The Wall

Nobody really expected the Berlin Wall to come down in 1989, and so suddenly. Roger Waters especially, because he had once made a promise never to perform The Wall again after the 1980 tour until the bricks fell in Berlin. But they did, and Waters had no intention to renege on his promise. The Wall became a star-studded megaconcert to benefit the Memorial Fund for Disaster Relief, with larger bricks, bigger inflatable puppets, and a larger audience than any of the original Pink Floyd shows. There was always a contradiction in performing such a personal work in a stadium setting, but here it becomes especially acute when opening up the vocal tasks to a variety of artists.

"The Wall" had a profound effect on musicians of many generations. This 2CD set finds Another Brick in the Wall; Hey You; Is There Anybody Out There; Comfortably Numb; In the Flesh; Run Like Hell , and the rest of Pink Floyd's masterpiece played by Adrian Belew, John Wetton, Rick Wakeman, Robby Krieger, Keith Emerson, Chris Squire, Geoff Downes, Elliot Easton, Steve Howe, Fee Waybill, Ian Anderson and many, many more!

Skillfully edited together from the handful of Wall shows Floyd performed between 1980 and 1981 (much of the recordings date from shows at Earl's Court in London), Is There Anybody out There? replicates The Wall live – which, of course, was a replication of the record, only with spectacular visuals. There are two songs not on the studio album – "What Shall We Do Now?," a tune pulled from the record at the 11th hour (early pressings still listed it on the sleeve), plus "The Last Few Bricks," which was an instrumental at the end of the first act that gave the crew time to finish building the wall – but they add nothing to the overall piece. There are no revelations at all, actually, with the possible exception of the layered harmonies on "Outside the Wall," which makes this coda seem like a full-fledged song. Since the show was so rigidly structured, there was little opportunity for the band to stretch out and jam. All of this means that Is There Anybody out There? is The Wall by any other name, and that it isn't for anybody but Floyd fanatics. Will this disappoint the less-dedicated listener? Not necessarily, since anybody familiar with The Wall will likely enjoy it as it's playing. The question is, how often will you put the record on? After all, if you want to hear this music, you'll listen to the studio recording. That doesn't really diminish the worth of Is There Anybody out There?, but it hardly makes it necessary, either. – Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine