Capacity: 12,802
Concert starts: 8pm

Address of venue: King Edwards Rd, Birmingham, West Midlands B1 2AA. MAP

Website: www.thenia.co.uk

COMMENTS

Roger's final show on The Wall's European leg in Manchester has been cancelled, but to make up for it, this show in Birmingham has been added. Our thanks to Ben Green for sending in the ticket scan to the right.

The RogerWaters.com presale began on December 2nd, with advance tickets available to those who had registered their interest in particular cities. General sale tickets went on sale the day after, December 3rd, from Ticketmaster.co.uk and other normal agents. 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 fifty-six of the tour, and the show returns to the UK for a pair of shows, here in Birmingham for one night, and then off to Manchester.

A pair of obvious changes were seen in the show - the schoolkids on stage for Another Brick wore some slightly redesigned t-shirts, and "Herr Roger" now has a nice metal dais to stand on for the second In The Flesh. More details on both below. If you went to this show in Birmingham, 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 and PICTURES by BD's Matt

I was lucky enough to make this a late addition to my Wall shows, buying a ticket from the box office from (presumably) unsold VIP package locations, at a late stage for me and a couple of friends. This included The Doctor from the Brain Damage podcast site - no relation to this site, just a coincidence on the name! So, show seven for me was on the cards, and all it involved was a jaunt up the motorway for a few hours (elongated somewhat when I hit Take That concert traffic - they were performing in Birmingham on the same night, which I'd not realised).

It was my first time at the venue, and I found it a nice, fairly cosy venue. Smaller than the O2 in London, but well set-out and comfortable seating. Nice staff too.

The show itself was pretty flawless, and the band were on great form. Sound in the NIA was excellent (in the front of the hall, at least) and seemed a bit louder than any of the nights at the London O2.

Having not seen the show since then, I was looking out for changes and added nuances, and spotted a few bits of new acting from Roger (although I might have missed one or two of the more subtle moves in previous shows). He's clearly still having a whale of a time, despite having performed so many shows since September 2010, and the band seem to be very comfortable with the performance too. It's a joy to see them all working so well together...

The first major change to the show appeared when the school kids came on stage for Another Brick part two. Their t-shirts were altered and it soon became apparent why they weren't dancing as freely and wildly as some. They needed to keep in a strict order, so that when they turned their backs to the audience, they spelt out "F E A R B U I L D S W A L L S" as well as having the phrase on the front of each shirt as has been seen throughout the tour. As with other very recent shows, the conclusion of Another Brick included the new coda which is focused on Jean Charles de Menezes.

The other major change came in the second half, with In The Flesh. Roger (or Herr Roger, as his leather jacket is labelled) now has a nice metal dais with crossed hammer detailing on each corner. Painted matt black, it's a nice additional detail which gives weight to Roger's crowd rousing and shooting...

Outside The Wall found certain members of the band clearly in a good mood - Robbie and Roger were all smiles (see picture), and as for Dave and Snowy, they were finding their own fun messing around with the confetti, with at least one piece ending up on Dave's face, with Snowy looking to follow suit. Roger spotted this and waited for them, eventually asking "Snowy, are you ready?"!

Another thing that made me smile was the incredibly fast break-down of the staging which started the moment the show finished...the team were ready to start ripping down as Outside The Wall came to an end, and it wasn't long before a Tait stabiliser tower was exposed as the stewards did their best to clear the audience out.

That's it for me Wall-wise unless I can convince my wife I need to pay a visit to one of the 2012 concerts. Australia/New Zealand is completely out of the question, so hoping for something a little closer to home to be announced!

CONCERT REVIEW by BD CONTRIBUTOR, Warren Byrne

I took my Son to The Wall gig at the NIA in Birmingham last night. In his words "That was brill...!" for an Aspergers kid, that was good enough..!

It was his first, and probably only, Pink Floyd related gig. He has Aspergers and cannot sit for long periods, and his sensory issues mean he cannot suffer flashing lights or loud noises. We have had to take him out of a concert in the past because of this so last night was a challenge for him and me however, he sat through the lot and never got 'edgy' once. This in itself is a first for someone with his condition.

That's what my son thought, I thought the concert was amazing. The sound was full and not distorted, the images were crystal clear and the 3D type effects on the wall itself were mind blowing.

The best part was the second half, although it was all great, Comfortably Numb was fantastic and the rumbling of the wall coming down just shook the whole arena. Flying pigs, inflatable mother, teacher and ex-wife puppetry was on the nail and the kids did a great job with Another Brick...

I am off to Manchester tonight to see it again thank God. Once really wasn't enough. I seen RW doing DSOTM in 2007 and that was fantastic but not a patch on this production.

If this is the last concert I see of Roger Waters, I'm glad I did.

CONCERT REVIEW by BD CONTRIBUTOR, Neil Hussey

To be honest, I almost didn't go to this show.

I saw the original production of The Wall at Earl's Court in 1980, at the age of fifteen. It was 4:30 a.m. when I returned home, and I still couldn't sleep. I couldn't articulate my feelings about what I'd seen for days afterwards. So I was going to give the whole thing a miss this time around. Surely there was no way that my cynical middle-aged self could experience that kind of emotion again, especially when performed by one ex-Floyd member and a bunch of Session Blokes.

But then I saw some online footage of the show. This stuff was impressive. So, with fourteen-year-old daughter (a Pink Floyd agnostic) in tow, we battled our way through the tricky Take That traffic, skirting past the dodgy alliteration and lengthy NIA car park queues to arrive in our seats with minutes to spare.

The first quiver of excitement arrived during the 'Spartacus' intro section, and as the opening chords of In The Flesh? rang out, it developed into a full-blown shiver right down my spine. I was so caught up in the music and the spectacle onstage, that I almost forgot about the plane crashing into the wall at the end of the song. We were near the front, and it passed directly over our heads almost before we were aware of it.

Much of the first half is a blur of creepy inflatables (the Teacher remains a favourite), and striking visual imagery. The animated bombers dropping dollar signs and other capitalist symbols were particularly memorable (though I'm not sure how Roger squares this anti-capitalist imagery with the £30 t-shirts and £20 programmes on the merch stalls. I guess that's between him and his conscience).

The schoolkids came and did their dance moves on Another Brick… Part 2, and Roger took me by surprise with the poignant coda about Jean Charles de Menezes.

The interval provided a welcome chance to gather thoughts and queue for overpriced drinks. I was pleased to see a gratifying number of younger people amongst the crowds of prosperous-looking, well-fed salarymen and greying, spindly hippies. I was pleasantly surprised by the sight of a teenage girl barely older than my daughter wearing a rather fetching Ummagumma t-shirt. (My favourite Floyd album, if anyone cares). Perhaps there’s hope for the next generation, after all.

Back to the second half. There was a rather lovely Hey You to kick things off, closely followed by another highlight – the beautifully-played acoustic guitar coda of Is There Anybody Out There? Then there was Dave Kilminster's full on, brow-furrowing, Gilmour-channeling climactic solo on Comfortably Numb, which earned him a well-deserved ovation. The moment during this song, where Roger headbutts the wall and it seems to explode into a dizzying, kaleidoscopic explosion of colour never ceases to amaze me, no matter how many times I see footage of it.

And then there's The Trial, one of my favourite pieces on the album. If Stanley Kubrick had ever directed some deranged, Dickensian musical, it would, I think, have sounded something like this. The Trial also featured some of Gerald Scarfe's most memorable visual creations projected onto the wall. I often feel that Scarfe doesn't get enough credit for his contribution to the whole visual aesthetic of the piece. This is stunning stuff.

Overall, there's no doubting that the whole show is far more impressive than the 1980 production. Technology has finally caught up with some of Roger's more grandiose ideas, with often astonishing results. There are grander concepts at work too, with more universal anti-war/anti-capitalist themes taking prominence. Does all of this stuff work? Personally, I think it (mostly) does. Some may say it's manipulative, and they may have a point, but it packs a mighty emotional wallop nonetheless, particularly the footage of soldiers returning from conflicts and being united with their children.

To be truthful, there's simply too much to take in during the course of just one viewing, and I dearly wish I'd been able to attend more shows. However, The Wall remains the most visually impressive, emotionally engaging show I've seen in over thirty years worth of concert-going.

My daughter pronounced it “amazing” too. High praise indeed. Thank you, Roger.

CONCERT REVIEW by BD CONTRIBUTOR, Ken Tierney

Well as stated in my review at Manchester 20th, here I am again for the second of my wall concerts. Did I change my opinion on the last show? Not really, apart from the show having a little bit of a tinkle with additional material added to Another Brick, it's still the same. One difference I did find was the audience forgot to turn up, apart from a few hundred at the front. I think Roger had his work cut out tonight, I really think an audience does make a concert and the only time I ever stood up was to applaud the Comfie Numb bit. Not a patch on Dark Side and to all you newcomers who now think Roger's show is the best thing they have seen, go and pay less than half the price and see a Floyd show put on by either the Aussies or now Brit Floyd - OK not the real McCoy but face it, it's the music of Floyd and the show.

I know a lot will read this and think I have gone crackers but I really do think, a lot of these will be from newbies to the Floyd. Building a wall and knocking it down is no big deal these days, and sad to think but getting sad that a boy/man band called Take That probably put on a better showpiece, so there you go, I was lucky to see the original and now these shows but, still, the Division Bell tour was the greatest ever for me.

CONCERT COMMENT and PICTURES by BD CONTRIBUTOR, Tom Teichmann

Last night I went to see Roger Waters - The Wall in Birmingham, NIA Arena. The concert was amazing and worth the wait...

CONCERT REVIEW by BD CONTRIBUTOR, Simon Wimpenny

So it's been a while since I saw the show! 10 or more days and 5 or 6 shows. I moved into my new apartment last week, 250 miles north of where I was and had to miss the last couple of shows in Europe.

I parked the car up in Birmingham city centre around 2:30 and headed down towards the venue to find the pub where everyone was meeting up from 3 o clock onwards. Matt and Kevin were due into New Street station around 3pm, Matt from USA Brain Damage podcast site and the other Matt from the Brain Damage UK site were due later on in the afternoon too. When I left Huddersfield to drive down the weather was hot and sunny, it was starting to rain and humid here so I found the bar and headed in to get a drink and sit out of the rain. It was only a shower so I made my way out to a balcony which overlooked one of the canals in Birmingham and chilled out.

Kevin called to say he had just checked in the hotel and Matt from the US arrived shortly afterwards with his friend Barry. My friend Jason and his dad whom we had seen at the last Manchester shows arrived, and by the time everyone was there we had a good 12 or 15 people hanging out outside the bar. The bar was buzzing with single females, groups of them! I wasn't aware till Neil told me that Take That were playing at Aston Villa's ground tonight and then the penny dropped, that's who they were there to see! A couple of people had mentioned they had been caught up in traffic on the way to the venue due to some of the 60,000 people that were due at that show!

Matt from the UK Brain Damage site arrived and both Matt's were introduced. Two Matt's, two Brain Damage sites, two countries and two great guys.

I went in the venue around 7pm, had a chat with Robbie for 10 minutes and then went to find my seat for the night, I was front row centre for tonight, it wasn't like I had to look and find out where it was but I just wanted to have a sit in the venue and soak in a little of the atmosphere. Kevin's family were coming to the show tonight and I was looking forward to meeting them, he had gone off to meet them, everyone else slowly made their way into the venue and as I sat chilling out, a guy came up to me and asked if I was Simon, I was and I told him so. It was a friend called Wes who I'd exchanged a few emails with but never met. We chatted for a good 20 minutes and I tried my very best to persuade him to come to Manchester the next night. He'd seen 12 of the shows if I remember rightly so he'd seen more than most but tonight would be his last (for this year!)

I was sat on my own tonight front row centre, the two Matt's were sat near Barry on the right side about seven rows back, Kevin and his family were in the 2nd block back on the left on the 2nd row, he joked that if I saw 5 seats free next to each other let him know.

I had a 5 minute chat with Shane, my friend on the crew who does the pyros and he said Roger had added something to the 2nd set tonight, he wouldn't tell me what it was but told me when to watch and to see if I noticed. Shane, if Roger's watch was an hour ahead there would be more than just me noticed!

The show started more or less dead on 8pm tonight, the crowd roared as Roger came onstage and from then on I knew the crowd were gonna be “ok”.

First couple of tracks came and went and when the kids came out onstage during Another Brick, half way through their "routine” they all turned around with their backs to the audience and had single white letters on the backs of their t-shirts that spelt out the words “FEAR BUILDS WALLS” this was the first (and last so far) time that they had had this and it looked kind of cool and Roger looked real happy as he glanced over at them.

During the first half I'd been sat on my own with a spare seat next to me the whole time, I also noticed 7 empty seats all in a row on the 5th row directly behind me, I couldn't believe it, what were the chances of that after Kevin saying what he did! Matt from Guildford came down to join me in the Empty front seat and Kevin brought his family to the 5th Row for the 2nd half.

I was on the lookout from the start of the 2nd half for something different and it wasn't until the end of Comfy Numb that I noticed a new “structure” being loaded onto the stage in front of me. Roger had outdone himself this time and now had his own little podium with the crossed hammers signs on to stand on during the 2nd In The Flesh.

It looked fantastic and Roger was even more elevated above the crowd now and he just looked so right standing there behind it playing the fascist character.

The crowd were still standing on their feet after Dave's fantastic Comfy Numb performance and continued to clap and cheer the whole way through Run Like Hell. Roger's video director Sean came out to take pictures of Roger in his new podium early on Run Like Hell, Roger spotted him below in front of the stage taking pictures he held on to one of the bars of the podium and while grinning from ear to ear gave him the middle finger for 5 seconds, much to Sean's amusement and ours. I had told Mark's son Eric before the show about a guy at one of the Berlin shows that stood up when Roger took his machine gun, Roger saw him and proceeded to gun him down! Eric was sat right on the isle about 2 rows back from me, I looked back at Eric and as Roger picked up his machine gun Eric stood up with his arms outstretched and waited for Roger to see him, he did and proceeded to shoot at Eric with the gun who in turn proceeded to move back and forth as though the was being shot! It was fantastic and Eric's face was a picture, I don't think he could believe the interaction that he had just had with Roger, it was pure elation.

As has become the norm now a few of the crowd head down from their seats to the rail in front of the stage after the wall has come down and before the band come back on for Outside The Wall. This part is one of my favourite parts of the show, after seeing the band for the last 2 hours in their uniforms, with dark sunglasses, most of the time behind the wall and other times in darkness it's great to see them all in the spotlight as they stand there onstage taking in the applause.

As I was driving home after the show I didn't want to get caught up in the Take That traffic that I would have to drive past on my way home, the second Roger left the stage I headed out the door, ran back to the car and gunned it down the motorway. There wasn't a car in site as I passed Aston Villa's ground, the floodlights were still on at 10:55pm so I'm guessing the show hadn't finished and I made it home for 12:30am.

Another great UK show with some great friends, a great crowd and an excellent performance by Roger and the band.

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

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!