The Wall and Hitting It
Without Prejudice
There is a DVD of The Wall, Live In Berlin. A concert. If you get a chance do yourself a favour and buy it, rent it, or borrow it. It is wonderful, performed by Roger Waters and Van Morrison, Marianne Faithful, Sinead O'Connor, Cindy Lauper. It's spectacular, the music is great and you get to see "The Wall" come tumbling down brick by brick. It's amazing.
It celebrates the tumbling of the wall in Berlin. A wall I can remember going up, between the East and The West in Germany. People were killed trying to cross it, escape it, get to their loved ones and freeedom on the other side. I never forget one man's story I read about how he lay level under a car and crossed over. At the time it was madness, sheer madness. Checkpoint Charlie et al.
I remember seeing images of people dead, caught on the barbed wire on top. It signified everything that was barbaric and evil. It showed our ignorance as humans and I hope we all have learned the lessons of such behaviours. People should be able to live the way they see as fit. Not the way someone else sees fit. Thats called Freedom and in my heart there is no stronger word.
The wall divided East and West Germany, Democracy and Communism. It was erected in the middle of the night, August 13th. Berliners woke up to a wall of barbed wire and concrete posts over a hundred miles long. People that worked in the west could no longer commute to their jobs. The wall was later modified to Concrete blocks topped with barbed wire.
Contractors and armed forces constructed it over night the night of August 13th and nothing would remain the same for the german people until it was dismantled. Relatives, lovers, friends were unable to cross to the other side. Phone lines were cut between East and West, allowing no contact. It was shocking, it was bizarre.
The Wall concert is a celebartion of the physical wall tumbling, and also of the walls we build up as human against each other. Child, parent, Man, Woman, Doctors, patient, student, Teacher the different expectations we have of each other and how very wrong that is as we are all the same underneath. we all have our "Walls" put in place to protect from harm, feelings, pride. And how they are all silly in the end.
Roger Waters made a masterpiece when he wrote "The Wall. When asked if he would ever perform it again he had stated at first, a definit, no and then said, if the berlin wall comes down, then maybe. Little was he to know that ten years later "The Berlin Wall" would come down. He was also asked if he was tryng to up stage the Pink Floyd band, he had left. His answer was once agian. No.
His guitar notes echo and sing with pleasure and hatred. Sinead O'connors rendition of Mother is haunting and poignant. She smiles shyly at the applause as she begins to sing, dressed simply in purple sweatshirt and pants. Her head is shaven and you tend to concentrate on the words and the music.
Gerlad Scarfe's cartoons on a screen in the background, show desire and creation, fecundity and sweetness, Teacher and student. Every twisting turning facet of Human narure at its best and worst. Sacredness and profanity intertwine in beauty and sex, stamens of plants that come alive and devour. Wicked images of strength and weakness. It is horrifying and tragic and tells in pictures the whole gamut of human emotion. It is brilliant.
Van Morrison wears a coat, swamping his big body, but his voice is powerful as he sings "Comfortably Numb, which shows how easily we can be duped by Doctors, to feel better with just a "Little Prick" from an needle full of speed or heroin. How we used to blindly accept the things authority figures said and did. We no longer just accept what others tell us as people. we search, we investiagte and often find the simple answers are the best.
When Paul Carrck turns his back to the wall and sings "Hey You" the hairs on the back of your neck will stand up, its goose flesh music at its very best. I'm not a lover of Cindi Laupers music, normally, but when she does her cheeky rendition of the Wall I am rapt. It's both powerful and true. Bryan Adams was there as was the Band, Thomas Dolby plays the dreaded Shool Teacher, Jerry Hall is there. It is incredible.
"The production was huge and trouble filled, erected at Potzdammer Platz which was a 26 acre wasteland. The "bricks" for the wall were a huge problem, an engineers nightmare as they had to stay firm and not be flimsy. They tried cardboard boxes at first and they were too flimsy. In the end they were constructed from a type of polystyrene blocks that had to be tied back at ceratin levels.
There is a DVD of The Wall, Live In Berlin. A concert. If you get a chance do yourself a favour and buy it, rent it, or borrow it. It is wonderful, performed by Roger Waters and Van Morrison, Marianne Faithful, Sinead O'Connor, Cindy Lauper. It's spectacular, the music is great and you get to see "The Wall" come tumbling down brick by brick. It's amazing.
It celebrates the tumbling of the wall in Berlin. A wall I can remember going up, between the East and The West in Germany. People were killed trying to cross it, escape it, get to their loved ones and freeedom on the other side. I never forget one man's story I read about how he lay level under a car and crossed over. At the time it was madness, sheer madness. Checkpoint Charlie et al.
I remember seeing images of people dead, caught on the barbed wire on top. It signified everything that was barbaric and evil. It showed our ignorance as humans and I hope we all have learned the lessons of such behaviours. People should be able to live the way they see as fit. Not the way someone else sees fit. Thats called Freedom and in my heart there is no stronger word.
The wall divided East and West Germany, Democracy and Communism. It was erected in the middle of the night, August 13th. Berliners woke up to a wall of barbed wire and concrete posts over a hundred miles long. People that worked in the west could no longer commute to their jobs. The wall was later modified to Concrete blocks topped with barbed wire.
Contractors and armed forces constructed it over night the night of August 13th and nothing would remain the same for the german people until it was dismantled. Relatives, lovers, friends were unable to cross to the other side. Phone lines were cut between East and West, allowing no contact. It was shocking, it was bizarre.
The Wall concert is a celebartion of the physical wall tumbling, and also of the walls we build up as human against each other. Child, parent, Man, Woman, Doctors, patient, student, Teacher the different expectations we have of each other and how very wrong that is as we are all the same underneath. we all have our "Walls" put in place to protect from harm, feelings, pride. And how they are all silly in the end.
Roger Waters made a masterpiece when he wrote "The Wall. When asked if he would ever perform it again he had stated at first, a definit, no and then said, if the berlin wall comes down, then maybe. Little was he to know that ten years later "The Berlin Wall" would come down. He was also asked if he was tryng to up stage the Pink Floyd band, he had left. His answer was once agian. No.
His guitar notes echo and sing with pleasure and hatred. Sinead O'connors rendition of Mother is haunting and poignant. She smiles shyly at the applause as she begins to sing, dressed simply in purple sweatshirt and pants. Her head is shaven and you tend to concentrate on the words and the music.
Gerlad Scarfe's cartoons on a screen in the background, show desire and creation, fecundity and sweetness, Teacher and student. Every twisting turning facet of Human narure at its best and worst. Sacredness and profanity intertwine in beauty and sex, stamens of plants that come alive and devour. Wicked images of strength and weakness. It is horrifying and tragic and tells in pictures the whole gamut of human emotion. It is brilliant.
Van Morrison wears a coat, swamping his big body, but his voice is powerful as he sings "Comfortably Numb, which shows how easily we can be duped by Doctors, to feel better with just a "Little Prick" from an needle full of speed or heroin. How we used to blindly accept the things authority figures said and did. We no longer just accept what others tell us as people. we search, we investiagte and often find the simple answers are the best.
When Paul Carrck turns his back to the wall and sings "Hey You" the hairs on the back of your neck will stand up, its goose flesh music at its very best. I'm not a lover of Cindi Laupers music, normally, but when she does her cheeky rendition of the Wall I am rapt. It's both powerful and true. Bryan Adams was there as was the Band, Thomas Dolby plays the dreaded Shool Teacher, Jerry Hall is there. It is incredible.
"The production was huge and trouble filled, erected at Potzdammer Platz which was a 26 acre wasteland. The "bricks" for the wall were a huge problem, an engineers nightmare as they had to stay firm and not be flimsy. They tried cardboard boxes at first and they were too flimsy. In the end they were constructed from a type of polystyrene blocks that had to be tied back at ceratin levels.
