[Repost from Blog]
Thinking back over the years on how many music events I've attended within every genre of music.... to all of the artists, DJ's, and bands I've seen that I've hyped afterwards or given credit for being "the best".... nothing could have ever prepared me for the experience that I was able to be around for last night.
Where does someone begin when telling a story of how one single event hit them so hard and emotionally that it literally changed their life simply for being at that certain place in time?
I know, without a doubt, that this was the most legendary music event I will ever experience in my life, and I would go so far as to possibly say it was the best set ever performed in the history of recorded music up to this point.
This event was 30 years in the making.
I'll start with the overall scenario: 50,000 people, 80 acres of open land all with clear view to the main stage, the best and most technologically advanced sound systems and lighting equipment ever invented and that were definitely used for the first time during this set, anywhere on Earth. This set goes way, way beyond the worshipping or appraise of a single artist/group (Pink Floyd), this set was a mindblowing achievement and major step up within the entire world of Audio/Visual graphic design.
They were controlling the entire atmosphere around us. It felt like the entire biosphere was somehow electrically-charged, and the aspects of sound and light waves were all being controlled and manipulated at once depending on the situation occurring at that moment. Everything was done perfect. The graphic artists who worked on the 3 hour customized visuals on the 500x'-300x' ft. screen were able to come up with images that were meaningful, vibrant, and unique, yet still retaining an classic "Pink Floyd / 70's" type of appeal even though they had been now perceived on equipment of the newest technology.
The first half of the show contained songs from The Wall, Wish You Were Here and Animals, among others, as well as including a fully new song by Waters telling a story about an oppressed family in Beirut from the past, which ends with a few lines that incited a feeling of the biggest despise and disappointment towards our leader than has ever been felt collectively at the same time by a group this big. "Are these the people that we should bomb // Are we so sure they mean us harm // Is this our pleasure, punishment or crime // Is this a mountain that we really want to climb // The road is hard, hard and long, Put down that two by four // This man would never turn you from his door // Oh George! Oh George! // That Texas education must have fucked you up when you were very small.
The song "Pigs" was the highlight of the first half of the show. During this song, an extremely large balloon in the form of a pig (containing a bunch of rebellion and/or non-descript words) was launched from one corner and led through the crowd until it had reached all corners. At the end of the song, right at the peak of the final chorus, the pig's ropes were cut and the helium-filled, baseball-diamond sized object floated into space above the heads of everyone at the park, able to be seen for many minutes following. Somewhere out there in space right now, is a big floating pig.
After the first half cut out, the most intense intermission ever took place. The lights shut out and ambient artificial chirping noises and LSD-inspired auditory hallucinations were being injected into the air around us, moving at different frequencies and pitches, creating an eerie and dark atmosphere. A picture of the Moon went up the main screen. Everyone knew what was coming. But no one would have ever thought the show could get any better than it had already been up to this point.
The 2nd half began and "Dark Side of the Moon" began playing in its entirety. Within seconds of the first lyrics coming out of Waters' mouth, people began to fully realize the power of where we all were at that time. There was truly a sense that the last two decades (of Pink Floyd not playing together) had "all lead up to this point", for both the younger and older generations of this time in rock music as a whole, and irregardless of the other members of the original Pink Floyd not around. It was as if the culmination of millions and millions of previous individual experiences, from people both alive and dead, and their relationship with this Greatest Rock Album of all time, were all being built up hidden through time, and finally unleashed in an explosion on the crowd who were there that night.
The second song, On The Run, which is the instrumental ambient soundscape track, ended with an explosion on stage that I still don't understand as being physically possible. The song peaked with an explosion "in the screen" (as in, it was computerized design), but as it exploded, everyone in the audience felt the physical push of an energy field hitting them. And I mean that literally - they somehow altered the density of the molecules around us to simulate being pushed backwards from a specific focal point. Coachella is obviously at the forefront of technology and there is no doubt in my head that this single set was a multi-million dollar operation to complete.
After Dark Side, he encored with "Another Brick In The Wall", which obviously blew the minds of everyone there, all chanting the same long-established phrase of the song. And the final song of the night was a hugely extended version of Comfortably Numb, which was so musically fine tuned, perfect, and overwhelming that I froze up and could no longer move one single muscle. I stood there and looked ahead at the stage with my jaw open, staring at the intense visuals mixed, unable to process one single real thought while music of this intensity was playing on this big of a scale around me.
The end of the song struck and I was left on my ass, not knowing how to react to the feeling of having my entire psyche and range of emotions having been ripped apart from inside me and put back together within the span of 3 hours. This wasn't a show dedicated to Roger Waters, or even Pink Floyd in general. This show was presented for, and presented by, the entire people of our generation and it will be talked about even decades from now as a legendary and historical performence in all of modern music.
I can almost say even if I was to never to go to another concert again, it wouldn't matter to me, because that single experience has left me asking myself "What left is there to do?".
Thinking back over the years on how many music events I've attended within every genre of music.... to all of the artists, DJ's, and bands I've seen that I've hyped afterwards or given credit for being "the best".... nothing could have ever prepared me for the experience that I was able to be around for last night.
Where does someone begin when telling a story of how one single event hit them so hard and emotionally that it literally changed their life simply for being at that certain place in time?
I know, without a doubt, that this was the most legendary music event I will ever experience in my life, and I would go so far as to possibly say it was the best set ever performed in the history of recorded music up to this point.
This event was 30 years in the making.
I'll start with the overall scenario: 50,000 people, 80 acres of open land all with clear view to the main stage, the best and most technologically advanced sound systems and lighting equipment ever invented and that were definitely used for the first time during this set, anywhere on Earth. This set goes way, way beyond the worshipping or appraise of a single artist/group (Pink Floyd), this set was a mindblowing achievement and major step up within the entire world of Audio/Visual graphic design.
They were controlling the entire atmosphere around us. It felt like the entire biosphere was somehow electrically-charged, and the aspects of sound and light waves were all being controlled and manipulated at once depending on the situation occurring at that moment. Everything was done perfect. The graphic artists who worked on the 3 hour customized visuals on the 500x'-300x' ft. screen were able to come up with images that were meaningful, vibrant, and unique, yet still retaining an classic "Pink Floyd / 70's" type of appeal even though they had been now perceived on equipment of the newest technology.
The first half of the show contained songs from The Wall, Wish You Were Here and Animals, among others, as well as including a fully new song by Waters telling a story about an oppressed family in Beirut from the past, which ends with a few lines that incited a feeling of the biggest despise and disappointment towards our leader than has ever been felt collectively at the same time by a group this big. "Are these the people that we should bomb // Are we so sure they mean us harm // Is this our pleasure, punishment or crime // Is this a mountain that we really want to climb // The road is hard, hard and long, Put down that two by four // This man would never turn you from his door // Oh George! Oh George! // That Texas education must have fucked you up when you were very small.
The song "Pigs" was the highlight of the first half of the show. During this song, an extremely large balloon in the form of a pig (containing a bunch of rebellion and/or non-descript words) was launched from one corner and led through the crowd until it had reached all corners. At the end of the song, right at the peak of the final chorus, the pig's ropes were cut and the helium-filled, baseball-diamond sized object floated into space above the heads of everyone at the park, able to be seen for many minutes following. Somewhere out there in space right now, is a big floating pig.
After the first half cut out, the most intense intermission ever took place. The lights shut out and ambient artificial chirping noises and LSD-inspired auditory hallucinations were being injected into the air around us, moving at different frequencies and pitches, creating an eerie and dark atmosphere. A picture of the Moon went up the main screen. Everyone knew what was coming. But no one would have ever thought the show could get any better than it had already been up to this point.
The 2nd half began and "Dark Side of the Moon" began playing in its entirety. Within seconds of the first lyrics coming out of Waters' mouth, people began to fully realize the power of where we all were at that time. There was truly a sense that the last two decades (of Pink Floyd not playing together) had "all lead up to this point", for both the younger and older generations of this time in rock music as a whole, and irregardless of the other members of the original Pink Floyd not around. It was as if the culmination of millions and millions of previous individual experiences, from people both alive and dead, and their relationship with this Greatest Rock Album of all time, were all being built up hidden through time, and finally unleashed in an explosion on the crowd who were there that night.
The second song, On The Run, which is the instrumental ambient soundscape track, ended with an explosion on stage that I still don't understand as being physically possible. The song peaked with an explosion "in the screen" (as in, it was computerized design), but as it exploded, everyone in the audience felt the physical push of an energy field hitting them. And I mean that literally - they somehow altered the density of the molecules around us to simulate being pushed backwards from a specific focal point. Coachella is obviously at the forefront of technology and there is no doubt in my head that this single set was a multi-million dollar operation to complete.
After Dark Side, he encored with "Another Brick In The Wall", which obviously blew the minds of everyone there, all chanting the same long-established phrase of the song. And the final song of the night was a hugely extended version of Comfortably Numb, which was so musically fine tuned, perfect, and overwhelming that I froze up and could no longer move one single muscle. I stood there and looked ahead at the stage with my jaw open, staring at the intense visuals mixed, unable to process one single real thought while music of this intensity was playing on this big of a scale around me.
The end of the song struck and I was left on my ass, not knowing how to react to the feeling of having my entire psyche and range of emotions having been ripped apart from inside me and put back together within the span of 3 hours. This wasn't a show dedicated to Roger Waters, or even Pink Floyd in general. This show was presented for, and presented by, the entire people of our generation and it will be talked about even decades from now as a legendary and historical performence in all of modern music.
I can almost say even if I was to never to go to another concert again, it wouldn't matter to me, because that single experience has left me asking myself "What left is there to do?".
