Capacity: 23,000
Concert starts: 8pm 

Address of venue: 2727 East D Street, Tacoma, WA 98421-1216. MAP

Website: www.tacomadome.org

COMMENTS

Roger's 2010 tour of The Wall is now heading rapidly to its conclusion, with this show being the second to last concert on the schedule. One final destination for the production - Anaheim in a couple of days - before the band and crew take a very well earned break. UPDATE: this of course has now changed with the addition of a few more shows... The concert advert to the right was supplied by BD's very own Elliot Tayman, and the ticket scan cames from Nelson Monastrial.

The RogerWaters.com presales began starting Wednesday, May 5th. Starting May 3rd, American Express Cardmembers could get advance tickets, with seating available to Gold Card, Platinum Card and Centurion members. US fans could also get early access to tickets via iTunes beginning Thursday, May 6th, by purchasing the 1982 film The Wall from iTunes by April 26th. For both the American Express and iTunes presales, please note that the presale offers were available in select markets and ticket quantities were limited.

General sale tickets went on sale on Monday, May 10, via Ticketmaster.com and LiveNation.com. The public sale also saw a limited number of VIP packages made available for each show on the tour. Use of our links to Ticketmaster gives much needed assistance with site hosting costs without any additional cost to yourself - and we appreciate it!

WARNING - SPOILERS AHEAD!

Do not read on if you don't want surprises to be spoilt, regarding what the band played, and what happened as the night unfolded!

Night fiftyone of the tour, and just five shows after this one to go until the 2010 leg of the tour gets wrapped up. Tonight's show was noticeable not least for the dimensions of the "star" of the show - the wall itself. As our friend Simon Wimpenny tells us, it was bigger than at any of the previous venues on the tour. He said that it was 48 bricks wide, as opposed to the normal 44, and those four made a huge difference - he said the bigger wall was "fantastic"! If you went to this show, please let us know what you thought of the event, and if anything interesting or different happened if you've been to previous shows and can compare.

The News Tribune were at the show, and have posted a nicely illustrated review of the event. In their report, they note that "this is the second iconic album that Floyd's bandleader has given full concert treatment following the “Dark Side of the Moon” tour that stopped in Seattle in 2006. But this trek has generated a bigger buzz, and deservedly so. For my money, “Dark Side” is a better album, but “The Wall” is more uniquely Waters' vision. He wrote most of the songs, sang more leads. And the main character, Pink, is based on his experiences - losing his dad to World War 2, being humiliated in school, his eventual disillusionment with rock stardom.

"Then there is the hype that comes with Waters recreating one of the most mythic, ambitious spectacles in rock history. Sure, giant props are a dime a dozen these days. But the scale of Saturday's production was still striking, with menacing, 30-foot-tall marionettes, aerial props - a replica fighter, the inevitable floating swine - and a towering, white wall that stage hands assembled brick by man-sized brick."

CONCERT REVIEW, PICTURES, and VIDEO by BD CONTRIBUTOR, Simon Wimpenny

We left the local bar around 7:15 for the 10 minute walk to the venue, it was pouring with rain but the traffic was totally gridlocked all around the arena and it was far quicker to walk than to drive up in the car.

When I walked in the arena I couldn't believe the size of it, it was vast!! It was one big vast open space just separated by banks of seating, but there was banks and banks of seats all the way back on the floor.

As we walked down to the floor Jon Joyce spotted Kami and I and came over to introduce his son to us. It's nice that they come and talk to us now and we don't feel uneasy pestering them and talking to them! Pat also found us on the floor and came over for a chat, he was saying how Roger was nearly in tears the night before in Vancouver when with the crowd been so loud and appreciative!

It was our friend Bernard's, Brady's and Gary's first and only show and they were really looking forward to it. They all had good seats and we headed over to find where they were sat before Kami and I went to find our seats, 10th row on the floor centre on the aisle.

Security was pretty much non existent at the show and although there were a few seating staff on the floor ushering people to their seats the aisle got crowded with people just standing in it minutes before the show was due to start and it took a good half an hour till some security lady came to start to check their tickets and move them out!

The crowd were great again; within minutes of the show starting you could tell they were gonna be a loud lot and they certainly gave the night before in Vancouver a run for their money!

The wall was bigger at this show, the top row of bricks was 48 wide as opposed to 44, this made the wall look so much bigger but even then it was dwarfed in an arena of that size! The projections were the same - the extra bricks were on the ends of the wall, and the centre section was the same setup so this didn't alter the projections or the images.

The band were as tight as ever and the sound which I was worried about when I saw the size of the venue was fantastic, there wasn't a single sign of echo or reverb, distortion or feedback at all, it was spectacular. The kids were very much welcomed onstage by huge applause during Another Brick Pt 2 and a few of them came out the front of the others to perform their own little dance routine. As normal Roger thanked them and again they got a huge applause from the audience.

The first half tonight seemed to go by real quick, for the first 45 minutes the two seats next to Kami and I were free, then 10 minutes before the end a mother and daughter arrived, the daughter was a bimbo and the mother was drunk out of her head. They had been driving round the car park looking for the venue for 40 minutes and didn't know the show started at 8!!! Great that's all we needed!!

As the last brick was going in the wall the whole centre section of the wall raised up about 6 inches and looked like it was going to fall forward. This happened at one of the other shows earlier in the tour and I commented on it however this was a lot worse. What happens is when the wall is fully built there are some hydraulic stabiliser bars that raise up in the inside of the bricks. If the bricks are all not perfect then it's easy for one of the bars to touch one of the metal framed bricks and put it up, this is obviously what had happened as you could see as soon as they lowered the stabiliser bar the whole centre section of the wall went down to its original position.

At intermission I went back to get Bernard from his seat as there was still an empty seat next to us and he came and sat in it for the second half. I told him what I told everyone else, during the second In The Flesh do NOT get caught up in watching the pig flying around the arena! It's an inflatable pig and doesn't do anything! what he should be watching is Roger's nuances and his actions on stage as so many people miss these with looking at the pig!

There wasn't anything new in the second half that hadn't been in the other shows, it went by pretty quick and the highlight again was Run Like Hell which got thousands of arms in the air clapping and cheering.

I was really looking forward to the wall coming down tonight as it was so much bigger and I wasn't disappointed, it was great, the whole thing seemed to take ages to come down there was that much of it!! Due to the layout of the venue they were also able to let a lot of the sides fall down as there were no people underneath that area!

The band came out to a rapturous applause for Outside The Wall, wasn't as good as Vancouver but was a pretty good try. Snowy and Dave had a good laugh at Roger trying some little things on the trumpet to spice things up a bit but sounding not too good at all. The band were clearly having fun and totally taken aback by the crowd yet again. All in all a fantastic show at a HUGE venue and probably one of only who knows maybe even one show where the wall was extended!!

Video panorama of the venue at the end of the night:

Make sure you check out Simon's blog at SimonWimpenny.blogspot.com where you'll find full details of all his travels, along with more pictures and videos.

CONCERT PICTURES by BD CONTRIBUTOR, Iron Mike Savoia

There's a FABULOUS set of pro-shot pictures by Iron Mike that he has posted over at his Facebook page. CLICK HERE to see them all...it's definitely worth the visit!

CONCERT REVIEWS and PICTURES by other BD CONTRIBUTORS

Hopefully coming soon - we welcome all contributions!

YOUR HELP NEEDED! We want to cover Roger's concerts the best we can, to share the experience with everyone, especially those who won't be able to attend the shows. We'd love to see ANY pictures, tickets scans, reviews, newspaper reports, and anything else you come across for this show - we look forward to hearing from you!