Last night, Pink Floyd founder and 12-12-12 star Roger Waters braved The Daily Show despite having “a little bit of the bubonics,” as Jon Stewart chose to word it. While the English gentleman was clearly under the weather, he was sharper than ever, quick with the quips, and possessing just a little bit of that fuck-the-man vitriol that’s kept his old band’s old work a simmering concern for decades now.
To wit, Waters has been touring Pink Floyd’s towering 1979 concept album The Wall for a few years and plans to take his band to Europe this summer (“I think I may have squeezed North and South America dry,” he joked). When asked how he keeps the material fresh for himself, Waters had his answer ready: “The version of The Wall that I’m doing now differs from the one that I did with Pink Floyd in 1979, ’80 in that it is far more universal in its message. It’s no longer about that miserable, self-serving, sniveling, nasty little Roger that we all hated all these years ago.”
He goes on to explain that “it’s more about … rebellion that is trying to understand the world and, if possible, help people occasionally.” In addition to the Hurricane Sandy relief concert, Waters helped bring together and lead a band of wounded Iraq and Afghanistan veterans for November’s Stand Up for Heroes benefit event at the Beacon Theatre in New York. Stewart was on hand for both events.
Roger Waters and the veterans perform at Stand Up New York:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Yr-kZvIoCVc
