Roger Waters In the Flesh

In the Flesh - full concert

  Todays blog features a favorite of mine, Roger Waters "In the Flesh" tour video from 2000. I actually saw this tour and it was amazing. 

For those that didn't know, Roger Waters was the bassist and main songwriter for Pink Floyd. The DVD was filmed live at the Rose Garden in Portland, Oregon back in June 2000. It is a 3 hour long concert and covers all of the Floyd classics such as Time, Comfortably Numb, Wish You Were Here, Money, Dogs, and many more. It also features a "best of" of Rogers solo work. It comes with a 30 minute long documentary on preparing for the tour, one of the few DVD side documentaries worth watching. Other than that, it's kind of a no-frills deal, as are most concert DVDs.

Most notably in my opinion and the reason I'm blogging about this dvd today is the guitar playing of Doyle Bramhall II. Not only is he a left handed guitar player, but he doesn't reverse the strings for left handed playing. That means he's literally playing upside down with the low strings on the bottom and the high strings on the top.  

  As this quote from Bramhall himself says, playing left handed and upside down presents its own challenges when it comes to playing, transposing and music theory.

I play by ear, so it could be the same and have no challenges for me. However, the different challenges for me are chords and transposing chords, because there are no instructions or music books out there for the positioning of the fingers for a left-handed, upside-down player. All the theory and technique doesn't apply to me because I would have to transpose it completely, as opposed to if I strung left-handed. Then all the finger positions on the first, second, third, fourth, fifth fret would all be the same. But for me, it's useless. - Doyle Bramhall II


However, I think Bramhall does a nice job of playing both staying true to the original Pink Floyd guitar style while at the same time bringing his own style of playing and making the songs his own. Its a fine balancing act to do that correctly and I think he pulls it off. 

Here is the setlist of the dvd

01. In The Flesh 
02. The Happiest Days Of Our Lives 
03. Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2) 
04. Mother
05. Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert 
06. Southampton Dock 
07. Pigs On The Wing (Part 1) 
08. Dogs 
09. Welcome To The Machine 
10. Wish You Were Here 
11. Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts 1-8) 
12. Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun 
13. Breathe 
14. Time 
15. Money 
16. Pros & Cons Of Hitch Hiking Part 11
17. Perfect Sense (Parts 1 & 2) 
18. The Bravery Of Being Out Of Range 
19. It's A Miracle 
20. Amused To Death 
21. Brain Damage 
22. Eclipse 
23. Comfortably Numb 
24. Each Small Candle 

  Sure Roger Waters solo career has some questionable tunes and they're definitely not the highlight of the dvd. But guitar players will like this dvd for the unique playing of Doyle Bramhall II. Pink Floyd fans will like the song selection from such underrated albums like Animals (a real guitar players album in my opinion).  Enjoy.

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