Roger Waters says The Wall was still being put together ‘up until the first night’ of the tour

A tour promoting The Wall was being put together “up until the first night” of the show, according to bassist Roger Waters.

Pink Floyd fans consider The Wall to be one of the best-ever releases from the group and a masterpiece from Waters. The album, the bassist says, was inspired by his disdain for the stadium shows the band had carried out in 1987. The Wall marks a response to the hatred of those moments on tour and incorporates moments of personal dismay from Waters. But a tour promoting the double album was being pieced together as late as the first night of the kick-off show. Animated additions to the show and several moving parts were being put together late into the night before the start of The Wall tour, with Waters confirming the finished project left his “heart beating furiously”.

The stress of the tour is no surprise given the ambition of the album and Waters’ writing. He told Q Magazine the tour was a mighty task which very nearly fell to pieces. He said: “I put it together with Gerry Scarfe, who designed all the puppets and made the animation with me, and of course with Mark Fisher and Jonathan Park, who did all the detailed design work of the set.

“They designed the brick; they built the wall; they designed the man lifts that went up and down at the back so that people could actually build the thing. Mark designed the way it fell over, and Jonathan did all the engineering. Gerry’s puppets and animation were half of the show.

“We were all working furiously up until the first night. And the first time we had the wall up across the arena with some film on it was four days before the first show. I went and walked all the way around the top row of seats at the back of the arena.

“And my heart was beating furiously and I was getting shivers right up and down my spine. And I thought it was so fantastic that people could actually see and hear something from everywhere they were seated.”

Thankfully, Waters and the group pulled it off in time for the first show of the tour. The first show of the tour, performed on February 7, 1980, took place at the Los Angeles Sports Centre. A total of twenty-eight songs were performed across two sets which featured only songs from The Wall. A full setlist can be found below.

• In the Flesh?
• The Thin Ice
• Another Brick in the Wall, Part 1
• The Happiest Days of Our Lives
• Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2
• Mother
• Goodbye Blue Sky
• Empty Spaces
• What shall We Do Now?
• Young Lust
• One of My Turns
• Don’t Leave Me Now
• Another Brick in the Wall, Part 3
• The Last Few Bricks
• Goodbye Cruel World
• Hey You
• Is There Anybody Out There?
• Nobody Home
• Vera
• Bring the Boys Back Home
• Comfortably Numb
• The Show Must Go On
• In the Flesh
• Run Like Hell
• Waiting for the Worms
• Stop
• The Trial
• Outside the Wall