Inside Out (32 page)

Relations between the band and the record company were not improved by the head of promotion at CBS, who having received the
first few tracks rapturously at a pre-listening session in Palm Springs, heard the finished version and claimed in outrage
that it was a travesty of the record he’d first been played.

As always there were some political and financial repercussions as the album climbed the charts. We had lawyers representing
all and sundry trying to scramble aboard the gravy train. One voice heard on the album after we recorded a random turning
of the TV dial belonged to an actor who thought the success was primarily due to his contribution. We offered him a settlement
with the option of doubling the amount if he gave it all to charity. He took the half for himself.

Work on the live show had overlapped with the mixing. The final evolution of the show’s concept was that the audience should
enter the auditorium to find a partially constructed wall standing at the sides of the stage. As the show began, it would
be introduced by a compère, a combination of MC and radio DJ designed to heighten the unreality of the performance and to
unhinge the audience’s expectations.

With all the bombast of a rock show – fireworks and special effects – the show would open with a band who appeared to be
us rising from below the stage. In fact this was a look-alike group known as the ‘surrogate’ band – Pete Woods on keyboards,
Willie Wilson on drums, Andy Bown on bass and Snowy White on guitar – each equipped with life masks (one of the benefits of
basing ourselves in Hollywood was that these were easy to get made). As the pyrotechnics and effects headed towards a climax,
the first group of musicians froze, and the lights revealed the real band behind them. The surrogates would later appear on
stage as auxiliary musicians, without their life masks – in this incarnation they were known as the ‘shadow’ band. All their
instruments and costumes were grey, rather than the black we were using.

As the show progressed, the wall was gradually constructed, so that the first half ended with the final brick ready to be
placed in position. Every night the crew managed to complete the wall within 90 seconds or so of the standard time. We had
a certain amount of cushion built into the music so that the final brick would be placed in position to coincide with the
final line of ‘Goodbye Cruel World’, the last song in the half. Once completed, the wall, made of 340 fireproof, reinforced
cardboard boxes, each approximately 4 feet wide by 3 feet high and 1 foot deep, reached a height of 33 feet and a width of
260 feet. The second half then opened with the intact wall in front of the band. The wall was used to screen segments of the
animated films made by Gerald Scarfe. At one point a drawbridge section of wall opened up to reveal a hotel room scene. At
another, during ‘Comfortably Numb’, Roger appeared in front of the wall, while David emerged on top to play the solo.

The boxes were made of cardboard so that they could be flat-packed for transporting to the next show and assembled on site.
The hollow bricks could be linked together by a team of wall builders using the hydraulic Genie towers, which rose as the
wall
grew, to get themselves in the right position. Once built the wall was supported on a series of tippers that could be controlled
to tip in or out (not wishing to lose the front rows of the audience), as the wall was dismantled.

The climax of the piece came as the bricks began to tumble – this involved elaborate mechanics to avoid litigation, hospitalisation
and the prospect of a one-night-only show, since the bricks, even made out of cardboard, were very heavy indeed. After the
collapse, we would perform the final number acoustically like a group of strolling players.

Fisher and Park had started work on turning Roger’s ideas into reality the previous Christmas. Mark Fisher – following on
from his work on the inflatables for the
Animals
tour – had in fact travelled down to the South of France during the recording of the album, well ahead of schedule, which
meant that when the green light was given to the show, it was a matter of creating 3D versions of the drawings rather than
starting from scratch under pressure. (Mark was another architect – he had attended the Architectural Association school of
architecture in London in the late 1960s, and in fact hired Pink Floyd for an event there in 1966, where, he remembers, we
were paid less than the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.) Yet even with this lead time there were innumerable mechanical problems to
resolve. The technical rehearsals were held in the States. This was the most practical solution. There was good logistical
support, and a suitable location at Culver City Studios in LA was available for a complete two-week period at the right price.
The teething problems emerged. The Genie towers for the wall builders were extraordinarily noisy, and the first experiments
in wall demolition nearly destroyed all the equipment on stage. Large steel cages were hurriedly designed and built to protect
the equipment, and some magic space-age lubricant sourced. Rehearsals continued, and by the beginning of
February we were in the Los Angeles Sports Arena for two weeks’ final rehearsal before the first show on the 17th.

The night before we opened, we had a semblance of a show. But during the final rehearsal we had to admit that although most
of the staging was working, the stage lighting was simply substandard. A frantic search ensued, first for a scapegoat, closely
followed by a saviour. Steve contacted Marc Brickman, who had been noticed by Roger working on Bruce Springsteen’s shows.

Marc had taken the phone call from Steve and – since he knew someone in the Floyd organisation – thought it was his friend
pretending to be Steve, and ringing to say he’d got Marc tickets for the show the next night. Yes, said Marc, he’d love to
go. No, said Steve, you don’t understand. Marc, who was originally from Philadelphia, had been involved in lighting since
his mid-teens, working in the music business with artists like Johnny Mathis as well as Bruce Springsteen, and more recently
had been in Los Angeles working on TV shows. He remembers taking the initial call from Steve at 1 p.m. and coming down to
the show at 3 p.m.

Gerry Scarfe and Roger walked him through the show and explained that there was a rehearsal at 7 p.m. the same day. When Marc
came back that evening, Roger said, ‘We didn’t think we’d see you again…’ There was a slightly awkward meeting after which
Graeme Fleming was dismissed (i.e. fired) and Marc was dismissed (i.e. to continue his new duties). Given the time pressure,
he was grateful that Robbie Williams and Mark Fisher offered him plenty of help.

Our opening night was given additional drama when a drape caught fire after the opening explosion. The drape proceeded to
smoulder away until Roger had to call a halt and wait while riggers armed with fire extinguishers scampered into the roof
and put it out. By then audience and performers were united in communal alarm and the show could go on. Since the shouted
command
‘Stop!’ was an integral part of the show, it took Roger some time to convince the well-drilled road crew that this time it
was an emergency.

At one point someone had suggested that the show would tour, rather than be a static event in just a few cities. The concept
of a giant inflatable slug with sufficient space for the entire show plus audience was promoted briefly, but fortunately for
designers, crew, performers and health and safety experts it never saw the light of day… We returned to the simpler idea of
one of the shorter ‘world tours’ in rock history: seven nights in LA, five at the Nassau Coliseum, NY, six performances at
Earls Court in August 1980, eight in Dortmund in February 1981 – and five more nights at Earls Court to provide footage for
the film version.

Nearly all the shows were relatively serene. The only hitch came when Willie Wilson, the surrogate band drummer, collapsed
a few hours before one of the shows was due to start. Fortunately, Clive Brooks, my long-time drum technician, is a very capable
drummer in his own right. A veteran of an English blues band, the Groundhogs, Clive stepped in and played all the parts required
for the next two nights. Ever since then I can sense the eager anticipation in his voice if I ever betray the slightest sign
of ill health on tour.

The show was much more rehearsed than anything we had previously done and was technically well developed. In this way it was
a precursor for the tours that David and I later organised, and Roger’s solo work. We also found that the regular structure
of the show helped to carry us through any ‘bad’ nights. The success of the show made it a great pleasure to play, but the
lack of opportunity to improvise or change the music began to pall a little. That said, the requirements of building the wall
meant that one stuck brick or overhasty builder could influence the length of each half, and we had various fillers or cuts
for key moments.

By the five nights at Earls Court in June 1981 the show was well honed. However, they also turned out to be the last time
Roger, David, Rick and I would play together for nearly a quarter of a century. As far as group relationships were concerned
things had deteriorated even further than during recording. The clearest indication of this could be seen in the backstage
area of Earls Court, where each band member had an individual Portakabin. Roger’s and Rick’s both faced away from the enclosure…
I think that we also had individual after-show parties, carefully avoiding inviting each other.

A few months later, filming of the movie started with Gerald Scarfe and Michael Seresin as co-directors, and Alan Parker as
overall producer, but after a week it was clear this system was not going to work. Alan was elevated to director, Michael
departed, Gerry was reassigned to other duties, and we started again. Changing the command structure so early on was something
of an omen. The stories are legion of the disagreements that occurred on the film. Alan Parker had a strong vision, but so
too did Gerry and Roger. Gerry certainly felt quite isolated, as Alan Parker and the new producer Alan Marshall represented
one self-supporting faction, and Roger and Steve O’Rourke another. Alan Parker, according to Bob Geldof, subscribed to Michael
Winner’s dictum, ‘Democracy on the set is a hundred people doing what I tell them’, a philosophy shared by some of the other
principals on the project. Despite this recipe for disaster, I think the results were a victory for ability over organisation.
Gerry’s animation managed to make the transition from stage show to big screen, as did Bob Geldof, in the lead role of Pink.

Bob and Roger both tell the story of a taxi ride which Bob and his manager took to the airport, during which Bob’s manager
was telling him that an offer had come in for him to play the role of Pink in the film, and that he really ought to consider
it as a great
career move. Bob erupted, along the lines of ‘Fuck that. I fucking hate Pink Floyd.’ As Roger remembers, ‘This went on until
they reached the airport. What Bob didn’t know was that the cab driver was my brother. He called me up and said, “You’ll never
guess who I’ve just had in my cab…”’ Luckily Bob changed his mind and accepted the role.

He had convinced everyone in the screen test with a scene from
Midnight Express
and the phone scene from
The Wall.
Cajoled by Alan Parker, Bob underwent the change from restrained novice to melodramatic thespian in a couple of hours. The
trouble was that it was only later he realised there was barely any dialogue in the film for him.

Filming wasn’t helped when the details of Bob’s contract got bogged down with his management. When the person responsible
finally appeared at London airport, it was only to be arrested and taken off for questioning. Bob gallantly started work despite
various contractual matters remaining unresolved.

Despite his reservations, Bob, says Alan Parker, gave the role his best shot, prepared even to have his eyebrows shaved for
the part. As a non-swimmer Bob found that, according to Alan, ‘the drowning scenes in the rooftop pool came easy to him, as
they were most authentic’. Bob only complained once, when during a cold night-time shoot at an old biscuit factory in Hammersmith,
he had to strip before being covered in pink slime and asked to metamorphose into a fascist.

In his autobiography,
Is That It?,
Bob also tells the story of one scene in the film in which an American actress, keen on method acting, had to show that she
was frightened of Pink. She asked Alan Parker what her motivation for doing this was. Alan sighed and told her, ‘The money’.
Apparently the scene was wrapped on the next take…

The battlefield sequences were shot at Saunton Sands in Devon.
This is a particularly useful beach, which has supplied us with a number of backgrounds including the beds on the cover of
A Momentary Lapse Of Reason.
One of the half-scale Stukas performed admirably with a registered pilot to control it. The other was claimed by the sea
when it crashed. I remember one early morning on the sands when, through the smoke and haze of battle, we were cheered by
the sight of a tea trolley being manfully manoeuvred across the dunes by one of the location caterers to ensure we were safely
reinforced with tea and bacon sarnies.

The other notable piece of location work was at the Royal Horticultural Hall in London, where two thousand skinheads had been
recruited to form the crowd for a cross between a rock show and a political rally. A penchant for drinking their wages at
the nearby and rather exclusive pubs, coupled with a hatred of uniform – even if on the backs of unfortunate extras – ensured
a lively, bordering-on-dangerous, atmosphere. Gillian Gregory, the choreographer, had the impossible task of trying to teach
the skinheads very straightforward dance movements. After two hours of simplifying the routine and scaling down the difficulty
factor, she finally gave up. The military precision she had been aiming for was sadly impossible to achieve: watching the
final version you know they are meant to be doing something in unison; the question is what.