Capacity: 21,000
Concert starts: 7:30pm

Address of venue: Manchester Arena, Victoria Station, Manchester, M3 1AR, England. MAP

Website: http://www.men-arena.com

COMMENTS

Roger's 2013 tour of The Wall makes a no-doubt welcome return to this Manchester venue, which was the site of three Wall concerts in 2011. Since those concerts, the naming rights have expired, and whilst then it was known as the Manchester Evening News (MEN) Arena, the newspaper's title has now been dropped for the simpler name of Manchester Arena. Further update: It's now called the Phones4U Arena!

The RogerWaters.com presales took place on Wednesday, February 27th, with advance tickets available to those who had registered their interest in particular cities. General sale tickets went on sale on March 1st through this direct link to Ticketmaster UK and other official outlets (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 Gary Ashton for sending in the ticket scan to the right.

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!

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-five of the tour, and a return to the relative intimacy of one of the smallest indoor Wall shows, dusting off the alternate version of the show which has been hardly used this year. Yes, there have been one or two other indoor shows, but these have tended to be in larger venues. A cracking show, but the end of the tour is most definitely nigh, with just two shows left now - Dublin then Paris. If you went to this show in Manchester, 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

So, Manchester. A return to the smaller, more intimate indoor show was added by Roger's team to the latter part of the 2013 tour and I for one couldn't resist the possibility. In 2011, when the band last performed in the UK, the indoor version was all we knew. The expansion - and the potential for more risk of weather affects - to the production has thrilled and staggered alike. How will a return to the smaller show feel with the stadium version almost now "the norm"?

The famous city in the north of England greated those pouring in for Roger's concert (and there seemed to be quite a number from Europe and the US there) with intermittent rain (some of it quite heavy, particularly afterwards), which did make it even better that it was indoors. Those who attended Wembley on Saturday would have been nervously keeping track of the weather forecasts, all of which until the day itself were promising heavy rain. As it happened, it was clear (if chilly) throughout the show. Such weather concerns for Manchester were reduced - it was obviously just the getting there, and getting back after, that could be blighted by rain.

Before the show, I was able to meet up with some old friends in a central Manchester pub - it was great to catch up with the likes of Simon Wimpenny, Brain Damage founder Glenn Povey (whom I spent most of the evening with), Matt Leonard, who runs the excellent Brain Damage podcast site (no relation to our site!), Ed Lopez-Reyes and his wife, and a number of others. For those I met last night for the first time, it was great to say hello to you! The meet-up made for a relaxed start to the evening, not least as (in part due to it being a Monday night in September) the pub was pretty empty.

The venue is one of those places which tends to go through name changes as naming rights expire. When tickets went on sale, it went from the MEN (Manchester Evening News) Arena to the Manchester Arena, and by the time the concert arrived, we were pitching up at the Phones4U Arena. I must say, the approach to the venue was completely against expectation - trudging through a wet railway station, with building works going on, to find a staircase at the back leading to the most uninspiring entrance I think I've ever seen for a venue. Blink and you'd miss it, or think you're in the wrong place.

Impressions once through the doors didn't improve greatly. A fairly bland corridor running around the perimeter, with overpriced food, drink and merchandise (including charging a premium for those wishing to use a credit card!). It did remind me a little of places such as Wembley Arena or Earls Court, which used to be pretty standard until places like the O2 Arena in London sprung up with its very attractive public areas, decent bars, restaurants, exhibition area, and more.

Through the doors into the arena itself, and we found that it dropped down quite a way, and the arena looked very compact. The wall made Glenn and I fairly gasp - it looked so small, with minimal brickwork on either side. It did make me wonder if there would even be room for the hotel room set. There was, of course, but it did seem that it was almost amongst the seating on that side of the stage! Due to the size of the venue, no seat seemed to be that far away - indeed, even those further back were closer than the majority of people would be at an outdoor Wall show.

This cosiness resulted in a wonderful atmosphere, for a concert that was in touching distance of the end of the tour. Roger's final show in England was clearly on people's mind, and it really felt like a celebration with most of the audience making the most of the event. Certainly on the floor, the seating was very snug and you couldn't help but be rubbing shoulders, literally, with those around you, all of which helped with the feeling amongst the crowd that this really would be the final British hurrah.

The concert went without a hitch. Roger had a good old chuckle at the crowd reaction to his comments about past Prime Minister Tony Blair in the preamble to Mother; "Snowy's Note" during Hey You turned into some quite interesting improvisational guitar work; Dave Kilminster gave a blistering Comfy Numb solo, and generally, the performances were uniformly excellent. It was nice to see the return of the indoor piggie with the bright red eyes; the pig pilot really took it nice and low over the crowd during Run Like Hell.

On the subject of Run Like Hell... I had a bit of a strange, and very unexpected, moment during the song. In an echo of the scene from the movie, an actual fight broke out between the men who were sat in the seats literally next to me, and a couple of men in front of them. I almost expected to see Bob Geldof on stage guarded by the Tilbury Skins, but no, it was "just" Roger and his megaphone! Of all the times to start an argument, it seemed very fitting to be during Run Like Hell/Waiting For The Worms. Thankfully stewards were fairly quickly on the scene to sort out the situation.

And then, almost too quickly, it was over. The second half of the show does seem to gallop through and before you know it, Roger is urging the destruction of the wall. This fell really nicely - the outdoor shows feel like the wall falls in a predetermined way, but in Manchester, there were three independent sections which tumbled when they chose.

Outside The Wall concluded things with Roger noting that "I think we've done 220 of these shows, and this is the last one in England and you guys have been great!" Indeed, from the shows I've seen it had the most enthusiastic audience of all (with the exception of the 'Gilmour night' at the O2 in 2011). The perfect way to end the final English show for Roger, in a relatively small venue, full of atmosphere, and a superb band performance.

So, just Dublin on Wednesday, then Paris on Saturday, which as it stands will be Roger's final full live performance. It should be a very emotional occasion...

[PICTURES AND VIDEO TO FOLLOW]

CONCERT REVIEW by BD CONTRIBUTOR, Ken Tierney

Oh well, it's hard to describe last night's concert. My first impression when I walked into the arena was how small it looked since the last wall show in 2011; was the venue capacity dropped? I don't know but it did seem a lot smaller.

As for the sound quality you cannot fault it ,it was mindblowing at times with sounds coming from all over the place, the background graphics etc. were an improvement on the last show and all in all well done Roger. But as always with my reviews isn't it what you would expect from such a mega tour with its vast amount of money that has been spent on it? It only goes to show that the little tribute bands such as Brit Floyd, Aussies etc. do a fantastic job on the budgets that they have.

So that's it then, little lump in my throat as I say farewell to probably the last Floyd related concert by a member over a period of 40 years. It would have been interesting to see what the Gilmour Floyd would have bettered after PULSE with all the technology you have these days but only a dream, and Roger kept us fans happy. So DVD please, probably lots of fake ones out already by the amount of cameras filming on their phones...

CONCERT REVIEW and PICTURE by BD CONTRIBUTOR, Gary Ashton

I thought it took until the second half for the crowd to get going tonight, they were very respectful in the first half!

Still a very enjoyable evening though...was I the only one to hear Snowy's 'duff note or 2' during Hey You?! I really enjoyed 'Young Lust' and 'Comfy' tonight...they sounded terrific!

CONCERT REVIEWS and PICTURES by other BD CONTRIBUTORS

Hopefully coming soon - we welcome all contributions!