Capacity: 17,000

Concert starts: 8pm

Address of venue: bul. "Asen Yordanov" 1, 1113 Geo Milev, Sofia, Bulgaria. MAP

Website: www.arenaarmeecsofia.com

COMMENTS

Roger's Us + Them tour heads into Europe following the successful 2017 shows in the US and Canada. At the original announcement, the following was revealed:

"We are going to take a new show on the road, the content is very secret," said Roger Waters. "It'll be a mixture of stuff from my long career, stuff from my years with Pink Floyd, some new things. Probably 75% of it will be old material and 25% will be new, but it will be all connected by a general theme. It will be a cool show, I promise you. It'll be spectacular like all my shows have been.”

The announcement notes that "Roger Waters' legendary live performances are renowned as immersive sensory experiences featuring high class, state-of-the-art audio visual production and breathtaking quad sound. This new tour promises to be no exception; following months of meticulous planning and visionary craft, Us + Them will inspire crowds with its powerful delivery and take the audience on an unforgettable musical journey."

Those who have attended - or have seen pictures/video of - the US and Canadian shows, will know just how spectacular and moving this new production is, and how it is a show you really shouldn't miss! 

For the regular sale of tickets, which started on THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 28th at 10am CET (local time), visit shop.ticketpro.bg. Using our links also helps toward the ongoing running costs of this site, and is appreciated!

Our thanks to Bogdan Ionescu for sending over the ticket scan seen to the right. Bogdan also kindly submitted a review of this show, which can be read below...

WARNING - SPOILERS AHEAD!

Do not read on if you don't want surprises to be spoilt, regarding what the band played!

The tour arrives in the Bulgaria city of Sofia for a sold out show (as most of them have been recently - showing the popularity of Roger's current tour) and as expected, the set list featured Mother as the penultimate song.

First, here's a video from the show from Roger's official Facebook page…

We'd love to know from those attending how they felt the concert went. How was the show for you, if you were one of the fortunate ones to attend? Let us know what YOU thought!

CONCERT PICTURES by BD CONTRIBUTOR, Stephen Carr

CONCERT REVIEW by BD CONTRIBUTOR, Bogdan Ionescu

I've seen the mastermind behind Floyd's concepts a few times, back in 2007 with his Dark Side tour and then again in 2011 and 2013 in Zagreb, twice in Budapest, Belgrade and Bucharest when he toured the mammoth tour with The Wall. Last time, back in September 2013 in Belgrade, I felt it was his very last tour and I was quite sure that he'd never embark on a world tour again. But I'm glad I was wrong. Obviously Us + Them would not top all the record sales, the majestic projections and all the stuff that were involved in the giant previous tour.

We arrived in Sofia at around 6pm, went straight to the hotel, drank two beers and rushed to the arena. It was a bit rainy but it didn't matter, seeing such a large crowd of people, almost all of them wearing kind of same shirts and heading in the same direction, always puts a big smile on my face.

Finding the seats was slightly complicated, I counted a few hundreds steps on the arena's hallways. At about 8pm, on the screen appeared an image of a woman sitting in the sand with her back turned to the audience and in the background we could hear sort of peaceful oriental music. That idyllic intro lasted pretty long and we anticipated the tranquil of the scene would be suddenly struck by a missile or something like that. Well, it wasn't a missile but the skies abruptly turned red and the intro of Speak To Me came out of the silence.

In the middle of the stage was an old man, almost 75, who was about to sing us the music he wrote while our parents were young and many of us weren't even born, including myself (I first saw the light of day in the year The Final Cut came out). There was the same genius that created the piggie from Animals, built his wall brick by brick, wrote to his ex band member, Syd, Wish You Were Here and imagined (together with Storm) the prism on the cover of one of the best selling albums in history. There was the same "grumpy" old man that chose to leave his band in the middle of the eighties. There was Roger Waters heading towards the end of his long career as he picked his black Fender and grabbed the microphone once again just in front of my eyes.

There was nothing special in Breathe In The Air and One Of These Days but the next track, Time, was clearly one of the crowd's favourites. We could hear Roger's voice, a more tired and crisp voice, not as nervous as when he shouted "tear down the fuckin' wall" a few years ago. Unfortunately I was a bit disappointed by the actual rendition of Great Gig In The Sky. There's no doubt the two girls from Lucius are highly talented but I remembered the screams of Carol Kenyon in Budapest, 2007. I thought then the arena would collapse by the vibrations and power of her voice through the speakers. Also, the melody of Lucius' girls had nothing to do with the original one sung by Clare Torry.

Welcome To The Machine was awesome, the synth textures were precisely executed by the veteran Jon Carin and Roger's voice was full of soul and passion. The next one was my personal favourite of Roger's last studio record. Then I felt tears in my eyes, Deja-Vu was definitely a highlight. Last Refugee and Picture That were also very powerful in the message, "leader with no fucking brains" sung with anger and disgust.

Wish You Were Here could not be missed and the first set concluded with Happiest Days followed by Brick2 and Brick3. During the Bricks there were some kids dancing on the stage, at first clothed with some orange overalls that were ripped off and we could see the kids wearing black t-shirts with a big "RESIST" on them. After the last chord the background screen lighted also the same "RESIST" during the 20 minutes break.

The second set opened with a nice version of Dogs and in the middle of the arena some big screens descended from the roof and remembered the old Battersea Power station. I thought Pigs (Three Different Ones) was written for Trump himself back in the seventies. The inflatable pig rounded slow above the standing audience and the projections portrayed the American president in some quite disturbing illustrations, with lipstick, dressed as a whore, with a giant black penis in his hands and then with a tiny little one.

Money and Us And Them were included in the setlist and during the later one, Ian Ritchie tried to copy Dick Parry's sax notes. I would prefer Parry's, though. Smell The Roses was the last one of Roger's latest studio effort and the second set came to an end with the obvious grand finale of Brain Damage/Eclipse. The giant prism of lasers and lights was definitely a nice touch and everybody in the audience started to take pictures with the cellphones.

After another short break Roger went to the microphone and told as his vision about the politics, he talked about Syria, the US, Assad, Iran and so on saying "nobody wants to fight the Russians" and in the end of his speech he remembered to the audience to spread the love in this room all over the world. He then introduced the band but from the usual members only Jon Carin and Dave Kilminster were present, I missed Graham Broad's drumming and Snowy White's guitar work, the rest of the members were all new to me. Obviously Carin and Kilminster gained more powerful applause from the audience.

The encore was filled with Mother and Comfortably Numb. I would have prefer the other versions of the finale, either Wait For Her/Oceans Apart/Part Of Me Died, or Vera/Bring The Boys Back Home. The last three tracks of his latest album are extremely soulful and the actual version of the Boys is as powerful as the one from his latest tour, even if it's sung acoustically, the girls from Lucius added a very nice flavour to the track. Anyway, Mother was just as the previous versions, after Roger asked if we should trust the government on the screen appeared two Bulgarian words which I didn't understand but I knew very well what they meant. The crowd was once again loud after that line booing the pigs from the politics.

Numb was reminiscent to The Wall version with Kilminster copying Gilmour's genius solo very precisely note after note. During the final solo the two hands on the screen finally touched each other and then turned to a colourful image mixed with lasers and lots of lights. Roger went down from the stage and shook hands with the few lucky fans from the "very first row". I felt some sadness I wasn't able to shake the hand of the man that inspired me for so many years through the lyrics he wrote. But never mind... At the end, all the band bowed to the audience and left the stage.

Us And Them tour is definitely not as majestic as The Wall was, there were few explosions and effects and the projections seemed a bit rushed here and there, but overall it was better than Dark Side Of The Moon tour. The Wall will not be ever topped even by Roger himself!

Another Roger Waters concert was over. We took the way back to the hotel and were lucky enough to find an open bar with nice people who served us beers until late in the night. Big appreciation to them. The second day, at noon, we headed back to Romania with hope in our hearts we'll see Roger some day in the future again.

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!