Capacity: 14,800
Concert starts: 8pm

Address of venue: 3500 Sports Arena Boulevard, San Diego, CA, 92110-4973. MAP

Website: valleyviewcasinocenter.com

COMMENTS

Roger's tour of The Wall arrives in San Diego for a show at the Valley View Casino Center - a new venue for Roger and the crew on this tour.

The RogerWaters.com presales have taken place, with advance tickets available to those who had registered their interest in particular cities. General sale tickets went on sale on November 14th at 10am through this link to Ticketmaster.com. Exact dates and outlets can be found via Roger's website. The public sale will also see a limited number of VIP packages made available for each show on the tour. Our thanks to Elliot Tayman for the concert poster to the right, and to Bobby W for the ticket scan.

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 thirty-eight of the tour, and the production arrives at one of the smallest venues on the whole of the 2010-2012 tour.

The Union Tribute San Diego were at the show, and their review praised the 2012 return visit of the show. "Noteworthy band members included lead guitarist Dave Kilminster (who nailed Pink Floyd alum David Gilmour’s guitar solos), backing guitarist Snowy White (who toured behind the original “Wall” concert trek in 1980), and band leader G.E. Smith (of TV’s “Saturday Night Live” fame). Impeccable musicianship aside, the real star of the night was the road crew of approximately 50 people, who are in charge of all visuals – including building (and tearing down) the concert’s enormous Wall, animating the “Floydian” puppets, and playing characters on stage. Set-up begins 16 hours before show time, often as early as 3 a.m.

“The Wall Live,” a veritable aural and visual masterpiece, stops at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on Saturday, where the biggest tour of the year should grow even larger in a stadium setting.

If you went to this show in San Diego, 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 PICTURE by BD CONTRIBUTOR, Simon Wimpenny

A few people had tickets to pick up before the show but most had their already in hand. I made my way in with Thomas and he got to experience a little of the pre show hospitality with the band. I went onto the floor and found Chris Kirby for a chat. I then wandered around taking in the pre show atmosphere. Id seen Marky outside briefly and said hi and Pat spotted me on the floor and came over to introduce his guests to me, we had a chat for a few minutes before he headed off and i wandered over to see my friends Gail and Joe.

The venue was the smallest I’ve seen the show in and probably the smallest Arena they have played! It seemed like it was going to be such an intimate show. Everyone was spread out for this show, Gail, Joe and Matt were the front row on the lower bowl to the rear, James, Jackie and Dave were the first row in front of the soundboard and Frank and others were spread around the arena.

Around 8pm the pre show music started and I headed down to my seat, 11th row on the aisle. I was next to Victoria (Robbie's wife) and her brother tonight, she introduced him to me and Victoria and I chatted for the 15 minute build up like a couple of girls, lol. She is such good fun to be at a show with, last time we’d hung out was in Buenos Aires so it was great to see her again and great to be seeing the show with someone who is so much fun.

Just like the San Fran show I decided not to take any pictures tonight as I wanted to really enjoy the show and see everything that was going on. I couldn't resist taking a picture of the venue though due to how small and intimate it was.

From the moment the lights went down the crowd remained on their feet, Victoria and I looked at each other and high fived, it's just not the same seeing the show seated.

Obviously due to the show being indoors there were no pyros fired out of the top of the stage and the plane seemed to travel what was like 10 feet before it hit the wall! The Arena and Stadium shows really are two totally different shows now, there's so much going on on the sides of the wall at the stadium shows but the Arena shows are just like they were back in 2010, however with a lot of updated graphics! Gail and Joe had seen the opening show in Toronto and then seen the two shows in San Jose, they hadn't seen anything since and were totally blown away by the amount of changes, especially the images and projections during Run Like Hell.

I don't think the band can get any tighter than they are now, they've been doing this for 2 years, use click tracks and just have the whole performance down to a fine art. Roger is still having as much fun onstage as he did in 2010 and you could tell that after doing a lot of larger shows he was back at home being only feet away from the crowds at the sides of the stage when he waves to them and he's able to actually see the faces of the people waving back!

It was pretty much a sell out crowd tonight and there was hardly a free seat in the house, so much sow that there was only two rows of seats right next to the wall on either side, there's usually a full section held back from being sold so as the bricks don't fall on the crowd who could be (and were tonight) sat there!

A full row of vets were taken backstage just before intermission to meet Roger and returned with pictures and autographs and VERY happy faces! I decided go further back for some of the second half and sat with Gail and Joe up until Waiting for The Worms when I made my way back to the floor again.

It was the first time I'd seen the remote control pig for a while, the last few shows have had the huge 60ft pig walked around the venue by two crew and just tethered with ropes. They have the remote pig off to a fine art now, I guess controlling it indoors is a breeze compared to the outdoor elements!

I didn't notice any mistakes in the performance but Matt noticed a couple of mistakes in GE’s solo. The crowd were stood up for the whole show and were very enthusiastic compared to some of the 2010 US shows I saw. The band have changed the way the sing Outside The Wall and are still changing it, kind of hard to explain but they are just pausing and singing at different points. All in all it was a fantastic show in a great old 1970 venue that also made the show pretty unique.

- 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 PICTURES by BD CONTRIBUTOR, Randy

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!