Roger Waters "The Wall Live" Tour, Brazil 2012

25 March 2012

Whou would have thought that I would have the opportunity to go to a world famous rock concert in Brazil?  Thanks to the generosity of one of my Brazilian friends, I was able to do just that and see the Roger Waters "The Wall Live" tour in Porto Alegre.  Since the first concert I ever attended was Pink Floyd after Roger Waters had left the band, this was like completing something unfinished.  As far as putting on an amazing show, these were without a doubt the best I've attended, especially in terms of visuals and special effects.

It was held in a soccer stadium called "Beira Rio" in Porto Alegre, far and away the largest venue I've ever attended.  The fuzzy object in the background was supposed to be the airplane in the next picture.

The airplane was part of the special effects of the show and runs down on a wire to explode behind the wall.

The "line" to get into the stadium was not organized in any way - it seemed to be done by word of mouth, everyone asking everyone else which line was which, resulting in chaos and frustration.

When the "line" finally got moving, the lines merged again into a sort of mob and reformed, with may people jumping the line, which was quite frustrating.  Here we are within sight of the sign indicating the start of the three types of lines, which was the only organization outside the stadium.

We had to wait in line again to get through a security checkpoint - finally here we are walking up the ramp to the stadium.  Above is the flag of the soccer team, and in the back is a smaller covered arena used for other sports.

Looking down, you can see the people taking up one lane of the street in the mob/line.  It doesn't look like many people, but they must have arrived gradually because in the end it took five hours to get everyone inside the stadium and the concert started about an hour late because of it.

Finally inside!  The white thing in front of the stage is The Wall, made of styrofoam bricks about a meter wide.  It was used as a projection screen throughout the concert to amazing effect, and as the concert went on they added bricks one by one until it was completely obscuring the band behind it.

The plane was almost directly above where we sat.

There are sellers of candy, snacks, water, soda and beer circulating throughout the show, which surprised me.  I guess in a stadium this size it is best not to have everyone going up and down to the snack bar, although this was also an option.

Popcorn, both salty and caramelized.  Yum.

Sunset, and still you can see that the stadium isn't full yet.

Now it's nearly time for the show and the floor of the stadium is quite packed.  There were no floor seats, it was standing only.

We were asked not to use flash photography once the lights went down, so the rest is on video.  Sadly, you can see just how many people cannot follow instructions, as camera flashes were going off constantly throughout the show.

Having massive problems with my video editing software, so I'm going to go ahead and publish this post and hope I can get it sorted out later.

[VIDEO HERE]

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