It was in December 1979 that The Wall album was released, and shortly after when rumors
began circulating of an upcoming tour. However, this U.S. tour would be vastly different
than any previous tour as it would take place in only two cities, Los Angeles and New York.
Pink Floyd would play only seven nights (February 7th to the 13th) at the LA Sports Arena
and five nights (February 24th to the 28th) at New York's Nassau Coliseum.
Some weeks later on a chilly winter night I found myself at home
listening to WNEW-FM,
as I usually did back then. Suddenly two DJs began talking about a phone call they had just
received. The call was from a Floyd fan who said he obtained a copy of the next morning's NY
Times newspaper. He went on to say that it contained a full page advert for The Wall concerts
bearing a headline "On Sale To-day at 8am"! I knew I had to act immediately!
I telephoned my good friend Bob, also a big Floyd fan,
and convinced him that we must rush
to our local Tickettron at once. He agreed. When we arrived, there was already a car parked
with four people in it trying to keep warm. A few minutes after I parked, a guy from the
other car came over and knocked on my window. He asked that Bob and I sign a list that they
had started, which we gladly did. Bv doing that we had secured spots 5 and 6 in what I knew
would be a very long line bv morning. Feeling more at ease, we settled in for a cold night.
Needless to say, we had to keep the car running the entire time to keep us from freezing
to death!
The morning seemed to arrive quickly, and sure
enough a line of about 200 people
accumulated before 8am, The clock struck eight, the line began to move and within two
minutes Bob and I were purchasing tickets to what would become one of the most historic
rock tours ever! Only three of the five shows were on sale then. so we bought tickets to
two of them. A few days later the tickets for the other two shows went on sale. Only this
time the New York and New Jersey metro area was blocked out of the sale to allow fans from
Virginia to Maine a better chance to get these scarce tickets. All that remained was to wait
for the last week of February to arrive,
On February 25th, we pulled in the parking lot at 7pm, one hour prior to showtime.
While walking from the car to the Coliseum, the first thing I noticed was all the out-of-town
license plates some from as far away as Colorado! I knew that thousands of fans from all
across the country, and overseas I'm sure, were desperate to attend these concerts. This was
confirmed by the huge number of people canvassing the parking lot asking everyone "Have
you got an extra ticket to sell?"
Once inside the Coliseum my eyes were immediately drawn to the enormous stage centered
between two partially built sections of a wall. These two sections protruded out from the
seating on both sides of the stage and would eventually be joined together, brick by brick,
to form one giant wall across the entire Coliseum. Bob and I made our way to the 5th row
where we had two aisle seats directly in front of David Gilmour’s microphone. At 8pm sharp
the lights went out and local DJ Gary Yudman took the stage. He read a list of do’s and
don'ts (the usual warnings of no flash cameras, fireworks, etc.). Right at the end of his
message, the surrogate band (consisting of backing musicians) led by Roger Waters broke into
the powerful open-ing "In the Flesh?".
Pink Floyd, with surrogate band in tow, proceeded to give us a beautifully played
note-for-note rendition of sides one and two of the double album. It was only during Another
Brick Part 2 and Mother that we were treated to a little jamming. Also, during these two
songs, gigantic inflatables of a school teacher and mother were dangling in front of the
wall. Throughout this set. the band gave us all the pyrotechnics and film fnotage we had
grown accustomed to. The large round screen was used for the films. and even the flying plane
was brought back to crash into the wall. All during the first half, the roadies were slowly
building the wall. We were now at the end of side two and the bnncl was com-pletelv hidden
behind the wall save one brick-sized opening. It wa.s from this "window" in the wall
that Waters sang Goodbye Cruel World. One final brick was placed in the openinq. bringing
the first half of the concert to a close.
After a twenty minute intermission, which I used to buy a T-Shirt and program,
the second half of the show was underway. The band played Hey You while completely hidden
behind the wall.
A few bricks were then removed so as to give us a peak at Dave while he
played Is There Anybody Out There?. Following that. a small por-tion of the bricks were
unfolded to reveal a living room setting on a platform, on which Waters sat in a chair
facing a working television. From there he sang Nobody Home. After the next two songs were
sung by Waters to a host of wartime film footage projected on the wall, we had arrived at
the point that everyone had been waiting for, We were about to hear Floyd's greatest hit,
Comfortably Numb! But the most spectacular and highest point of the
concert surely had to
be Dave's first verse and guitar solo which he performed on the very top of the wall.
After a quick rendition of the next song, the band took a short pause to re-group
and allow for Gary Yudman, the concert MC, to return to the stage. He again rattled off
the same do's and don'ts to replav his role at the beginning of the show, Only this time
he read them in a deep robotic voice. Within seconds of his finish. the band started up
again to the opening chords of In the Flesh. Now the entire band was in front of the
wall (now used as a large screen for the films).
Waters introduced the next song,
Run Like Hell. and dedicated it "to all the
paranoid people in the audience". During Waiting For the Worms, the best animation
sequence was used the infamous "marching hammers’! After the next short song,
The Trial sequence began with Waters singing before a host of animation clips projected
on the wall behind him. At the end of the song, with the chants of
"tear down the wall" echoing throughout the venue, the wall fell. It was knocked
over by the roadies with the bricks falling harmlessly between the stage and the audience.
The group, led by Roger Waters, then paraded in front of the remains of the wall while
playing Outside the Wall.
I'm glad that I was "one of the few" fortunate fans to have witnessed
two of these historic concerts. All that remains to be said is that the last week of
February 1980 will live in my mind forever.