Remember When: Roger Waters Recruited an All-Star Cast to Restage ‘The Wall’ in Berlin

Roger Waters devised the Pink Floyd concept album The Wall as a kind of allegory about the barriers that unnecessarily separate us. When he returned to a live performance of the album a decade after he first tackled it with his former band, he did so to commemorate the falling of an actual physical wall.

In 1990, Waters called upon some of the biggest musical names of the time to stage a performance of The Wall in Berlin at the site where the Berlin Wall had ominously stood not that long before. Here’s the story of how this unique performance came to be.

Never Say Never

Pink Floyd released the double album The Wall in 1979, following it up with a series of high-profile, thoroughly produced live performances and eventually a movie. Considering the years spent putting all of that together, and the animosity that had grown between Waters and the rest of Pink Floyd after he left the band in the mid-’80s, it was understandable when he often said he’d only perform the album again if the Berlin Wall fell.

As fate would have it, he lived up to his promise. Technically, Waters was already discussing a potential performance of the album to benefit a charity for disaster relief that was started by a famous WWII veteran. Having lost his father in World War II, an event that figures prominently in the story of The Wall, Waters was moved to reconsider his earlier reluctance.

When the Berlin Wall actually did come down in 1989, it was as if the stars had aligned. Waters agreed to put on a performance in an area near Potsdamer Platz where the wall had once stood. Since this was an era marked by all-star concerts, it made sense for him to bring in as many luminaries as possible to help him bring it all to life.

Lots of Stars, but No Floyds

Waters had to sweat out the lineup for the show, as it was in flux almost right up to the minute of the show on July 21, 1990, which was being broadcast in markets worldwide. Many of the artists were playing a game of chicken, waiting to see which of their peers would commit before eventually agreeing themselves.

Nonetheless, the lineup that assembled was quite impressive, even by the standards of all-star shows of the time. Highlights included Van Morrison (with members of The Band in support) adding a little bit of Irish soul to “Comfortably Numb,” and Cyndi Lauper bellowing her way through “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2).” The symbolic combination of a German orchestra and a Soviet marching band brought pomp and majesty to “Bring the Boys Back Home,” while the album-summarizing piece “The Trial” was rendered by a troupe that included Marianne Faithfull, Tim Curry, and Albert Finney.

Three guys who weren’t at The Wall: Live in Berlin, as the show was labelled: David Gilmour, Rick Wright, and Nick Mason, aka Pink Floyd. There were conflicting reports about whether Waters had engaged in his own bit of détente and invited his former bandmates, although he denied it after the fact. In any case, the show was deemed by most critics and fans to be a ringing success, even without their participation.

The Aftermath

With a successful album and video releases of the show that came on the heels of the performance, The Wall: Live in Berlin helped to restore Waters’ status to some extent when it came to competing with Floyd. His solo career had been a bit bumpy, but the Berlin performance reminded people he was the guy behind the concepts of that ultra-successful band.

The show also seemed to rekindle Waters’ interest in the entire Wall spectacle. In 2010, he would embark on a multiyear tour of the show, bringing it to audiences around the world who never had the chance to see it the first time around. He even enlisted David Gilmour to perform at a show in London in 2011, during which Gilmour took his traditional spot atop the wall for his majestic solo on “Comfortably Numb.” (Nick Mason also took part in that show.)

As a recorded artifact, The Wall: Live in Berlin yields some fun interpretations of well-worn material, while also making us miss anew some of the performers no longer with us (Rick Danko and Levon Helm of The Band, Sinead O’Connor, Albert Finney). In terms of its historical impact, it helped establish The Wall as an ever-relevant piece of music that’s worthy of being restaged again and again, instead of just a classic rock relic.

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