From there, they trot out the best of the post-Waters material, with four songs from the Division Bell and two from A Momentary Lapse Of Reason. I probably appreciate the Division Bell material more than most long time Floyd fans, but these performances mostly just created a high sense of anticipation for what was soon to follow. The end of the first set gives you a sneak peek of exactly that, starting with a loose, highly improvised version of "Another Brick In the Wall", followed by their ferocious instrumental classic "One Of These Days", from 1971's Meddle album. Watching two giant inflatable pigs squealing in delight as Gilmour tears through this brilliant slide guitar masterpiece made it the obvious highlight of the first set. Too bad the editor couldn't add the footage of the pigs actually jumping down to the ground.

After the first intermission, the stage darkens to reveal a huge heartbeat pulse flickering across the giant circular screen. This, of course, triggers the beginning of The Dark Side Of The Moon's opening track "Speak To Me". After a haunting performance of "Breath" things really heat up, literally, as "On The Run" ends with a burning airplane flying across the entire length of the arena until it crashes and explodes into a giant fireball at the front corner of the stadium. Oh, it only gets better.

The famous orgasmic female vocals on "The Great Gig in the Sky" were performed stunningly by Sam Brown, but when she handed off the ending part to the other two backup singers they failed to sustain the same electricity. "Money" featured a cool soulful/blues breakdown in the middle, before ending with another phenomenal Gilmour guitar solo. The set came to an end with a dazzling light display that signaled the end of "Eclipse", which brilliantly concluded The Dark Side Of The Moon.

After a second intermission, the recorded intro to "Wish You Were Here" fills the arena, before a spotlight eventually shines on Gilmour as he fingers the opening chords to this timeless classic. It was as beautiful as I've ever heard it. This leads to what I was especially anxious to see on DVD, since it is one of my favorite songs of all time, "Comfortably Numb". The performance was plenty awesome, but the stage show now goes from merely astonishing to downright mind-blowing. During Gilmour's second guitar solo, the huge circular screen/lighting rig begins to rotate down, horizontally, over the stage, and by the end of the song the giant mirror ball that had been reflecting a dozen spotlights all over the stadium, slowly peels open like some monstrous alien spaceship — and that was just child's play compared to the light show during the finale of "Run Like Hell".

Article Author: Paul Roy

Paul Roy is a network administrator by day and amateur music DVD critic by night. When not attending as many live concerts as he possibly can, Paul likes nothing more than to kick back with a good concert DVD and rattle some walls. …

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