SOUND CHECK !! ( Roger Waters - 'In The Flesh' tour)



Been wanting to upload these photographs I took during the sound check of Roger Water's show ever since I started this blog , but always found it utterly irrelevant puttin 'em up so many years after the actual concert , which was on April 13 2002 .Now that another Water's show is just around the corner (18 feb 2007) , that makes this post totally relevant .

A brief recall of how we managed to take these photographs. A friend and I , after travelling all the way from Bombay to Bangalore, wanted to check out the venue beforehand, so as not to lose our way and get delayed for the actual show in the evening .Being in a new place makes you paranoid, evermore so when you have come to that place for one sole purpose . Evenmore so when when you ask for directions and routes, you get replies in an alien language.

And so at noon , we reached the outskirts of the Palace Grounds, the concert venue . Thankfully , we reached the wrong end of the grounds , in front of a wall that seperated us from the arena . As we stood behind the wall , we could damn well hear a show taking place inside. We had to get inside !! But Looking at the wide barren sunny expanse between the entry gate and the point where we stood , we concluded whatever it was that was going on inside was well worth the risk of a little stuntmanship , and hence with some amount of difficulty we managed to scale the wall without breaking any bones or getting caught or shot. And simply blended with the diverse media crew present once we got in . As we made our way among representatives of MTV , Channel V , and every major TV channel , a volunteer asked us whom we were representing. "Freelance Journalists" we replied .All credit to the camera in my hand , an Olympus IS 200, that saved us from being kicked out of the Arena , as the guy took a good look at it and must have thought that I was a pro .
Later we came to know we wouldn't have been allowed entry to the arena through the main gate anyways.

Now for the interesting bit . The Showmen performing on stage . We searched for Roger Waters among those performing . He wasn't there . These were the 'Roadies'. Technicians who travel with the musicians and handle every part of the production , except actually performing the main event.
A chopper hovered above in front of us .. then went behind us .. then circled above us . we could hear it very close by .. just couldn't see it . Ofcourse , it was the chopper sound from 'The happiest days of our lives'.
Experiencing Quadrophonic sound in an almost empty Arena is pure sonic bliss . The music travelling around you, left , centre ,right , behind .. throwing itself at you from any which direction at exceedingly high decibel levels ... a relentless juxtaposition of haunting , melodious , nightmare and psychedelic sounds emanating from one end diminishing into another void .. it was like being in an early Floyd live show which is part of a legend we only read about ..the improvisation .. elongated sound experimentation... the acid .. felt a little bit like being present in ' Live at Pompeii' ... for the next hour we tripped out on the sounds without the need for any pharmaceutical additives .. We left the arena dazed..and returned that evening for the main show ..

The original photographs are of an excellent quality , but the HP scanner I have sucks , hence the marginally poor quality of scans. And my idiot friend couldn't operate a camera properly, none of my poses in front of the stage ever came on reel. But a great friend in adventure...


Front view - The stage being set


left perspective


Right perspective



The Roadies





stage monitors


Guitarist Roadie


front row


Middle row


Middle row 1


Back row



Sound Console


Sound Console


Back Row

That will keep you going for the show..
c'mon its time to go ..

14 comments:

  1. Love the new look!
    Very grunge.

    And the biggest question of all,
    How did the hobbit scale the wall? :P

    The sony takes good pics.
    "Freelance Journalist."
    HAH!

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  2. shrew ...
    Hobbits can defeat treacherous mountains and tempests .. wots a mere wall ?
    and the camera was an olympus , not sony

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  3. You lucky son of a gun. A shame, but got to admit, I passed away a Bon Jovi and a Maiden concert :((

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  4. its a cool post with cool pics! so u definitely will go for this waters concert, eh? i wish the whole band was here. i wudnt hav missed it for the world then! ;-)

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  5. Hey how did you manage to get those pics?? They r indeed quite cool..

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  6. Hi Mammu!!! What happened to the beard??

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  7. I am that idiot friend, who the blogger mentions. Now what he doesn't say is he wouldn't hv scaled that wall in the first place if it wasn't for me:)

    Seriously one of the best 'trips' in life. Both that morning and evening. To think of it I was going to miss it one day, packed my bags and left the next :) I am really glad that happened.

    Really cool pics Sanju.

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  8. u got a really cool template! did u design it urself? or got it from somehwre? really attractive...

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  9. Whts up dude..i was there too in the bliss where all my cells in the brain had lost thier alligment man...anyways thx for the pics love it....hehehe SHINE ON U CRAZY DIAMOND!

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  10. its awesome man.... d pics r nt dat of a good quality as u hd warned b4 :) bt.. we love 2 get d feeling of hazzy pics for a floyd show... :)) Keep it up bro... Good job done

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  11. Its awesome man.... d pics r nt dat of a good quality as u hd warned b4 :) bt.. we love 2 get d feeling of hazzy pics for a floyd show... :)) Keep it up bro... Good job done

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  13. amazing pictures. any pink floyd fan would love em. thanks.

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  14. Great job done buddy.... cdnt be there... ur pics r good enuff to make me jealous...rock on

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