Roger Waters in Lima: aesthetic superiority and a brave political manifesto in one of the concerts of the year | CHRONICLE

A father and son sit in the seats at the National Stadium. There is no indication for the child, except for an index finger that points while he watches and nods, convinced that what his old man is telling him is true. In those thirteen or fourteen years that he appears to be, the child does not know it, but he has just built a memory that perhaps, at thirty-five or forty, will make him cry. There’s no more. Or if. There are thousands of people, more than twenty thousand, if the mathematics does not betray, but they only have each other: the father who guides, the son who accepts. There is no phone, no selfie, there is only a moment, a mental portrait, an expectation for that music that stirs stomachs and restless spirits and crosses generations. There they are, father and son. In front: Roger Waters.

This was not just any concert. He was the last one and people believe him. Included in the eighty years that the co-founder of Pink Floyd is today, it was in the sixties, returning from Cambridge to London with his friend Syd Barret (the other co-founder) that they decided to honestly embrace – an extremely difficult undertaking although no one realizes – the decision that would change their lives, the lives of millions around the world and the history of music. In ‘This is not drill’ that little story broke out in Spanish on an imposing and cinematic stage, while “Wish you were here” played as a tribute and as an emotional bomb for those who, on the field and in the stands, hugged each other, looked at the sky, They accompanied the melody with their arms outstretched or simply thought and thought without stopping listening. And the story that was told on screens continued: “At the time of ‘Wish you were here’ my marriage was going badly, so I was a little emotionally unstable. One night dining at the cantina on Abby Road, I almost got lost. It was like looking in the wrong direction. I was eating sausage, eggs and beans with a fork held in tiny hands, on a tiny table, with a tiny band. “I’m having a nervous breakdown,” reads a very honest and brave retrospective.

While that was happening, some tears could be seen in the stands, some reflection was spread between Javi, Enzo and Carlos, three friends of which two were seeing Waters for the first time and had been impressed by the staging and sound quality of the show: “I was impressed by the totally clear sound. The instruments could even be heard separately and it was a spectacular show,” says Carlos, who had already seen it in Lima and who has also visited some countries to see bands like Pearl Jam or Bad Religion.

The concert had a calm start with a cover of “Comfortably Numb”, from the album “The Wall”, whose new arrangement included organ but not just guitar. However, and surprising even those who had an idea of ​​the setlist, the second song was “Another brick in the wall”, an anthem of intergenerational rebellion. The bass, the new arrangements and the support of Jonathan Wilson and Dave Kilminster on guitars lifted the National like not so many times. Everything was planned so that that father and that son, those friends who continued to strengthen the bond and Melodía Cáceres, a communicator who was in the north stand and who bought her ticket since March “because I knew Pink Floyd and classic rock through me Dad”, consider your ticket well paid.

Waters, the protester

Innocence would be in going to a Roger Waters concert and being surprised by visceral activism, an unwavering commitment to the causes of oppressed groups, and a fierce fight against a system that perpetuates inequality. “This is not a drill” is an artifact designed to sharpen the senses of those in the stadium (because it is a show designed for great giants) and thus achieve that immersive and complicit experience that Waters and his musicians They have been promoting since before July 6, 2022 when the tour began in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Yes, a year and a half of touring with eight decades in the backpack.

José Carlos Matiátegui said in “The Artist and the Era” that “The bourgeoisie wants from the artist an art that courts and flatters their mediocre taste. In any case, it wants an art consecrated by its experts and appraisers”, and although there will be detractors, there are also those who highlight the timeless value of the quote, becoming aware of a liquid and superficial postmodernity. Waters, of course, represents the complete opposite: combat and frontality, excess and, some would say, a certain contradiction. Who doesn’t have it, of course. The concert, with a sound polished and worked down to the millimeter, had the same structure that was presented, for example, in Argentina and Chile. And although in these countries images also appeared of a large handful of American presidents being branded “war criminals” (Reagan, Nixon, Clinton, Bush and even the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Barack Obama) while playing a reinvention on the piano of “The bravery of being out of range”, it is when interpreting “The powers that be” where Waters does not skimp on the denunciation against murdered protesters in Peru, against violence against women in Middle Eastern countries or honoring the memory of the singer-songwriter Chilean Víctor Jara (at the concert in Chile) victim of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

Then, it was not until “Sheep”, while a giant sheep floated plastically over the heads of the audience, when the musician, a rock hall of famer since 1996, would immerse himself in the most dystopian and corporatist concepts of a non-existent future. so encouraging imagined by writers like George Orwell (1984, Animal Farm) and Aldous Huxley (Brave New World) where the majority would live among authoritarianisms or, failing that, dictatorships of consumption and pleasure. It was there when the red lights with the black background of the stage allowed us to see different messages: “Resist capitalism”, “Resist fascism” and against any type of war or oppression. The fascinating thing about this is that it does not end up being pamphletary art that uses its content in a Manichean way just to traffic something: Waters goes straight and if you don’t like it or allow yourself to disagree with the silver-haired Englishman, you can pay attention to the message at the beginning : “If you’re one of those who say, ‘I love Pink Floyd, but I can’t stand Roger’s politics, you’d do well to fuck off and go to the bar right now.’”

Waters came from controversies in Argentina and Uruguay. In the first country, the DAIA (Delegation of Argentine Israeli Associations) presented an injunction with a request to suspend the British musician’s concerts, accusing him of being anti-Semitic due to his clear stance against the State of Israel. “Only one person in the world knows whether Roger Waters is an anti-Semite or not. And that person is Roger Waters. I know very well what I feel in my heart and I have not had a single anti-Semitic thought in my entire life. What I condemn is what the Israeli government does and I will continue to condemn it because it is wrong. It is not the war against me that matters to me, but the carnage of brothers and sisters in Gaza,” he declared. However, Waters has always rejected these powers. His detractors accuse him of not being consistent in condemning Israel and doing the same with Hamas. Dialectical games with dead ends.

In a show full of nostalgia, imposing and extremely professional, Waters said goodbye with “Outside the Wall”, and then introduced and thanked his musicians one by one. Maybe it was his last time in Lima, who knows, but as it had to be, he left his mark.