Memories of the live concert
For an estimated 250,000-350,000 people in attendance, I can find remarkably few contributions online from people who were there for the live show. I assume that's because there wasn't today's ubiquitous Internet presence and because many of the attendees weren't English speakers. And now it's so many years later that memories are a little clouded. But I dug out my travel journal from the time. I was 28 years old and traveling around Europe in a VW camper van for a year. I had planned out a travel route, but when I heard about the concert, I knew I had to change my plans and get to Berlin for the event. Here are some of my (edited) notes, written down the next day.
Getting tickets was not a problem a week before the event. It was general admission, standing room only. They printed 250,000 tickets and I note that my price even with a 25% commission for the ticket agency (!) was a little over the equivalent of $30 USD. (Turns out that after they let in ticket holders, they simply opened the gates at concert time and turned it into a free concert for latecomers, thus the guessing at total crowd size).
From my notes of July 14 (a week before the show):
"I wanted to check out the location of the concert to orient myself. It turns out to be a big open field with wire fencing enclosing it. The stage must be 100 yards wide (ed: Turns out it was almost twice that) and has a giant construction of the logo wall, with an enormous vertical girder loop holding lights, a couple of big construction cranes, and lighting/control/speaker towers out in the field. They were running some lighting checks in the dark while confused rabbits hopped around the area. It looks mighty impressive! The gates open at 2:00, opening band (unannounced) at 5:30, and The Wall at 9:30."
And the rest of this is compiled from my notes the day after the live show.
There was a single entrance point for the entire crowd, and you had to walk all the way around the Potsdammerplatz field to get to it from the nearby underground station. Searches for glass, cans, and alcohol were thorough, so getting in took quite a while. I found a small 2'x2' spot of ground to sit on during the pre-show acts, but when The Wall started at 10pm, it turned into a shoulder-to-shoulder stand up concert. Forget trying to get to the portapotties ringing the main crowd!
From my notes: "The pre-show was ridiculous and widely ignored. The Hooters, The Band, and The Chieftains with James Galway were the pitifully inappropriate acts. The sound system also didn't have any punch at all. At times it was just like listening to a cheap radio playing in the next room. During The Wall, the crowd kept chanting "Louder! Louder!"
"Disaster struck in the second number when Roger Waters' mike gave out and there was a long break with much whistling and jeering by the audience. They finally had to skip "The Thin Ice" and go on. There were more sound problems through the show and Waters' at times almost lost his voice. But there were impressive things to like as well. The giant inflatable teacher and worm were great, there was some good pyrotechnics, and "The Trial" worked very well."
"The show was heavily orchestrated for TV and they turned bright floodlights on the crowd after every number to watch us clap, which pissed me off. They had handed out worm masks to be held up during two numbers, but when we got there the crowd did not feel cooperative after all the time and hassles and no one except the first couple of rows held up the masks."
"At intermission there was a filmed promo spot for the disaster relief charity which went over OK. Then there was a long spot that turned out at the end to be an ad for British Airways! This was greeted with enormous booing, me included."
I do remember being impressed by the size and clarity of the projected images on the wall, the stagehands climbing all over the giant girders to assemble the bricks, the massive inflatables and weird costumes, and the bravery of the solo guitarists on platforms hundreds of feet in the air, looking down on us and playing while being blown in the wind. I also liked Roger Waters in a little apartment set high above the stage where we could look through his "window" and see him fly into a rage. The helicopter flyover at the end of the schoolyard sequence looks good on the video and is a great concept, but it wasn't quite coordinated on timing and slowed down that part of the song.
The Tide Is Turning at the end after the wall came down felt quite anticlimactic, and the gigantic show just seemed to fizzle away to a weak ending, followed by a mad crush of bodies all trying to leave at once and blocking every possible exit and mode of transportation. The city didn't bother to lay on any extra late-night transportation, and people were hitchhiking, trying to flag taxis, and walking long distances. I got back to my campsite at 3:30AM, with no partying stops along the way... That was just trying to get straight back!
I'm glad I was a part of it, and it's fun to watch the video now, but it wasn't as good an audience experience as going to one of the band's stadium shows where they could control more of the details. But when you look at how little time they had to set it up, it's a wonder it happened at all!