Also a Putin apologist and a lying, thieving, hypocritical, tax-avoiding, lip-synching, misogynistic, sick-with-envy, megalomaniac. Last month, former Floyd guitarist David Gilmour and his wife, the novelist Polly Samson, tweeted their frustration with absolutely no reserve: “Sadly Roger Waters, you are antisemitic to your rotten core. I revisited “Dark Side” the other day, having not heard it in a while, and it remains a wonderful and intriguing album all the way to its soaring final track, “Eclipse,” distinguished by the vocals of the backing trio of Lesley Duncan, Liza Strike and Doris Troy (for my money, the album’s greatest moment.) At the same time, Waters’s persistent baiting of the Jewish community over more than a decade, always followed by the protestation that calling him “antisemitic” is a “smear,” has made it impossible for me-and I suspect others-to make a neat separation between Waters the artist and Waters the activist, and to listen to his musical offerings while ignoring his political interventions.Ĭertainly, many of those who know him personally are finding that task even harder. “When ‘Dark Side’ appeared, all that was far in the future.” “Decades later, Waters would go on to spout cranky, conspiracy-minded, pro-Russia political statements that many former fans abhorred,” The New York Times’s Jon Pareles observed in a recent review. Moreover, 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the release of “Dark Side of the Moon,” probably Floyd’s most influential and best-known album. What is being billed as a “first farewell tour” (implying there will be a second farewell and perhaps a third) has been designed to convince fans that they may not get another opportunity to see Waters in person. These days, the question is less about where and when Waters will play, and more about whether he will be permitted to play at all. Now 79, Waters is embarking on his “This Is Not a Drill 2023” tour in dramatically different circumstances, widely reviled in Germany and other countries for his constant spouting of antisemitic conspiracy theories his detestation of the State of Israel and his knuckleheaded apologia of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. How differently things look a little more than 30 years later. As the gig came to a close with the collapse of the giant wall backdrop behind the singer that was accompanied by the words “tear down the wall,” the crowd erupted in appreciation, handing Waters yet another iconic rock-star moment. In July 1990, a few months after the razing of the Berlin Wall, the former Pink Floyd frontman performed the group’s 1979 album “The Wall” on the Potsdamer Platz in the newly reunified city. ( JNS) Once upon a time, Roger Waters was a hero in Germany. These days, the question is less about where and when he will play, and more about whether he will be permitted to play at all.
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