Roger Waters – ‘The Wall’ Triple Vinyl Review

It occurs, as you look at this 3 LP edition of ‘The Wall Live’, that Roger Waters has once and for all lost touch with his fan base. Where some artists would offer, at the very least, an MP3 version of their album alongside the vinyl edition (and in some cases a CD/DVD version), Roger, or at the least his record label, have seen fit to split the album entirely into its constituent parts. Short of buying the ludicrously over-priced super-deluxe edition, you’re forced to pay separately for each format, which seems remarkably churlish given that the core audience for this release have already forked out a considerable quantity of money to see the show in the flesh, as it were.

Leaving aside the pricing gripes, this review looks at the 3 LP edition of the album. It’s a mixed bag, in all honesty with a number of positives and negatives to consider before purchase. To start with the positives, the album has been spread across three 180 gm platters (as opposed to the original album which takes up only two), which helps to keep the sound quality high. The triple gatefold sleeve also features an epic picture of The Wall in all its glory printed across its centre and the package also includes an LP-sized, sixteen-page booklet and printed inner sleeves. However, that’s where the positives end. The booklet, whilst a good size, features certain pictures that seem to have been blown up to its size, with attendant quality reduction. The printed inner sleeves, also, are built around Roger’s political ethos and feature pictures of people fallen in various wars rather than images from the show. It’s an uncomfortable reminder that Roger is rather keener on delivering a political message than a concert these days and, whilst I can’t help but admire the courage of Roger’s convictions, his rather black and white view of geopolitics, inevitably framed by his own father’s death, deals far too much in subjectivity presented as absolute truth for my taste. Finally, the inner bags are not of good quality and could easily damage the vinyl over time making it necessary to replace them quickly with suitable inner bags – an irritating extra cost for a major label release. It’s annoying that so little care has been taken over such an expensive and anticipated release, and when you compare it to recent releases from the likes of Anathema and Paradise Lost, you start to realise that the higher up the commercial chain you are, the less respect you have for the people who put you there. No real revelation, sure, but it’s still galling that an artist of Roger Waters’ calibre could allow so half-baked a product come out.

Ultimately, of course, packaging is nothing if the content fails to live up to expectations and what most people will want to know is how the audio stacks up against previous versions of the wall released live. About the songs themselves, nothing more need be said. You know by now whether you find ‘the wall’ to be one of the finest concept albums ever written or an over-blown piece of pretentious rock theatre, but certainly any long-time reader of this site will be aware of the esteem with which we hold Pink Floyd. Produced by famed Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich, the live audio is powerful without being exceptional. Of the previous versions available, ‘is there anybody out there’ was initially a disappointment in sonic terms, only for a remastered version to dust off the cobwebs and turn it into the live album it always should have been. Unfortunately, that version only exists as part of the Immersion box set for ‘the wall’ and, thus, remains outside of the general public sphere. In contrast ‘the wall, live in Berlin’ was sonically excellent, but marred by some questionable choices of vocalist. Whilst there is no doubt that the Scorpions nailed ‘in the flesh’ as the surrogate band and, surprisingly, Brian Adams tore ‘young lust’ a new one; ‘Sinead O’Connor did not do herself, or the music any favours, whilst the less said about Van Morrison’s massacre of ‘Comfortably numb’ the better. Despite this, this new version of ‘the wall’ cannot truly be said to be a substantial upgrade over either version and it seems strange that, with so much technology deployed to make the shows spectacular, the resulting album should sound so staid. There’s a boxy feel to the recording that leads to songs feeling slightly leaden and whilst the band are typically proficient (vocalists notwithstanding, Roger has never faltered in his choice of supporting musicians), the music simply does not soar with the vigour that might be expected. It’s not bad in any way that is easy to pin point, but it’s also not the exceptional experience that one would wish, and since when was that a ringing endorsement?

A life-long Pink Floyd fan, I wanted this version of ‘the wall’ to be the definitive sonic experience. The power of modern technology should have rendered it a no-brainier but Nigel Godrich, either through his own fault, or through external meddling from Roger, has turned in a mix that has none of the bombastic power that would make this much feted concept album truly fly. Over the years I have bought into various Floyd reissues and the most recent remaster of the album, alongside the truly impressive sonic brush-up administered to the frankly dreary sounding ‘is there anybody out there’, stands head and shoulders above this release. How that should be is something of a mystery, particularly given how long it has taken for the music to appear, and it’s hard not to wonder if, perhaps, the album was an afterthought, mixed down from multi-channel audio in order to save time. Ultimately, this new version of ‘the wall’ neither expands nor detracts from the album’s impressive legacy. The best live version remains the Floyd’s own ‘is anybody out there’ both sonically and performance wise, and this version comes off as somewhat pointless. While this may not seem a huge criticism, given the opportunity that was presented here – to present a truly definitive edition of one of rock music’s greatest albums – it feels like all the more a failure. I have no doubt that Floyd fans like myself will still snap this album up, and will, to an extent, enjoy it. The experience, however, is ultimately marred by the myriad niggles that are present in this vinyl set. A shame.