Capacity: 12,000
Concert starts: 9pm

Address of venue: Via Giuseppe di Vittorio 6 20090 Assago (MI), Italy. MAP

Website: www.forumnet.it

COMMENTS

Roger's mammoth tour of The Wall arrives in Italy, and the second of two nights at the Mediolanum Forum in Milan. The tour now heads over to The Netherlands in a few days time. Thanks to our friend Alberto Durgante, from the Floyd fanzine Heyou.it for the concert ad shown to the left (click thumbnail).

The RogerWaters.com presales began the week starting Monday, May 31st, with advance tickets available to those who had registered their interest in particular cities. General sale tickets went on sale on June 4th through TicketOne.it. The public sale will also see a limited number of VIP packages made available for each show on the tour.

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 eight of the tour, and the second of six shows in Milan. Initial reports are that the crowd had a great time, and that this rubbed off on the band's performance. Check out the following great panorama of the venue [click the thumbnail], taken by BD contributor Roby from Caravaggio:

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.

CONCERT REVIEW by BD CONTRIBUTOR, Marco Gorla

Hi everybody! I'd like to share with you a review of the concert of the second night in Milan of "The Wall" tour. I saw the concert the 3rd of December in Oakland CA and was so great, but last night in Milan was too amazing!

The venue is smaller than the Oracle Arena, and I saw the concert from the general admission, near the mixer and the sensation was that everything was bigger! The band played so good, and te sound was so great and perfect... you can hear every little detail, from the sound fx to the ghost notes on the drum...and this is the first thing when you go to listen a concert!

At the end of the concert, the audience starts to sing a song like ole ole ole Roger Roger... and Rogers looks to the band, and together started to sing with the audience the same song...incredible! Roger enjoys Milan and Milan loves Roger, his band, all the crew and of course, the masterpiece!

Thanks Roger for everything, and for all of you... don't lose the chance to see this show at least one time... it will make your life better! Thank you!

CONCERT REVIEW by BD CONTRIBUTOR, Adamo Prina

The concert was great. The stadium in Milan is known for its bad acoustics, but evidently the sound engineers were able to do miracles.

Everything was impeccable. The scenic choices - apart from the fireworks at the beginning and some puppets a bit too gaudy - didn't smother the music at all. On the contrary they helped to strengthen it. The audience was not bombarded with excessive visual effects - effects ends in themselves - but with images consistent with music. The visual effects, in other words, were not used to arise wonder in the audience, but also to show the imaginative power of this music. I am not referring only to the Gerard Scarfe cartoons projected on the wall, but also to the evolutions and deformations of the images on the wall (for instance the bricks that, at certain point, moved into a spiral), the play of lights, the colour contrasts, the images that appear on different levels. I repeat: all this without exceeding or indulging in a visual artifice, without submitting to the domain of the computer graphic.

Waters sang well. Probably some parts were supported by recorded tracks, but technically you cannot say he was lip-synching. In the song "Mother" he did even a duet with himself, with the "inexperienced and fuckup" Roger filmed during a representation of "the wall" in the 80's.

As a Milanese, I was very proud to hear Roger saying "grazie" and "sono felice di essere qui" to one of the best audience ever (saying also ironically that recently he has changed a bit his relationship with the audience in general).

Maybe the only criticism might be that Waters, in some ways, seems to be prisoner of his perfectionism: he keeps on making his music more and more perfect and impeccable ... but basically he continues to use the same arrangements. And this is a pity considered that, where he dares to do some changes (for instance a new solo guitar in "mother" and a new melody in "goodbye blue sky"), he really shows a great potentiality.

But maybe the point is that "the wall" nowadays is "the wall". I mean: it's a rock show (or rock opera, if you prefer) whose fame has definitely surpassed the one of its author. As a work of Wagner or Verdi, it could be represented by different actors in the future, with different stage designing. For sure, songs like "Nobody home" or "One of my turns" are based primarily on the Waters vocalism, on its intimate style ... but this is just the point: other styles are possible!

What amazes me is the reticence of some critics who never recognise "the wall" as a master piece. Probably what disturbed them is the fact that "the wall" had a huge commercial success ... and probably this is a symbol of corruption according to them. But for me this idea to do a rock opera, to make a unitary work joining music, text and image, is something titanic. And the wall is really the perfect symbol of this construction, of this artistic creation: the wall is the space where all the arts can find their unity and their power.

CONCERT REVIEW by BD CONTRIBUTOR, Charles Marsh

Well, I Was one of the lucky ones who could travel to Milan from the Island of Malta to see this concert. And I assure everyone it was worth every cent.

I've seen concerts in my lifetime including Waters four times, Gilmour two times, and Pink Floyd three times, in fact I was fortunate enough to see Pink Floyd performing the Wall Live in Earls Court in 1980, but last Saturday's perfomance/spectacle/show, call it what you want, is as far as you can go. There is no comparison to anything else. The band was fantastic, the sound incredible but most of all the visuals were out of this world.

Roger has managed to visualise and explain to all what he had in mind when he composed the Wall and also managed to show its relevance for today. I had a very good ticket in row three of the first tier in front of the stage, and could see and hear all the aspects of the show without losing any detail. And wow what a show. It started exactly on time at 9.00pm sharp and from the first sound effect to the last note it was perfect!

The audience of 12,000+ (full capacity) at the Mediolanum Forum in Assago around 30 minutes out of Milan, was literaly all filled with emotion at the end, but the atmosphere was electrifing from early in the afternoon. I arrived near the venue at around 6.30pm, and the place was literally crowded with people of all ages waiting for the doors to open, buying fake merchandising from the tens of stalls around the place, and many singing to Floyd music. At around 7.00pm the doors were opened and in a few minutes everybody was in his place. There were around 4000 people standing in the auditoriom (platea) the rest were all seated. On the previous day I was told that even the auditorioum (Platea) was a seated area.

A few minutes before the show started there was an anouncment in Italian saying that Roger would not mind that the audience will take photos as long as no flash was used.

Throughout the show the audience - mainly Italians who traveled from all around the country together with foreigners including some 50 Maltese who paid around 1000 euros to travel for the show from Malta - were singing and sometimes even crying with the emotion throughout the 2 hours of the show, highlights of which were In The Flesh?, Goodbye Blue Sky, Mother, Another Brick In The Wall Part 2, Vera, Bring The Boys Back Home, Comortably Numb and Run Like Hell.

At the end of the show Roger together with all the band were applauded with a popular chant used mainly in football events throughout the Mediterenean singing Ole Ole, Roger Roger, and after a few minutes the band joined in the chant singing and playing with the crowd. Roger thanked everyone and said the he loves Italy and will return back to Milan obviously doing the last 2 shows of the tour there.

One think I would like to stress is that I believe Roger Waters should be nominated for the Nobel Prize for Peace, as he continuously preaches the message of Peace and Disarmament in a way that everyone can understand, in these days of fighting and indiscriminately killing for power and lust. Give Roger Waters the Nobel Peace Prize!!!!

CONCERT PICTURES by BD CONTRIBUTOR, Mr Pinky

CONCERT REVIEW by BD CONTRIBUTOR, Roberto Pistagna

For a Floydian fan, to be at this concert is something waited for such a long time that is difficult not to be excited just watching the magnificent scenery. For many different reasons I've missed both Gilmour and Waters last tours in Italy and while clicking on the order button to buy my tickets I was thinking that nothing would prevent me from being there.

The Wall is more then a simple rock record, it is both a personal and universal tale. It is mankind represented on that stage, not only Roger Waters and his sad story of being a war orphan. The Wall is more than a simple rock record because of its musical pieces which are embarrassingly simple but meantime complicated musical pieces. Though I consider The Wall as a Roger Waters masterpiece played by Pink Floyd, the whole musical knowledge of whole band can be heard of this record. The Wall wouldn't be the same without the contributions made by David Gilmour both as writer and producer.

But let's come back to the present day show. Roger Waters has appeared on stage in perfect shape and with an enviable state of his voice considering his 67 years. Other famous rockstars have lost this. The belief in The Wall as a way of giving again a message to mankind gives him a extraordinary strength and show as well.

New technologies have again a important place in this show confirming the great attention of "what's new" always present in Pink Floyd's way of working. Roger Waters sings and plays with his usual concentration and talent supported by a good band also concentrated on playing this masterpiece as a piece of classical music with accuracy and fidelity to the original score. I've felt David Gilmour absence most for the vocal parts than for the guitar parts; it's clear that the three good guitarists would not make a single David Gilmour, but they played carefully and with a great attention of being adherent to the original.

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!