"So you thought you might like to go to the show? ..."

Roger Waters had been known to have said that he would never stage another production of "The Wall," at least until the Berlin Wall was torn down. When it miraculously was torn down in the winter of 1989, the stage was set for Waters to bring the story of Pink to the stage once more.

Actually, Waters had broken his promise only weeks before the wall came down — not that Waters's fans complained — when concert promoter Mike Worwood (Live Aid) contacted Waters on behalf of 72-year-old British war hero-turned-activist Leonard Cheshire. In September 1989, Cheshire had created the Memorial Fund for Disaster Relief, a program designed to hold £500 million in trust, the interest from which would go to help the victims of war. Cheshire was looking for a concert event of grand scale to promote his cause. Waters was taken with Cheshire, and agreed to stage "The Wall" sometime in the future.

When the Berlin Wall came down just a few weeks later, the venue seemed to suggest itself. Waters would present an all-star performance of Pink Floyd's 1979 magnum opus at Berlin, Germany's Potzdamer Platz.

The event took place July 21, 1990, with a cast of more than 100. It would become one of the largest musical productions in history. More than 200,000 fans gathered to watch Waters along with guests like Bryan Adams, Tim Curry, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, all 100 members of the Marching Band of the Combined Soviet Forces, the East German symphony orchestra and chorus, and others, tell the story of Pink and build a wall of 2,500 bricks throughout the show. (One has to wonder if the Scorpions realized that "In the Flesh?" had been written as a parody of monster rock groups, when the band agreed to perform it. They seemed to fit the bill perfectly.)

It was estimated that tens of millions witnessed the event on television and radio. If memory serves, the radio broadcast revealed a couple of major technical glitches during "Mother" and/or "Goodbye Blue Sky," which were corrected when Mercury Records released a double-album document of the event later that year. The album peaked at number 56 on the Billboard chart in the United States.

Written by Craig Bailey

©1995-2007 Random Precision Media. All rights reserved.
Updated: June 7, 2003

"The Wall Live in Berlin"

Sept. 17, 1990 (U.K.)
Sept. 11, 1990 (U.S.)

The Wall Live in Berlin CD 2003 reissue

The Wall Live in Berlin SACD

The Wall Live in Berlin DVD

The Wall Live in Berlin original CD

The Wall Live in Berlin VHS

The Wall Live in Berlin limited edition VHS/book

Disc 1

• "Young Lust," with Bryan Adams
• "Comfortably Numb," a Waters duet with Van Morrison
• "The Trial," with a cast of characters that included Tim Curry as the prosecutor, Thomas Dolby as the teacher, Ute Lemper as the wife, Marianne Faithfull as the mother, and Albert Finney as the judge