Last Brick in the Wall

Pink Floyd—The Wall (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Saw a real good documentary on the history of the rock last night. 60’s to 80’s rock to be precise. History of music in general is all about the continuous chains of inspirations and influences, starting as early as the dawn of humankind. The program’s starting point was Syd Barret and his influence on Pink Floyd, David Bowie, all the way to Roxy Music.

Watching this excellent program you can understand who did what and to whom but as I’m sure you’ll agree, to really understand music you need to spend much more than one hour listening to it.

The constant tension between the search for the right form of expression and the way the audience perceive them, haunted musicians long before the 60’s. Roger Waters wanted to protest against the rioting crowd at the grandiose Pink Floyd performances. In order to prove the disconnection between the group and its crowd, he conceived the idea of building  The Wall, live on concert, to symbolize this gap (as well as other ideas).  Ironically the outcome was even a more grandiose multi-conceptual show which led to a larger number shouting disconnect crowds.

The Wall will always stay one of the greatest musical and performance achievements of rock music.

The following video form one of the few “The Wall” performances shows “Good Bye Cruel World” followed by the insertion of the last brick in the wall.

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