Outstanding DVD...Almost Makes One Feel Badly for Roger

I was born in 1964, so was not of concert going age during the Dark Side, Wish You Were Here, or even the Animals Tours. However, I worshipped Pink Floyd, and would play their albums until the grooves were worn to nothing. Like most teens growing up in the 1970s, Dark Side was one of my all time favorites, and was especially enjoyed with headphones while, um, let's just say enjoying certain libations not approved by Nancy Reagan.

By the time I got to see Pink Floyd live, it was after Roger Waters had left, and a nasty lawsuit between him and the remaining members was over, leaving Gilmour, Write and Mason with the right to continue under the same name. The excitement of going to the show was somewhat less than it would have been had the group been unchanged. I was always one of those who thought that Roger was Pink Floyd....and I could not have been more wrong. The "Momentary Lapse" album was outstanding, as was the concert at Tampa Stadium in the mid 1980s.

While Roger's contribution to the group cannot be overstated (He wrote almost all of their stuff, including all of Dark Side), he is simply, and unfortunately, not needed all that much for the PERFORMANCE of their music. Almost all of the vocals on Dark Side come from one of the greatest guitarists of all time, David Gilmour (save Brain Damage, which actually sounds just as good with Gilmour singing). If their were a trial on whether Pink Floyd can perform without Roger at the same level, then this DVD, PULSE, would be Exhinbit 1. In fact, it would be the whole trial, and the case would be closed. Pulse was performed in London in 1994, and David, Nick, and Richard are at the very top of their game. Sure, by now David is in his 50s, and may not have quite the voice he did in his 20s, but you would never know it.

The production of this concert is "insane good." One of my favorite parts of the DVD is the end of side one, when they perform "One of These Days," featuring David Gilmour's haunting riff on the lap slide guitar. This pre-Dark Side song, which was released as the first track on Meddle, would be seemingly difficult to play in concert with all the multitracking they did in studio production, but the concert version is even better.

Side Two of this DVD is worth the purchase price alone. I mean, "Dark Side" played in concert, all the way through, without interruption? WOW. Pink Floyd was always famous for it's props and light shows, and this concert does not disappoint. Again, the Director of Photography, Editors, and Production Team do just an incredible job of capturing what is going on during this performance. The only draw back during Dark Side is no one can match Claire Torrey's vocals on Great Gig, but the back-up singers do an admirable job trying to fill her shoes. That may be the only song that can never be truly reproduced in concert (and to think that she came into the studio in 1972 during mixing of Dark Side, pulling what amounts to a one hour "session" shift for $50. She was actually crying towards the end of her shift, upset at the "bad job" she had done).

The Curtain Call songs on Pulse were perfectly chosen. The Band comes back on stage to play a set starting with Wish You Were Here, written at the time in the 70s as a song for Syd Barrett, the original leader of the band who was replaced in the 1960s due to severe mental illness. One is left to wonder if this was now included in their curtain call as a message to Roger (or, was the acrimony still too fresh from the bitter lawsuit, and perhaps me just wanting to believe they could want to re-unite at some level). "Wish you were Here" is then followed by two great songs from The Wall, "Comfortably Numb" and "Run."

This is 5-Stars, and it is not even close. I wish I could give it 10 stars. As I started, "I almost feel bad for Roger." I have seen Roger Waters no less than four times in concert, and while he is great, it is his shows, albums and performances that have greatly suffered from his departure. Sure, he is the genius who wrote almost all the post 1970 stuff for Pink Floyd, including "Dark Side" and "The Wall," but, frankly, his talent is not needed at all to perform these masterpieces. I mean, I love Roger, but by the time he writes "The Final Cut" the band was being dragged down by his obsessive predisposition towards dark war-time music. "Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking" can only be enjoyed by someone like me, who is a true fanatic, but the album is pretty lame and sounds more or less like an extension to "The Final Cut." While Roger was writing Pros and Cons in yet another attempt to illustrate his angst at the a-hole war time leaders of the 1940s, David, Nick and Richard were getting on with their lives, and coming out with "Momentary Lapse"....pulling off what many thought impossible without Waters: A Quality Pink Floyd Album true to their heritage.

By the way, you can tell that this concert is recorded in the 1990s, because during "Brain Damage," when the song starts "The Lunatic is on the Grass", the overhead movie shows George Bush, SR standing outside on the grass. If the concert were more modern, say, 2005, then one has to believe the entire movie would not have been of Sr, but rather........... well, you decide.