The classic Pink Floyd song “Us and Them” is about the haves versus the have-nots and for this tour Cleveland is a have-not as he is playing all around us in Detroit, Columbus and Pittsburgh but no stop in the Rock And Roll Capital.
Ticket go on sale next week for his 2017 Us + Them tour of North American arenas. It’s his first tour not themed around a specific Pink Floyd album since the early 2000s, and follows a few years on the heels of his three-year Wall trek, which went down as the most successful tour by a solo artist in touring history.
Waters says this tour will be about an 80/20 split of Pink Floyd songs and solo material. Waters says. “You know, if people are going to come see me in arenas or stadiums from Shreveport, Louisiana to Shanghai, China, and if I want them to listen carefully to what I have to say, and I do, I think it is absolutely essential that I give them a lot of songs that they recognize. And the fact is, because, whether it’s new material or from my solo career from Amused to Death or Radio KAOS or Pros and Cons (of Hitchhiking) or whether it’s anything from the records that I did in Pink Floyd, there is a general thread running through it. My basic ethos and philosophy hasn’t changed at all over the years. So it doesn’t matter which bits of my career the songs come from. They’re still me telling my truth.”
And what truth will that be? “The new show’s going to be called ‘Us + Them’ because it’s really specifically about the line from this 1973 song ‘Us and Them’ that goes ‘With, without/And who’ll deny that’s what the fighting’s all about.’ Because the main message that I have to propagate, if I can, is embodied in the (concept) that the idea of perpetual war, which has been embraced by the neocons particularly in the United States of America, is an entirely wrong way for the human race to live… There’s a different way of organizing the human race that is better than this way. This way is driven by the greed of the few. There is so much money to be made out of killing people, and incarcerating people as well, that it’s a good model for people who are emotionally dead — like Donald Trump, for instance.”
Waters says that although the upcoming album — due to be his first rock studio album since 1992’s Amused to Death — is still well short of completion, he expects to have it in fans’ hands before the tour begins in May. He’s been working in L.A. with producer Nigel Godrich, of Radiohead collaborating fame.
Waters’ “Us + Them” 2017 North American dates are listed at Roger-Waters.com
