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It was 29 years ago today that I saw Pink Floyd perform their huge album The Wall at Nassau Coliseum. It was one of the best concerts of my life. This video has poor quality, but the performance and scenery are evident. Like most people, many of my top ten shows were in the first few years of seeing concerts. It’s hard to replace or improve on those indelible nights. The fact is, I have been to hundreds of concerts, but have never seen anything like this since.
Pink Floyd performing “Mother” live at Nassau Coliseum, February 1980
I chose “Mother” because my Mom was so instrumental in me seeing this show. Here is how it all went down: the morning the tickets went on sale, it was announced on WNEW that a special phone number would tell which Ticketron (since re-named Ticketmaster, then Ticketbastard) outlets would carry the tickets, because it wouldn’t be all locations. After repeatedly DIALING the phone, I got through the busy signal and heard that my local Ticketron was on the list. Since my mom wouldn’t let me cut school in order to get Pink Floyd tickets, and I was relentless, she got on line and bought the tickets while I went to school.
Around third period, kids started returning to school waving their tickets around. I had a stressful rest of the day (no cell phone, no text, etc.), but when I got home after school, it turned out that my mother had helped “build the Wall” big time: with tickets running out, she bought four separate seats which put me and my buddies on the floor of Nassau Coliseum, in about the thirtieth row.
My stub from The Wall at Nassau Coliseum. Note the exorbitant $15 price!
As mentioned above, and by many other folks since, The Wall was a spectacle like no other. Four massive speakers at 90 degree intervals around the top of the building created quadraphonic sound that was particularly evident during the speaking parts of the album: “If you don’t eat your meat, you can’t have any pudding, etc.” The band had a duplicate set of musicians to help them deliver the music with arena-sized oomph.
A few memories of the show include David Gilmour appearing on top of the wall during the “Comfortably Numb” solo as Waters sang to the filled in wall, “Pink” watching the Lake Placid Olympics on tv during “Nobody Home,” scary plants having sex during “Empty Spaces”…so many highlights. I remember most every song vividly. I look forward to reading the wiki entry and perusing that old white album cover a bit more myself today.
If you want to read more about The Wall, this site hits most of the major points. Artist Gerald Scarfe‘s home page is interesting too as is this great BBC interview with the man himself.
