I detest Roger Waters. I went to see a concert with him around 2004, and I was angered and appalled by the way that I was subjected to hours of his political pap when I went there to listen to music. Stuff about the poor, oppressed Palestinians, America the Oppressor, and so on.
I know. I should have known, but I didn’t follow him at all after Pink Floyd, I just knew he had been in Pink Floyd, whose music I liked.
I went with about 10 people, and I was so spitting mad that I would have left, but didn’t want to ruin it for the others who I was with.
It was the concert he got sued for when he released a giant inflatable pig with wings (40 ft high?) that had “F**k Bush” on one side and “Vote Democrat” on the other. Apparently, IIRC, it caused some hazard to air traffic.
Very interesting post! I would not have realized that Waters used so much concert time for propaganda. It’s pretty remarkable that you held up so well.
Waters’ antisemitic stereotypes can be seen all the way back to Have a Cigar. I gather he somehow holds the Jews responsible for his father’s death, which happened in WWII. A friend who is a big Pink Floyd fan tells me that Waters is finally starting to mellow. That’s secondhand info so take with a grain of salt.
My wife and I went to a show on that tour (Manassas, VA, if I recall correctly). We walked out before the intermission - which sucked because he was supposed to perform the entire Dark Side of the Moon album during the second set.
A minute or so after Roger started his vitriolic anti-American diatribe I started yelling “Shut up and Play” as loud as I could. Some other people in our section took up the chant, but we were grossly outnumbered by the mindless drones who were just lapping up his B.S.
Once he launched the pig, emblazoned with “F-— Bush” and other anti-American slogans, out over the audience my wife and I got up to leave. A few of the anti-Bush types who had heard my previous comment decided to forcefully impede our progress; fortunately touching only me, not my wife. When I informed them I had no intention of fighting them, but would not hesitate to kill them if they made it necessary, they backed down and we departed that wretched scene. For a few minutes, though, I thought I was actually going to have to shoot somebody.
While I still enjoy the music of Pink Floyd, I have not placed one additional dime in that asshole’s pocket since that night. As far as I am concerned, Roger Waters is already dead.
He did the same this year substituting Trump. I had purchased tickets and asked for a refund when I found out it was a political event not a musical show.