Capacity: 18,853

Concert starts: 8pm

Address of venue: 2150 Hempstead Turnpike, Elmont, NY 11003, United States. MAP

Website: www.ubsarena.com

COMMENTS

Roger's new tour - THIS IS NOT A DRILL - has now been announced, and is a new production. As when his previous tour (Us + Them) was announced, details of what this new show will entail are brief; we suspect a new set list, and new presentation, and the image created to publicise the tour does note that the show will be "live in the round" - a departure from Roger's previous shows. The tour was postponed from 2020 to 2022 due to Coronavirus, and this particular show is a later addition to the schedule. This $1.5billion multi-purpose arena next to the Belmont Park racetrack opens 20th November 2021; the picture here is an artist's impression of the exterior, from the venue's website.

Those who have attended - or have seen pictures/video of - Roger's previous tours, will know just how spectacular and moving this new production is likely to be, and how it is a show you really shouldn't miss! From comments Roger has made in recent interviews, it could be his final tour...

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WARNING - SPOILERS AHEAD!

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

Night sixteen of the tour, with Roger and his band on their This Is Not A Drill tour. arriving in New York State for their show at the UBS Arena in Elmont. They've now got two days off, albeit part of that will be travelling, heading to the next stop, which is Washington DC.

Initial reports are that the show was quite an experience, but as always, we value your first hand views on all the concerts - so if you went, please let us know your thoughts!

CONCERT REVIEW and PICTURES by BD CONTRIBUTOR, Krish Raghuram

Arriving to the smell of weed perming through the air is the obligatory incense at any Floydian concert. Last night's 'This is not a drill' concert at the UBS arena in Belmont was another milestone of mine and I am sure Roger himself, in that spellbinding journey of his earthbound duty to his fans. Which one's Pink? Who else but Roger! Which one's Floyd? Who else but the rest of the band....ah that old dispute. There were legions of such fans at the concert with T-Shirts professing admiration for one or the other.

Dodging traffic out of Manhattan and snaking off into the quieting highways of Central Long Island, brought our excited passengers and me, the driver, to the off-the-beaten-path exit ramp to the UBS Arena. We were far from the madding crowd and into the arena parking lot beholding the mad-about Floyd crowd.

When it comes to hosting rock shows, the Americans, particularly the space-squeezed New Yorkers have event hosting down to a science. Parking the car and walking toward the Arena, we were moved to large buses waiting to take us to the Arena. The buses were split with gemstone names of Emerald, Ruby, and Diamond relating to the parking lot sections so you would be brought back to the same lot in the same buses. An important arrangement I feel, given the ingestion, first-hand and osmotically of the pervasiveness of weed and not getting lost from the haze afterward.

The UBS arena is about as modern as it gets but the exterior facade is of elegant redbrick and patinated domes to make it look faux vintage. Monolithic but of brilliant architecture and impressive girth, the wait at the door was less than 5 minutes before we were let inside the cavernous behemoth. It was like being allowed into the mouth of the whale with the promise of a whale of a time. There was no semblance of being at Roger's show as there were no posters of the concert and you got the impression of the surrounding sports emblazoned walls that the main billing was anything but a rock show. This was mainly a sports arena and Roger was in his element hosting Arena rock, a format he previously poured derision upon for everything it represented. Orwellian, Corporate, and Capitalist. Huh Roger, what was that you said, all in all, you just want your fans inside a red-bricked hall?

After buying over-priced beers ($24 each, incl taxes and tip), we went down the steep descent into row 13 of the arena's navel. This was pretty cool and close to the stage. The Stage! Yes, the stage is shaped like a cross, Like a plus sign with elongated horizontals for something which would be revealed later. The stage was black and looked like a TV screen turned off. It looked like a Wall with guitar amps on either side. It looked like the cold-war era Berlin wall. It looked like something Roger Waters would conceive of. Pure theatre, what! Not Evian, Not Volvic but Waters. The man and his mind. It was avant garde art and placid megalomania. What a hunk of a stage! As I sat there taking in the stage, I wondered how he would perform on a stage that looked like it closed off crowds from seeing each other. Temporarily dismayed, I wondered if he would play on our side or on the other side. I noticed also that the top of the stage was attached to pulleys and chains! This gave me the clue that inside that wall were the musicians and the wall would be prised up by the pulleys revealing the man and his musicians.

15 Minutes before the show began, the crowd started to file into their seats and Roger's ominous pronouncement began with simple messages of "The show will begin in 15 minutes. F-i-f-t-e-e-n minutes.', he slowly repeated. This was repeated every 5 minutes with the associated new minutes' announcement until zero was reached to which he announced, laughing slightly, that the show would begin now.

The lights first dimmed and then dark, and the show began to gigawatt-level thunderclaps. A message, written by Roger-the-Orwell said 'If you are one of those who love Pink Floyd but dislike Roger's politics might do well to fuck off to the bar.' The 'bar' as it turns out was a key device in the concert. It was, if you want, the crux of the new concept album or work that Roger was showcasing. The crux of the Bar's message was ensconced in the crux-like stage. Coincidence or intentional? Neither, it is just my interpretation which is after all the happy playground of all Floydians who imagine themselves as preeminent citizens of that imaginary country of Floyd. The cross, now lit, was a massive display revealing a dilapidated ruined modern city that could be anywhere (Ukraine, Gotham, you name it). The band's bassist (not Roger) and the guitarist (Dave Kilminster) were on either side of the cross invisible to one another and Roger, still hidden from view, started singing the opening lyrics of Comfortably Numb. It was delivered unlike its rendition on the Wall album, devoid of the lush strings and chords to just a male-female-Roger chorus singing the famed lines. Once the main chorus of the song was delivered, those pulleys pulled away the stage upward revealing Roger and the band! Quite dramatic, no wait, noticeably dramatic. The song also, noticeably, avoided the guitar parts and the iconic middle and outro solos, I felt it was almost a vindictive jibe at his former bandmate and present Emperor of Pink Floyd, David Gilmour.

Then the rotary churn and chop of the helicopters began with spotlights hitting the audiences, cheering in loud choruses from various parts of the arena to the rhythmic anti-establishment education lyrics and chorus of Islington school children of Another brick in the wall belted out and was spellbinding. Roger began the show by singing the song facing us. I was barely 50 feet from the stage and it was nice to see a whippet-thin Roger with his trademark lush hair flowing and white and black stubble, dressed in well...trademark black. This was the good old Roger in his element. Saddened to see him significantly older since I last saw him two decades ago, I calculated that he would now be 79 given he was 1943 born. His own song's lyrics appear to have chased him, 'Ten years have got behind you.'

Has Roger's touring career run its course? Perhaps, but also I sincerely hope not but I think he often finds the need to keep his vocal cords moist, with large gulps of something (looks like water and later says his therapist prescribed it to him. Perhaps electrolyte water by the looks of it). After belting out two key Floyd rock staples, he's moved on to the new stuff. Songs from 'Is this life we really want?' album. From this album, although it was hard to tell, the first song he played sounded like 'The powers that be' as the PA was very loud, it seemed to match the film's backdrop. There was also The Bar which was preceded by a lengthy monologue of what the song was about how the stage was the bar and how the band and the audience relate to each as in Echoes 'strangers passing in the street by chance two separate glances meet and I am you and you are me' theme to the song. Much to the annoyance of some of the audience who simply wanted him to get on with singing and not sharing any of his thoughts told me what a commercial enterprise and expectation of money's worth the world had become. And then there was 'The Bravery of being out of range.'. Starting with a speech Reagan made in the 1980s, there were a lot of messages on the display starting with his war crimes and the leaders of the free world followed, each detailed in a summary of their war crimes. No one was spared, Republican or Democrat, Joseph Biden's criminal conspiracy presidency was summarized as 'Just getting started.'

The concert was unabashedly riddled with political missives and explanations of the songs in Roger's own words. The entry of Sheep was quite unexpected and the arena exploded in happiness. It is unclear after the Animals tour of 1977 if these songs were ever played. Have a Cigar was another shining and rare gem however many of these numbers obviously didn't have Gilmour playing the guitars and the sheer lack of improvisation and album representation was coming through in many of the old Floyd numbers. When Shine On came, it was parts 6-9 that were played, once again identical to the album.

Post intermission, Roger walked onto the stage in sunglasses, a leather overcoat with the marching hammers armband, and two goons as his aides giving the half-raised Nazi salute to the crowd. It was something of a kitsch feature of the concert nonetheless directly plugged into In the Flesh and Run like Hell which he implored the audience to have a good time, especially in our section which felt like a bunch of sleepyheads.

Roger topped off the second half by starting with Money and went on to play the rest of the Dark Side of the Moon without Time or Great Gig in the Sky. Deja Vu was a rather nicely performed acoustic song backed by keyboards of none other than Jon Carin. I was surprised to see him as part of the band and he is after all a New Yorker.

Roger announced that he was going back to the last Floyd album and playing something that some would know and there it was, a melodic and pathos-ridden 'Two suns in the sunset.'. Naturally being who he is, gave a lengthy record of the history of nuclear disarmament and the peace marches of the 50's and 1960s before the song began.

Towards the end, Roger reprised The Bar once more with all the musicians gathered around him and sounded very poignant and topped off the evening by playing Outside the Wall, which the band continued by making a circle of the stage with band member names being called out on display and by Roger. The song continued with the band marching off stage and the displays picked up the last embers of the song well inside the knave of the artist backstage where it came to its end.

 

 

 

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!