Roger Waters says he had “no idea” what he was going to say to the Live 8 crowd during Pink Floyd‘s performance.
The bassist says he came up with the words on the spot, though did inform his bandmates he would say something to the crowd. What Waters would say was a mystery right until the time of the performance, with the founding member confirming he simply “didn’t know” what to say. It would be the last time Pink Floyd members Waters, David Gilmour, Richard Wright, and Nick Mason performed together. Wright would die in 2008, and given the war of words between Waters and Gilmour, another show like their Live 8 performance is highly unlikely. But in interviews given after the performance, Waters would speak fondly of both his bandmates and hoped for the chance to play with Pink Floyd again. They never would, but it seems Waters was keen to find a worthy cause for the band again.
Given the importance of the event, Waters felt the need to say something to the crowd. Waters had left Pink Floyd in 1985, though Gilmour would front the band for another nine years, releasing two albums without the bassist.
Waters, in an interview with Word Magazine, says he felt inclined to speak to the crowd, though had no idea what he was going to say until he got up on stage. He said: “Yes, I had but I didn’t know what I was going to say ‘cos I hate preparing things. But I’d told Dave I was going to say something while Tim Renwick was playing the introduction to Wish You Were Here.”
Waters would tell the crowd: “It’s actually quite emotional standing up here with these three guys after all these years. Standing to be counted with the rest of you. Anyway, we’re doing this for everyone who’s not here. Particularly for Syd [Barrett] of course.”
The bassist was full of praise for the band’s performance afterwards. He would heap praise onto Gilmour’s singing and hoped the band would do something together in the future, though this did not come to be. He said: “Just pleased.
“I just felt pleasure, playing the music, and hearing Rick playing his great keyboard parts which of course we know and love so much from the records. It felt good. I thought Nick played great. I thought everybody played great. Dave sang beautifully. It was a great feeling.”
The performance was so great in fact, that Waters suggested it was a moment which rekindled his love for playing to larger crowds. He added: “We have holes in our psychology and performing in front of large numbers of people who enjoy it is obviously part of the point of doing it. And so when it happens, trust me, it feels fantastic.
“It’s something I lost touch with entirely in Pink Floyd, which is why I wrote The Wall and why I left in the end. Since then I’ve started to do tours with my own band and I started to realise that I had allowed myself to let go of the past and just really enjoy – wallow – in that connection with people who know my work and appreciate it.
“We did a big tour in 02 of the Southern Hemisphere, everywhere from Seoul to Santiago. People knew every word to every song and they knew what they meant. They get it like I get Imagine.”
