Customer Reviews

Is There Anybody out There? The Wall: Live 1980-1981 With Book

5 star:		(98)
4 star:		(28)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

When Pink Floyd toured, they only performed The Wall in New York and Los Angeles. Through a ticket broker I bought two tickets that were seventh roll center on the floor. The tickets were $45 each!

I remember every nuance of the show and I still wonder if there is a video of this excellent concert lurking somewhere.

Even though the recording is excellent, it can't touch the sonic/visual bombast that the show was. To see Roger Waters just giving his emotional heart in the performance, the visuals projected on the Wall, and the sonic effects gave the performance a eerie/creepy vibe. Some audience members were actually crying at some portions. And when the wall came down in the end and the band came out spotlighted in a golden glow, it felt like a healing.

Waters and Mason elected to wear earphones. Waters was singing into a wireless microphone (a technological first) that he would stuff into his back pocket when it wasn't in use. Each band member had a supporting musician, so everyone was doubled, even Mick Mason. Plus there were supporting vocalist.

To me, The Wall touched on many layers. The show had all the themes that Waters likes to vent about, losing his father at a young age, confining English upbringing, divorce and unhappiness at seeing people acting like sheep. Waters also touches on war rallies as he withdraws into his internal mental hell.

Let me give you some of the visuals.

When the MC (Cynthia Fox from radio station KLOS) came out and did her shtick, the stage had lots of "technicians" walking around the stage and adjusting equipment. While she was talking, the technicians parted and the group was already on stage ready to go, surprise, surprise. And they cut her off in mid-sentence.

There were speakers on stage as well as the sides of the Sports Arena, just like the "Wish You Were Hear" tour. So when 'In the Flesh" started, I thought that the sound wasn't as full. Then the end came and as the band played the last long chord and the airplane came over the audience, symbolizing the death of Water's dad during the war, the side speakers and the true wrap-around sound kicked in. Quite a rush.

When the helicopter section played, on stage the lighting technicians sat on top of flying saucer that were on the stage floor. They took off into the air and lit up the band, following the musicians around the stage.

The puppets (you can see them on the Waters show at Berlin) were mind blowing. Quite a feat to control their movements, so a nod to the supporting cast/roadies that you never see or hear about.

The movies were being played on a round screen above the band. Seeing the intertwining flowers turning into monsters during sex and one snapping the head off the others to the song "Empty Spaces" was quite a wallop.

When Waters sang "One of my Turns", he was outside the under-construction wall. Next to him was a little Pink doll which he mimics as he sang. As he screamed "Oh No" and the band went into solo, he jumped back behind the wall, and the wall continues to close.

During "Don't Leave me Now, two giant puppets were on top of the wall and just glaring at Waters while he sang with all that creepy loud breathing flowing around the speakers just overpowering him. And the wall gets completed except the one brick where Waters sings "Goodbye Cruel World". I never forgot the music that was playing between "Another Brick in The Wall Part 3" and "Goodbye Cruel World" and it is so nice to hear it again after all these years. What was weird was that the band was playing behind the Wall and you could only see the top portion of the stage, with all the supporting lights and flying saucer pods doing their thing. Gave a strange visual vibe.

The second act was performed with the audience having to deal with the wall. The movie was projected on the Wall itself and was done using three interlocked projectors. It was perfection. Even though sometimes only the center projector was showing a scene, the side ones were still on and the side film was pristine, you wouldn't know that they were on.

"Nobody Home" was done with a portion of the Wall that opened up showing a hotel room with Waters reclining in a chair watching TV.

"Comfortably Numb" was a high point, with Gilmore singing and soloing from the top of the wall. You could see that he was really into it. Must have been a thrill for him to be so high up and overlooking the crowd as his guitar solo spun around the monitors.

When the MC came out again, the band was pushed onto stage in darkness on a platform on rollers. When they were illuminated, everyone was wearing the masks that are on the cover of this CD and acted like robots.

In "The Show must go on", as Waters sings 'Are there any queers in the audience", the flying saucer light technicians actually go out over the audience looking for offenders going as far as their supporting booms let them.

On the CD right before Waters introduces "Run Like Hell", you hear him let out a shout as a spacey guitar cord is hit. That is when the inflated pig breaks through the wall.

"Waiting for the Worms" of course had the hammers marching across the entire wall which made it look like the whole wall was moving. "Stop" and "The Trial" was just Waters solo in front of the wall just spilling his guts out.

Then the wall came down to the booming base notes that shook the seats. The whole audience just let out screams of relief as it came down. The musicians came out from the side of the stage as themselves with Waters leading and playing the clarinet while kicking debris out of the way. They stopped and sang "Outside the Wall", then continued the march off to the other side of the stage. During the applause, the four members of Pink Floyd came out, took a bow, and everybody went home knowing that they had witnessed something special and never to be duplicated again.

This live recording of The Wall, played before a packed house at Earl's Court, breathes fresh life into the awesome, yet arguably sterile, studio album, The Wall (Deluxe Packaging Digitally Remastered). Though "Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live" rarely strays from the studio rendition, Pink Floyd let loose in some spots, especially guitarist David Gilmour. Plus, all the background noise heard on the album -- the phones ringing, people yelling, women chattering, screams -- sounds crystal clear and invigorating in concert. Curiously, the crowd is mostly subdued throughout, indicating Floyd treated this as a mixture of a play and a rock concert. It's possible that the band's adoring fans showed a great deal of respect, restraint and even a bit of awe at what they were witnessing.

What's accentuated on this stellar recording is the magnificent vocal interplay between Roger Waters and Gilmour. Whatever their problems offstage, these guys worked fluently and harmonically as they sang separately or together within "The Wall's" songs. Waters, despite his need to always take credit for everything Floyd did in its latter years, needed top musicians like Gilmour to pull off this stunning and elaborate set.

Here's a recap of highlights on this album:

* The funny and urgent "Master of Ceremony" beginning
* The chilling start of "Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)," plus the drawn-out guitar solo at the end
* The added-on track, "What Shall We Do Now," which was also featured in the movie
* The haunting and expertly played "Is There Anybody Out There," which features cool TV background noises that differ from the studio album
* The extended solo at the end of "Comfortably Numb"
* The intense and revved-up start to "Run Like Hell," where the normally placid Waters goes wild
* The barber shop rendition of "Outside the Wall"
* The excellent singing, keyboards and drumming throughout
* The lucky crowd who got to watch all this

Finally, the informative CD booklet, which feature insights and information about this live performance from the major players involved, is a real treat for fans.

What more can be said? If you already love the studio version of "The Wall," this album won't disappoint.

Why would a devoted Pink Floyd fan only give this three stars?

This live album comes from an interesting time in PF history. The Wall was a departure from the sound and style of the previous 3 albums and marked the end of PF's golden period. The band also broke up shortly after this tour. These factors makes this a worthwhile time to note in PF history.

The quality of the recording is not that bad. It was better than I expected (I had heard that the master tapes were in really bad condition). The musical quality is also not bad. They don't miss a cue and the songs sound tight. But, PF has always been a really great live bad, just take a listen to Ummagumma's live side or Live at Pompeii or Gilmour's extended Comfortably Numb guitar solo on Delicate Sound of Thunder for proof.

What this album lacks is real feeling or a new way of looking at the songs. All live albums could learn a lesson from Van Morrison's "It's too late to stop now..." "Is there anybody out there?" sounds almost exactly like the studio version and rarely strays from it. There is no new insight here. That makes it not worth buying if you already have The Wall. I wish they released this as a video. I was too young to see this concert live when it originally came around. This concert seems like it was more of an audio and visual experience. Having it on CD is like missing half the concert.

So, if you don't have The Wall already or you are a completist by nature (and I understand all too well), this is not a bad buy. It does also contain two extra songs not on The Wall, but they are nothing new. "What shall we do now?" is in the movie, listed on the album, and you can hear a really awful version of it as a duet between Bryan Adams and Roger Waters on The Wall: Live in Berlin. The other song is really a reprise of all the previous themes on the album.

But, if you have The Wall already, it is not necessary to get this album.

Instead, try to get some good live 70's bootlegs of "Careful with that Axe Eugene".

Live re-creations of complete albums are always a risky prospect, it seems: is a stage recording enough to entice those who own one complete version already? Since Pink Floyd's psychedelic mammoth The Wall is already well-known to so many, they wisely chose to complete the picture a little further here, fleshing out the songs with more solos and fuller arrangements. Two extra tracks are added: "What Shall We Do Now?," a quickie that somehow didn't make it onto the original album (though it was used in the movie), and "The Last Few Bricks," which serves as an instrumental recap of the first half before the intermission. (A few new lyrics find their way into "The Show Must Go On" as well.) A rehearsed MC pops up a couple times throughout. Otherwise it's basically the same classic everyone's already pretty familiar with. Look it up for reviews if curious; I'm dealing with the live version here.

Pros: there's a tangible onstage energy and an excellent atmospheric sound mix (a step up from the studio production). The more subdued details are audible without cranking up the volume, as you have to do to hear them on the previous recording. David Gilmour's solos are especially tasty. The booklet is full of goodies: commentaries/backgrounds from each of the band members, and photos and design sketches aplenty which give a wonderful impression of what a stunning theatrical achievement the Wall stage show must have been. I particularly like the intro to "Run Like Hell," where Gilmour shoots out some laser-guitar riffs as Waters spits vitriol at the audience. It's probably the most audible example of the dissatisfaction that inspired Roger to write the album in the first place.

Cons: apart from the two added tracks it doesn't have much beyond what was on the original album, which may be an issue for those who (like myself) feel that the real point of live performance is to offer something different. Even the sound effects and chatter between songs are faithfully reproduced word-for-word. The sporadic filler tracks ("Goodbye Blue Sky," "Bring the Boys Back Home") are still as slow and ponderous as ever.

Diehard Floydians will have a blast. Casual fans who don't have either versoin yet might want to consider this instead of the original for a slightly fuller experience. Four stars because everything's performed and presented exceptionally well, often better than on The Wall itself; one star missing because it's still essentially a retread. But why should that spoil the fun?

This is an amazing live cd. The booklets inside tell so much as to how the band preformed the wall live. All the band memebers shine amazing at so many points I can't name them all. The intro to "run like hell" is brillent. I will admit that the singing on some tracks like "In the flesh" and "the happiest days of our lives" aren't quite as good as the studio. A couple days after I got the wall live i listened to the studio to compare. I actually found myself board with the studio.

According to several Floyd biographies I have read, the Wall concert was staged and filmed twice by Alan Parker ( who directed the feature film of the same name ) for inclusion in the movie that eventually came out in 1982. That footage was never used in the film, obviously. SOMEWHERE out there in the vaults is a terrific concert just crying out to be released on DVD. This should have happened here, but didn't. Having said that, this is a terrific live album. Very well played, and it sounds good. The photos in the deluxe book I bought left me wanting more, though. I wanted to SEE the concert as well as hear it. The cynic in me makes me think that in a few years, when the money starts getting a little low the Floyd will release this one again, and give the fans the real treat of the Wall concert on DVD. Look for it around Christmas, as this was about the time this one was released :-P

There's always been two unspoken camps among Pink Floyd fans. The first swear by 1973's Dark Side of the Moon; an unequalled headphone album of cosmic concepts protesting humanity's weaknesses with a soft brush of lush sax solos, pensive guitar noodling and soulful female backup singers. The second camp were weaned on The Wall, the 1979 double concept album that sounds exactly like what it is: a hallucinogenic exorcism for Roger Water's disillusionment with being a rock star and detachment from the audience by way of a blitzkreig of stomping Fourth Reich themes, horror show imagery, grim acoustic alienation and seques of nighmarish sound effects and skits. So 20 years on it's a bit of surprise to report that it's the first camp of Floyd fans who will probably enjoy this 2 disc live set the most. The reason is simple: unlike the original studio album, which felt as clinically cold as something assembled by suicidal robots, Is Anybody Out There? (recorded during a pair of shows at Earl's Court in London during the 1980-81 tour)transforms the entire album in to a work as colourful and textured as Dark Side. The recording quality is superb and although the band's improvisation was limited by the complex stage set (a crumbling brick wall strung with puppets, peekaboo sets, hydraulics and effects) and prerecorded seques straight off the album, the songs breathe a new life here thanks to several moments of alternative musical reconstruction. Whereas the original album was one long dash of icy bleakness with odd moments of acoustic grace, Is Anybody Out There? takes the same collection of songs and blushes them with warm nuances at appropriate moments, adding a new sense of intrigue to the story of the doomed rock star who bricks himself in with an imaginary wall constructed to protect himself from life's traumas. This balance, which seemed to be missing from the original - plus two never-before-released instrumental tracks (What Shall We Do Now and The Last Few Bricks) and a pair of thick booklets of colour photos from the original show to fill in the blanks - ultimately makes The Wall a more inviting - and fascinating - trip more than 20 years after the fact.

I bought this album after listening to a few of Pink Floyd's albums and I just have to say it is excellent! Even though it is a live recording that was made 20 years ago, the remastering is awesome. Sometimes, you can hear crackling but that doesn't really matter. This album is great! It's not just a straight performance of the 1979 double-disc epic; Pink Floyd adds plenty to the value of this CD. Just check out a few of the songs, some of which were not available on the original album, like "What Shall We Do Now?" and "The Last Few Bricks." Also, there are a few hilarious moments on it. Listen to Roger Waters questioning the audience before "Run Like Hell": "Are there any paranoids in the audience tonight? Is there anybody here who's weak?" Also, you can hear someone saying,"Shutup!" during the second "Master Of Ceremonies." There was a lot of energy put into the concert. Many of the songs are performed at a faster tempo than the original album, creating a more thrilling feeling. Also, the only crowd noise you can hear is pretty much between songs, so that you don't get annoyed when they cheer at the good parts. Also included are two very large booklets, and I mean VERY large; try fitting just one into one of your normal CD cases. Inside are interviews with the band and crew members about the production of the concert, along with dazzling, high-quality photos of the concert, which include several amazing shots of Gerald Scarfe's animations projected onto the stage. I strongly recommend you purchase this CD. It has enough extras to keep you listening to it for a long time.

Incredible! I picked it up yesterday and was instantly blown away! This is the way The Wall was meant to be heard! While most of the reviewers seem to feel that Roger & Dave deserve all the praise and credit I must disagree. This was not an effort by individuals but a single entity, Pink Floyd. Listen to the fine keyboard work by Richard Wright. For a member that has been unceremoniously booted from the band, his muscianship does not show it. Very professional and my hat is off to you Mr. Wright! Nick Mason's drumming is also superb. Without the fine keeping of the beat this would just be another recording. All in all I would say that these men need to sit down together and listen to what they have done. If they would do that, I believe they would discover that they truly need each other, regardless of whose words or music it is, because they are a band only together. ITAOT made me regret that I did not get to see them perform together, but hey....this is as real as it gets. Gentlemen you are true artists!

OK, so you think you know Pink Floyd? So you think you know "The Wall"? So you should buy this.

For now let's ignore the packaging which, while incredible, gives only tiny samples of what the show actually looked like. If the video footage exists it should be released.

Let's concentrate on the music. By now everybody should know the history of "The Wall". Spawned from Roger Waters' hatred of arena rock and the spitting incident in Canada during the "Animals" tour, this album became as much of a milestone as "Dark Side Of The Moon". Waters attempted this live, but the motley collection of celebrity guest stars never quite caught it. The problem was that, as much as Roger insists that "he" was Pink Floyd, the guitar sound of David Gilmour was just as big a part of the overall band sound. And this is highlighted on this album. Hailed by Gilmour himself as the best song he ever wrote, "Comfortably Numb" is the showcase. The studio version of the solo was incredible. This version is totally awesome. I can't even begin to imagine him playing this, bathed in the glare of a spotlight, standing on top of "The Wall".

The venom of some of Roger's lyrics is way more apparent live, and the original sting of the playing and performance is heightened in the live setting. That the band were actually falling apart at the time due to the old favorite "musical and personal differences" makes the fact that this album is so good a testimony to the undoubted talents of Messrs Waters, Gilmour, Mason and Wright.

OK, there isn't too much that's different to the studio version. The inclusion of "The Last Brick In The Wall" is the only major variation, although some tracks include all of the lyrics which were originally printed on the sleeve of the studio album.

What makes this an incredibly satisfying album is knowing that the band could carry the whole thing off on stage in what must have been an awe-inspiring sight. That David Gilmour's reformed Pink Floyd have reintroduced the entire "Dark Side Of The Moon" live is a testimony to the "concept" album. Believe it or not they did work, even though they were condemned and pilloried by most prog-rock critics.

As a parting thought. How many bands around today could release a live album 20 years after it was recorded and still sell??

Go Floyd.