Roger Waters brought his “This is Not a Drill” tour to San Francisco’s Chase Center for two nights of Pink Floyd classics and solo highlights from the 79 year old’s decades of music. With the tour having been delayed for nearly two years it was no surprise that the San Francisco crowd was lined up outside waiting for doors to open in anticipation of an epic evening of music to follow.
Not one to shy away from politics, Waters preempted the inevitable whining before the show even started, suggesting by way of a public announcement that anyone that considers themselves a fan of his music but not his politics “might do well to f*** off to the bar right now.”
As the show kicked off promptly at 8:30 pm with “Comfortably Numb” it was admittedly difficult for the audience to grasp the stage. Set up in the round and shaped like a cross, the entire stage was segmented into four sections divided by a 12-sided cross-shaped screen. Different points of the arena could only see certain band members and Roger himself was no where to be seen. As the band launched into “The Happiest Days of Our Lives” the massive screen raised above the stage revealing Roger and his band in its entirety; suddenly it all made sense.
Split into two sets with an intermission between, the first act was a walk down memory lane for Waters with anecdotes around the setlist and his personal history narrated on the big screen and providing a unique way to provide context to the music without burning a bunch of time for between-song chatter.
The sound was absolutely mind-bending, seemingly set up for a surround experience on an incredibly massive scale—a feat hard to imagine being accomplished so well in a venue the size of an arena. Ushered in by the sound of “bahs” coming from all around, the first act ended with “Sheep” as a remote-controlled inflatable sheep danced just above the heads up the 100s section.
While the first half of the show was a trip down memory lane, the second half of the show brought politics to the forefront. Act two was ushered in by a giant inflatable pig with “f*** the poor” emblazoned on one side and “steal from the poor, give to the rich” on the other side as Waters took to the stage in a black leather trench coat and flanked by two soldiers for “In the Flesh” and “Run Like Hell,” the latter’s ending which punctuated by a blast of machine gun fire from Roger himself. After a rant on the war in Ukraine, it was clear based on the looks on some of the faces in the arena that a select few were at that point considering Rogers’ pre-show advice and wondering where the closest bar was.
A trio of Dark Side of the Moon tunes (“Money,” “Us and Them,” and “Brain Damage”) saw the giant screens lower slightly as lasers fired off to form a series of triangles, creating a 3D effect with the imagery from the classic album cover.
Allegedly “This is Not a Drill” is Waters’ first farewell tour which, with his legacy firmly cemented in rock and rock history, you can’t really fault the guy for eventually hanging up the mic. But after Friday night’s concert, it’s clear that Roger still has a lot to say.
