Pink Floyd
Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live 1980 - 81

"Is There Anybody Out There?" A name, a promise of the content of the box set. In fact, after 20 years of waiting (in the second anniversary of the fateful Pink Floyd tour following the release of the album "The Wall"), this album hit the stores, satisfying the curiosity to listen to the music played by the band during that historic tour.

But "Is There Anybody Out There?" is also a question that was certainly worth asking during those concerts, since the band played almost hidden behind a wall (which was constructed piece by piece) for half of the show; however, this was complemented by brilliant stage antics that enabled the band not to be completely isolated from the audience.

As for the album I am reviewing, it is the (almost) exact live rendition of the historic "The Wall" from 1979 which, as everyone knows, is downright sacrilege to simply define as rock. In fact, on the album, you can find rock pieces with hard, dark, and violent atmospheres (also thanks to the lyrics of the "ruthless" Roger Waters), intimate pieces with piano and orchestra, and other almost entirely acoustic ones.

Symphonic elements and electric surges characterize the 1979 album, and they are absolutely not lost in their live performance... on the contrary, at times some songs turn out to be more incisive and vigorous than the studio version, they almost seem to take shape and develop thanks to the much more "free" nature that a live show offers, as opposed to that of a "concept album" which requires more restraint in executions to not lose sight of the thematic aspect of the story narrated in albums like "The Wall".

That's why pieces like "Mother", "Comfortably Numb", "The Show Must Go On" and "Run Like Hell" have extended solos and others take the space they didn't have on vinyl; this is the case with "What Shall We Do Now?" (which was supposed to find a place in "The Wall" but ended up only on "The Wall Movie"). The only novelty is "The Last Few Bricks", a medley that was performed live to give the "bricklayers" time to complete the construction before the "intermission", a twenty-minute break that divided the first and the second part of every show. Some songs, however, sound different from the original, as in the case of "Outside The Wall" or "Bring The Boys Back Home", without losing beauty and depth. Also because, generally, in concept albums, it's not that you can talk about good or bad pieces; maybe there are pieces that you like more and others less, but everything is still put there for a reason...

However, it's certain that this is not the best Pink Floyd live album, nor the cleanest; indeed, I hear frankly annoying background noises in pieces like "Mother" at the point where David sings, or "Goodbye Blue Sky" or "Comfortably Numb", which are none other than the normal technical defects of the concert itself, which in live albums like "Pulse" would have been blasphemous! In some points, you can even hear when the microphones are turned on (!), which largely suggests three things: 1) The live album, being a commercial venture nevertheless, might not have been directly desired by the Floyd; 2) Being a puzzle of various concerts from the 1980 - 81 tour, it could have been edited a bit better at some of the points mentioned, choosing the "cleaner" performances from other concerts; 3) Being taken from old recordings, it would have been impossible to make overdubs or corrections in the studio, and thus everything was left as it was.

But let it be clear, these are certainly not demerit notes! This live album is still excellent, and certainly better highlights the talents of each musician than "The Wall" does... But perhaps much of the allure of this double album (remarkable artwork too!) lies precisely in this: in a period of maximum division and discord, the four members of the group performed concerts where all four of them were present, all on the same level, all making themselves heard, a band that seemed united...

Also in these contradictions lies the allure of a group like Pink Floyd...