In The Flesh 2002
Tour Reviews

By 09:15 pm there were still a line of almost 500 people. When the show started, the line was destroyed because every body ran like crazy to go inside. Including me. On the second song, "Another brick in the Wall" every body at that mess, next to the entrance, started to sing along. I felt like inside the movie "The Wall"; At the entrance, people were not putting the ticket on the machine anymore, but jumping and giving it to the security guys. Crazy.

The set list was like in South Africa, "Time" was amazing. The audience were very, very hot. There were too many Pink Floyd fans, with shirts. Etc.

The quadraphonic sound was great, the lights and everything. Roger Waters was very nice, telling that we were a wonderful audience. The show ended at 12:20 AM. Everybody exhausted, and very happy, after waiting for this show for 20 years, It was a gift, not a show.

Having travelled for 12 hours by bus from Curitiba to Rio, me (43) & wife (33) & son (14) agreed that we could not miss the simplest detail of this show. Arriving right when the gates were being opened (6 pm), we crossed/ran over most of those 2000 people that were already awating there and were lucky to get a place right in front of the stage (some 5-8 m from the place of guitarists Chester Kamen & Snowy White, and some 8-10 m from Roger's place), where we stayed for 3 hours until the show began.

In such a position we were able to see every detail and face expressions of the performers, but of course, it was Roger that hipnotyzed us most of the time (behind us, some 40,000 people who were not so lucky). It is interesting that in such a position you have the opportunity to try to attract the attention of your idol, and Roger particularly demonstrated so much attention and kindness to his brazilian fans, in contradiction to what has been said about him.

Much can be said of the setlist & the performance itself but I prefer to leave this to the specialized press that certainly will make the "usual" comments. On the setlist, I would say that it was exactly the same as the previous shows in Chile/Argentina, with Each Small Candle at the end. However, its for those details above mentioned that I would like to devote my comments.

It was interesting, that as the show was going to the end, during the "Brain Damage" solos, Roger went to his right corner of the stage and, in the dark with no light & no microphone, he cryed a "thank you" for the closest fans. Then moved slowly to other 4 different areas of the stage until at the left corner he repeated his action, demonstrating great kindness & love to the audience.

We waved our hands many times as we tryed to attrach Roger's attention, but it was my right neighbour that was more lucky: he raised a white t-shirt with the words "Roger, The God of The Gods". He made it, and for some 10 minutes held it so Roger finally could read it (sure he read it) and then he pointed to the guy and smiled. Very interesting.

During the "Dogs" "psycho interlude", which took about 5 minutes, Roger and the guys sat on a table and they played cards (!). I commented to my wife that it appeared that they were really playing a game, and sincerely I also think that they play 1 game each concert and they are are making a kind of competition during this tour... Very possible.

Whatching the show in the VIP section was Jim Capaldi, ex-Traffic member (also one of my 70's favorite groups - Jim's wife is brazilian and he is often around here). He made some comments on the show for a local TV station, saying something like "Very nice, very nice, I know Roger for a long time. We began together... " as he mixed his English to some Portuguese words...

On Roger's left side of the stage someone cast a kind of a collar on the stage, that he took and put on himself and played the rest of the show with that collar. When the show was over and Roger was walking to the back of the stage, he took his collar and turned to the guy that through it on stage and pressed the collar to his heart, demonstrating his affections.

As Roger sung "...mother should I trust the government" he looked to the audience and made an expression on his face indicating clearly that you "should not trust".

Some errors occurred while performing, but that was not noticeable by most people. Kamen played a wrong chord during "The bravery of being out of range" and Roger started to sing the 2nd part of "Brain Damage" in the wrong part. At least this proves the he is as "mortal" as we are... However, clearly noticeable was that the sax didn't made any sound on the first appearance of Mr.Norbert, but truly he made the crowd go crazy on "Money".

During "Every Strange's Eyes", Rogers faceal expressions were so intense that it sometimes appeared that he was about to cry.

Having watched all of the biggest international artists that played in Brazil for the last 20 years, I can say that whithout a doubt, this is the most impressive and sensational performance that I have seen. This is the same impression of the show felt by other people that attended who I have talked to, even to the up-to-now not-so-much-Pink/Roger fans.

In my case, I was so impressed maybe because the artist was so close this time, but certainly because Roger gives you a different impression than other artists; that he is not interested in becoming an eternal idol or getting huge mountains of money. It was clear that this man has deep passion inside, as we from the closest in the audience, could confirm while he was playing.
J. N. Hoffmann
jnelson@netpar.com.br
Curitiba/Lapa, Brazil
15/march/2002

Well, the set list was:

01. In the Flesh (Pt 2)
02. The Happiest Days of Our Lives
03. Another Brick in the Wall (Pt 2)
04. Mother
05. Get your Filthy Hands off My Desert
06. Southampton Dock
07. Pigs on the Wing (pt 1)
08. Dogs
09. Shine On (Pt 1/5) - Here the sax solo had problems -
10. Welcome to the Machine
11. Wish You Were Here
12. Shine On (Pt 6/9) - Followed by 20 min intermission
13. Set the Controls - Here, on the stage background the people could view extracts from Arnold Layne & The Scarecrow Promos
14. Breathe
15. Time
16. Money
17. Every Strangers Eyes
18. Perfect Sense I
19. perfect Sense II
20. The Bravery Being out of Range
21. Its a Miracle
22. Amused to Death
23. Braind Damage
24. Eclipse
25. Comfortably Numb

Encore:
26. Each Small Candle - A Little different version, Waters sang it with much more!! feeling, and much louder. And at the end Stachel played a really beautiful Sax solo - (This is was very different than that on the In the Flesh Official Release).

Well, I cant explain with my own words. In the Shine On... (Pt 6/9), the audience could see on the stage background, pictures taken from "Pink Floyd Comic Book 1975 tour program" while the bubbles of the light show slid down in the back. Wonderful, Powerfull, Loud, Crazy.... Obrigado

Simply put: the best show I've attended so far. The best. I do not live in Rio, I live in Belo Horizonte (Minas Gerais' capital), so I awoke Saturday by 5:30 am, took the car, picked up some friends at their homes, and... we took to the road. After driving for seven hours, we were at Rio... just to see Roger Waters. A friend from São Paulo (where he will play next week!) did the same, and I know that many people did it also (there were lots of charted buses only for this show)!

It was fantastic. Not only the Floyd classics (from "Dark Side" to "Final Cut", plus "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun"), but also the wonderful songs of his solo carreer - mostly from Amused to Death (with the best lyrics I've ever heard). His band was perfect. The surround sound, the screen projections, the light show, everything was incredible.

Roger was extraordinary, and he was very friendly with the audience. We sang along with him most of the show, many were crying also... "tears burning in our eyes". ;-) Roger made a small mistake during "Brain Damage" (where he started to sing a lyric that was in the next verse), it was quite cool and both he and the audiece were smiling, at the end of the song he joked by saying "there's someone in my head...". ;-)

At the end of the first part, when Roger said they would return after 20 minutes, the majority of people (and there were about 35,000 there!) stood still, mesmerized, and didn't even think about going to get a beer or some water, despite the very hot night (myself included, of course)! At the end of the show, there were about 3 minutes of applause.

I'll never listen again to my Floyd/RW albuns the way I did before. Thank you very much Roger, this was a night I won't forget. Come back soon! Best wishes to you and your terrific band, and I hope next time you'll play at my city... hmm... well, anyway, I will go to Rio also. :-)
Christian

The temperature was very high, something about 35 C, and the pre-show music played Genesis and Eric Clapton songs until the beginning of the Waters show. The place was at maximum capacity (about 30.000 in attendance), but everybody was so polite, and calm, there were loud speakers and sound equipment over all the place, up, down, left and right becoming a sound evolution of feeling. Really there was absolute histerya when we saw Roger coming in at the sound of IN THE FLESH. I couldn't believe I was seeing the man who I never thought I could see live.

Roger followed your custom set list. IN THE FLESH The sound very high and pure, and SNOWY and CHESTER's guitars were unbelievable. At the end Roger said in Portuguese: "OBRIGADO - thanks for coming (in English), and he repeated OBRIGADO (thank you) several times during the show. When he came on the stage set he was wearing his traditional black coat, but soon he took off, because the high temperature in RIO.

THE HAPPIEST../ANOTHER BRICK The crowd went mad, this is the most known PINK FLOYD song in Brazil, everybody jumping and screaming..fantastic!!!

MOTHER- We could appreciate the nice voice of KATE KISOON (In this moment I remembered GUIDO LITJENS because he told me at one time that KATE was a personal friend of him in Holland.

GET YOUR FILTHY / SOUTHAMPTON DOCK Super sound!!!! The Final Cut is one of the my favourite albums. I sang together with Roger and my eyes were wet, but my feeling was only happiness.and what happiness!!!!

I was paying attention to the crowd, and some guys who were near me, and I could hear them saying: I CANT BELIEVE IM SEEING ROGER, and other saying NOW I CAN ALREADY DIE!!! ..and another THE SLIDES AND PROJECTIONS ARE FANTASTIC!!!!

PIGS ON THE WING/DOGS - This was the most spectacular part of the show for me, it was very good to see the PIG flying on the screen, and after the best song of the show DOGS, Roger playing cards with the other members of the band while his son HARRY and ANDY WALLACE were making the long solo keyboard.

WISH YOU WERE HERE SEQUENCE - The crowd was so excited because its a very known piece of the Floyd career , SHINE ON part 1, Welcome To The Machine (the projection of the video clip like we know, that mechanical monster, and that head cut by a knife, after which, we could hear that sound from the beginning of WYWH, and everybody was screaming and singing the song... VERY COOL.

Finally they played SHINE ON part 2 to finish the first half of the show. N, and we heard nothing of his solo sax, but... everybody understood and applaused him anyway. And I can't forget the shining mirrored star circling high above the set during this song. After Roger thanked the audience and stopped for a twenty minute break.

Returning he again thanked the audience for their patience, and the crowd responded by chanting a brazilian "OLE, OLE, OLE, OLE, ROGER, ROGER"in unison.

The second half began with SET THE CONTROLS (for me a great piece but the people here in Brazil didn't know this song very well like we PF fans.) The general audience loved the next song sequence because DARK SIDE is a phenomenon in Brazil, everybody has a copy in their houses. There was a special feeling and everybody sang BREATHE IN THE AIR, TIME (Graham Broad showed how to play drums!), and MONEY.

Afterward ROGER did a sequence of his solo carrer playing EVERY STRANGERS EYES (Andy Fairweather Low is GREAT!), PERFECT SENSE 1 & 2 (I heard one guy saying: I came here only to listen PP ARNOLD singing, she is the best!), BRAVERY OF BEING..., ITS A MIRACLE (everybody put their hands on the air when ROGER sang "A BRAZILIAN GREW A TREE", and finally AMUSED TO DEATH.

I must to say that so many people there didn't like this piece because they don't know ROGER SOLO CARRER, but even so, they gave applause in the end. Everybody loved the BRAIN DAMAGE, ECLIPSE sequence (everybody knows these songs), and ROGER committed a mistake singing YOU LOCK THE DOOR before the right time, ....he stopped for a moment and then went on singing, and when he sang YOU LOCK THE DOOR again in the right time, everybody applauded showing Brazilian politeness. After, ROGER was so excited like us, as he received a souvenir from somebody in the audience (a neck lace) and he wore it for a short while.

This segueyed into COMFORTABLY NUMB and there was a delirium around the place, chiefly when the two guitar players were playing the solo on the high riser of the set. During all this time we were dumb struck seeing all the projections on the screen, and lights and sounds coming from, behind, left and right (THUNDERS, BARKING, EXPLOSIONS, etc), simply the BEST.

Roger introduced all the members before the encore of EACH SMALL CANDLE. He sang it in a different way, making his voice more thin. This made the song all the more beautiful and special.

Well, after this, ROGER went out at the door and left us all very satisfied and hoping some day to watch another show again, because this was not simply a rock show, THIS IS THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH! I dont want to any other shows now, only if it is PINK FLOYD coming, or ROGER again. CHARLES PORTILHO

My wife Tatiana (29) and I (44) live on a farm, twenty kilometers east of Medellin, and our favorite musicians are three music guardians: Laurie Anderson, Peter Gabriel and Roger Waters. On the web I keep updated on information about their shows, tours or interviews.

The last year I knew about the In The Flesh Tour, and when I saw that it included South America a dream began to blow in my head. It was saturday and my wife was sleeping. When she woke up, I looked at her and said: "I've got a very good news for you: Roger Waters will be on tour next year, and he will tour in South America" Her eyes (she has almond and brown eyes) inmediately shone brightly, and she said: "Now I have a new dream". After that, we lived every day with that dream: to see Roger Waters, if possible, in the first row seats! However, our budget buried those exagerated illusions. The fact is that searching the web for prices we thought that Brazil was the best choice possible, and the plan was to see him in Rio, and in Sao Paulo, too.

Rio: We arrived Rio in March 8, with the hope that we could buy tickets for the next day (In Santiago 65.000 fans in the sold out Stadium concert made us afraid we would not to find them). We went to Rio Sul Shopping Center to buy the tickets, and fortune smiled upon us: the only ones available: Pista at $70 Reais, and we bought them. Later we stood in the Copacabana beach, and there, we saw airplanes trailing advertizements inviting us to see" O Genio Do Pink Floyd". It was so unreal for us, I couldn't believed that in a matter of hours I aould be at a concert of Roger Waters, someone that has been such a big part of my life since I was fourteeen! Someone that was a huge influence for the basis of my thesis ( I am specialist in Semiotics and Hermeneutics of Art, and my thesis application was titled: Practical Monographie to conjure away THE WALL disease, obviusly, it was about THE WALL).

At 4 PM, we were in line at the Sambodromo Gate with already one hundred fans and this warm thrill of confusion (we hear a rehearsal or sound check of WISH YOU WERE HERE that made us nervous and anxious). Two hours later the door was openned and we ran like those students in THE WALL ( I felt that), and after that, in an amazing way, we were waiting for the show ten meters away from the Palco (stage). It seemed like a dream, and it was a dream. The pre-show arrangements made me know the profesionalism of the work; the unbearable Kaisers cartoons, the story of brazilians that travelled by bus 24 hours to see the show, the gays at our side, the very cool atmosphere and the aroma of grass was the premonition that the show, like dreams and Fellini films, turns the unreality in something very, very real.

And the show began, pirotechics exploded on stage, a black dressed Roger Waters and his axe: ... "Ein, zwei, drei, vier..." I was in shock for ten minutes, then I cried, my wife was a demi-god with her eyes lost in the show, we jumped, we sang all the songs, we crossed our arms, we smoked a joint, we looked at the stars with the monkey, we were there and we couldn't believe it.

So long ago, we found our love in Radio Kaos (rarely without songs in the show), then in Pros and Cons, and later in Amused to Death, we had so many reasons to share our joy or our pain. In his works, Waters makes you feel the day to day life, as the only way to happiness, happiness of being an ordinary man, and now, here he was with his simplicity and honesty singing for all of us, for all those that built a life listening to his songs in the background. The Lunatic was in front of me singing again and again all those songs that my wife and I sing together in the car and on our way to our jobs.

We had never experienced this kind of show, but we knew the sound was spectacular (the only problem during the show was the first saxophone solo sound went out in an evident error). I think that I dont miss Gilmour in the production of Waters, but his job in Pink Floyd was extraordinary and Kamen, Fairweather and White assumed it very well. Katie Kisoon had the tone and voice of velvet, when she sings, she produces a delicate reverberation in our skin (goosebumps). Harry Waters reminds me Rick Wakeman: a strong relationship with electric sounds, he controls every tone and expresses it with power. His solo in Dogs (when the crew played cards on the table, was something that balanced the methaphisical proposal of sounds with the banality of the game) still sounds in my ears. The percussionist did an excellent job, I felt the phantom of Mason in Pompei well revealed. The visual effects have a well balanced relation with the musicians, never will you find the show making an excesive emphasis in the visual experience, our eyes alternate between them and the musicians in natural sequences without patches or black holes of reality (but what is it?).

Well, the show ends with Each Small Candle and the solidarity of Roger Waters with Amnesty International. As a colombian I know well what that means, and I felt the solidarity of a man who knows that behind the wall, we walk hand in hand. We made our way back to our hotel still with a sense of unreality. The hardly said any words to one another, I embraced my wife, kissed her and I knew that for the first time in my life we dreamt the same dream, dreamed the same show.

The rest of the journey was to see the show In Sao Paulo because we wanted to know if it was really a dream or if it was reality. And this time on the archibancadas, to see it from another perspective.
Julio Sampedro