Capacity: 23,000
Concert starts: 8pm

Address of venue: Peninsula Square, London, SE10 0DX. MAP

Website: www.theo2.co.uk

COMMENTS

Roger's tour of The Wall arrives at The O2 Arena in the Greenwich area of London. Formerly the Millenium Dome, the re-launched venue quickly established itself as the best in the world, with artists and promoters voting it tops (with good reason).

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. For those with a UK O2 mobile phone, there was a special presale starting on June 2nd through www.o2Blueroom.co.uk. General sale tickets went on sale on June 4th through this direct link to Ticketmaster.co.uk. The public sale will also see a limited number of VIP packages made available for each show on the tour. Our thanks to Bob Kent for the ticket scan to the right.

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 twenty-eight of the tour, and the first of six nights at London's O2 Arena. With the staging sat fairly far forward, it gave the arena itself a slight forshortening effect, particularly for those who are used to the distance between front and rear being greater. A storming show, and a great opener to the UK leg of the tour. If you went to this show in London, 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's Matt

Well, my first (of six) Wall shows, and despite seeing hundreds of pictures in the months since the tour started in September, along with video footage which covers most of the show, nothing can prepare you for the experience of seeing the show "in the flesh".

The power of the music and the message clearly stunned the audience, with rapturous applause and cheering throughout. This Wednesday night crowd were no shrinking violets, although we'll see what the weekend audience is like; shows in the capital on Saturdays in particular can get a strange crowd along, many of whom don't seem willing to relax and enjoy the show, or just go because they feel they should.

To my ears there were some new nuances and sound effects added in to the show, which further added to the enjoyment. It was some of the simplest little subtleties which made me happy. I love the way the wall builders quietly place a brick onto the wall, and within a couple of seconds, the projectors have "mapped" it and the image fades up on it, adding to the overall canvas being used. Very impressive!

There was a slight struggle at the end of Goodbye Cruel World getting the final brick in place; what is normally a pretty swift insertion to complete the wall turned into a clear problem to get it in place. At one point, the neighbouring brick was wiggled around to try and help it fit properly. Now, all of this only took around 10 seconds or so, but normally it's seamless.

Were there any other issues? If I was to nitpick, I would mention that the sound in a couple of places had a bit of an echo off the rear wall - this was most noticeable in Mother and Hey You. However, compared to pretty much any other artist, this was a minor thing and is a result of any multi-function arena.

The wall seemed to fall really well. After a reluctant start, with just a few bricks toppling, eventually the rest fell in left/right and right/left manner, like a Mexican Wave. Superb...

A stunning start to the London shows, and a thrill to know that I've still got the remaining five to come. Will David Gilmour appear atop the wall in any of them? There was a palpable air of hope as Comfortably Numb started, with a definite feeling throughout the crowd of "Will he be here? Will he?". Dave Kilminster's excellent solo soon blew away any disappointment on that front, and indeed, to a man, the whole band played and sang their socks off throughtout the show... Can they top this performance? We shall see, but I'm sure they'll do their best to!

CONCERT REVIEW and PICTURES by BD CONTRIBUTOR, Jens Dam-Libach

So we're back again at the O2 after a couple of years absence watching Roger and the band perform The Wall.

Tonight was a great show with Roger in great form. Roger is getting more and more into the various roles he's performing in the show, seems more and more confident and animated always adding new stuff to his parts as the tour progresses. This is my 16th show since I started off in Toronto last year and it's easy to tell the progress and the various small but somewhat different directions the show has taken.

It's amazing to sit through. The band seems ever more tight, it is indeed fantastic to sit through. I do have to point out the star of the band, which to me undoubtfully is Graham Broad on drums. His raw, explosive and lustrous drumming just adds so much to the overall music experience while sitting through this amazing piece of music history. Another Brick Part 1's moody longstretched part of the show gets to me everytime. You feel like this track could go on for many more minutes than it does. Graham's outro on Run Like Hell's just killing me. He is indeed amazing.

I was trying to prepare myself for Gilmour's solo on Comfy Numb forcing myself to look at Kilminster on top of the wall, but I kept finding myself looking at Roger all the time. He's so much into delivering this song and so animated on stage that he's such a treat to behold.

The wall fell amazingly this first night here, getting all the way out to barriers in the front. People in the front row must've felt it coming down, cause the bricks swung out as the fell over and down.

Can't wait for Thursday's show, where Gilmour might be on top of the wall.

CONCERT REVIEW by BD CONTRIBUTOR, Robert Follen

No Mr Gilmour tonight (the audience was quite muted, I thought, during the solo's for Comfortably Numb). However, on my way in I met Mark Fisher and Phil Taylor. (Alas, I thought where Mr Gilmour goes, Mr Taylor follows! How wrong, it sure didn't happen that way tonight!)

Anyway what a bloody great show. I've done it now! My eyes and ears have seen "The Wall" live. (Incidently I have been to quite a few big shows now. Whenever I mention this fact to my mum, she always say's, "Did I ever tell you about the time I went to see...Smokie?") Sometimes you just have to "Run Like Hell". Ha(boom-boom)!

CONCERT PICTURES by BD CONTRIBUTORS

BD visitor Ian Bateman took a number of great pictures at the concert, and these can be seen over at this page at Facebook.

Another BD contributor, Richard van der Leeden, took a wonderful range of colour and black & white pictures at the concert, and his shots can be seen over at Picasaweb through this link.

CONCERT PICTURES by BD CONTRIBUTOR, Joe McGuire

CONCERT REVIEW and PICTURES by BD CONTRIBUTOR, Archie Dalrymple

I've got to say that I've seen some spectacular gigs (several Kiss full make-up; Radio KAOS; Pro's & Cons; Macca several times and a dozen Floyd gigs but these Wall shows are like nothing I've seen before, viusally or emotionally - anyone that doesn't get a tear in their eye at the video of the young girl re-united with her Dad about 45 secs into Vera is made of stone!

There is some fantastic footage of the gigs on YouTube so it will be really interesting to see what the final, official DVD looks like.

CONCERT REVIEW and PICTURES by BD CONTRIBUTOR, Mike Ford

Had to miss out on Oslo, had two tickets - I know how much I've praised the RW pre-sale ticket site, but I was cursing them for their efficiency as I sat in my kitchen, quietly whistling the trombone opening from In The Flesh, whilst my tickets sat in a box office at the Telenor Arena. Oh well. Shit happens.

So was looking forward to seeing The Wall in London, the first of the five concerts we'd see where Del and I were down on the arena floor, row g block 2, in the middle of the action. Action, indeed. It was like sitting in amongst a combination of a local branch meeting of the St. Vitus Dance Association, a flash mob version of stand up, sit down, and a strange game of musical chairs, whereby the one that got to sit down was always the one holding the beer...

Stayed at the Radisson Edwardian, from the car park you can see the O2 – but there was a little provincial stream called the Thames in between us. Bollocks! Should've realised things weren't gonna go well when the route planner had me face to face with a double-decker bus in a bus lane by Tower Bridge, and the directions to said establishment ended at the end of the Blackwall tunnel, on a roundabout. Hotel booked a taxi for us (£17, and we could throw a stone at the O2) and as we walked through the underground station there was a lone busker playing the solo from C'numb, over and over, pretty good as well, he must have made a mint. We made note of the bacon roll van for later sustenance, as the room service just eaten at the hotel can only be described as less than edible. (See Del's review on booking.com for more!)

Ticket pick up was the pleasant experience it had always been, but before we entered the hallowed "you can't do this, you can't do that" halls of a typical British gig we decided to have a beer in a Mexican restaurant outside. Queuing in a long line, we got talking to the guy behind us and it turned out he lived about 3 miles from us! We last saw him cwtching (a welsh word for cuddling) two pints and a spliff, wandering in the opposite direction to the entrance. Hope he saw the gig.

We found our seats and settled clutching our beers, ready for the show. Stage was smaller than other European venues; here, the Spartacus doll was bought on to the main stage, whereas in Barcelona, Arnhem and Paris he was bought in from the crowd and then thrown on to stage, and then – wow!

'In The Flesh' this close up was brilliant, you could really feel the heat from the onstage pyro's, the sound was pretty damned good as well, although we could have done without the security goons shining torches in everyone's faces, then sending snatch squads in for anyone that had dared to leave the flash enabled on their cameras. Maybe Roger should have dressed them up in black and given them a flag each, such was the similarity to their onstage counterparts. The only other real difference from the other shows on the tour were Roger bringing a chair onstage (it's been a long, long tour) and the hammer chant before 'Run Like Hell' was left to go on and on, Roger seemed to revel in it, a lovely piece of theatre!

On the way out the busker in the station was playing the Another Brick solo over and over, which we listened to with £3 bacon rolls whilst waiting to have our pants pulled down by taxi trip through Rotherhithe tunnel (£23) to hotel where the previously thrown stone had yet to land.

Next stop, Paris, looking forward to a good gig, nice apartment, iffy food and bad waiters!

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!