on the smaller more intimate songs. He actually seems to be enjoying himself when he's not in the spotlight, such as when he's supporting Mother.

the visuals are the real reason to see this, and the use of the larger size wall is used to it's maximum impact, especially on the animations (marching hammers as far as the eye can see) as well as on the extremelly powerful Bring The Boys Back Home. When they complete the wall at the conclusion of Goodbye Cruel World and they light up the entire length, breathtaking.

Any true fan should, and likely already owns this disc.