Tomorrow night sees the Roger Waters 2007 tour resume with first of a total of ten Mexican and South American concerts. Naturally thrilled with the upcoming appearance of Roger, the local media have been conducting a number of interviews with him.
In the interviews, he again expresses his wholehearted willingness to perform again with his ex-Pink Floyd buddies should circumstances permit...
In the most extensive of the interviews, Roger tells the Washington Times that "I would do something else (like Live 8) in a heartbeat -- but if it was for anything more than a few songs, then I think there would be difficulties." He added: "I felt it was very important for me to do Live 8, and I thought it was great to get onstage with the other three guys. I had nothing but positive feelings about that."
Having clearly spent much time thinking about the conflicts within the band which lead to the split in the mid-eighties, Roger admitted that "I don't think any of us came out of the years from 1985 with any credit, really. It was a bad, negative time, really. And I regret my part in that negativity.
"I was actually more attached to the philosophy and politics of Pink Floyd than the others were -- certainly more so than David was. In a way, whatever I did I did in a way to protect the integrity of what I saw as being important about the work that the four of us did together.
"I realize now that move was doomed to failure ... and why should I have imposed my feelings about the work and what it was worth on the others if they didn't feel the same? I was wrong in attempting to do that."
In a telephone interview with Peruvian media, the Live 8 show inspired a question about the upcoming Live Earth concert on July 7th. Whilst there have been many rumours of acts that will be involved in the shows worldwide, the confirmed artists have hardly inspired music fans.
In the interview, Roger is asked if it were possible that Pink Floyd could reunite again for the Live Earth show. He said: "I'm up for it if David Gilmour will agree to play with me. I will honestly join him, if he agrees... I've got no problem with it, in fact, I would love it."
Elsewhere, on the andina website he is asked what made him decide to perform in Peru. "When they asked me about [playing in] Peru, I said that it would be a good idea. I knew of the Inca culture, as they taught us about it in school. A lot of people have also said that I must go to Machu Picchu, although I don't believe we'll have time on this visit."
They asked him how it felt to sing with Pink Floyd at Live 8 after so much time had passed. "Wonderful, I enjoyed every moment on the stage. I felt the wave of expectation of the public present and of the people who saw us on television. The emotion of the public to see us - the four of us together again - could be felt. Personally, I felt that it helped my perception with people, because at the time at which we separated, they saw me as the bad one of the group. But it was not thus, we separated because things happened."
And again, the suggestion of Pink Floyd appearing at the Live Earth concert came up: "I do not have any problem with that. Let us hope that they don't either. If they ask me, I will be there."
Finally, in an article in the Mexican El Norte newspaper, Waters talks at length of how his treatment of Dark Side of the Moon was designed to impress in a visual, as well as musical, manner. “The visual part is more powerful [than earlier tours]; it is very beautiful. All the show is monochrome, the idea is based on the six colours of the rainbow, and I said "hey - we didn't use a colour for each song". So the starting point, the simplest thing that we could make, was to show the moon on the screen and have changing colours”.
He noted that he holds rich memories from Mexico, when he was there in 2002.
“Fans did something amazing the last time that I was there. As an encore I played 'Flickering Flame', and something happened that I'd never seen before: 30 thousand people igniting and extinguishing its lighters to the sound of a song that they'd never heard.
“That was fabulous, absolutely fabulous. I have never seen it in any other city of the world. I hope that they do it again”, he said, smiling.
On the subject of the reunion in 2005, he reflects on the importance of the "symbiosis between the four band members, in which I call the golden years of the band, all we contributed, the combination of the four separated talents was something very very special”.
However, he has thought about the possible obsticle to another reunion. “The problem is this one: during 20 years [Pink Floyd] has been [David Gilmour's] baby, for that reason he is so obstinate. If we reunited for any reason, I would be delighted to do it. Not a single show, but a series of events that we could do. It would be very satisfactory for me... but I do not believe that Dave wants to do it.”
Our thanks to Marco Silva Navarrete, Ahbi, and Ramiro Diaz de Leon for their help with this story.
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