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 ..
