Roger Waters Closes Coachella With Giant Pig
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INDIO, Calif. — Roger Waters brought Coachella to a close with an epic two-set performance that included playing all of "Dark Side of the Moon" and unleashing a giant inflated pig into the night sky.
The 64-year-old Waters, the third headliner of the three-day music festival following Prince and Jack Johnson, performed an elaborate, almost retrospective concert Sunday featuring music from throughout Pink Floyd's catalog.
Old photographs of the band often flashed across the screen behind Waters and his current band, which played songs from "The Wall," "Wish You Were Here" and "Animals," among other Floyd albums. They also played "Dark Side" in its entirety, culminating with the album's iconic triangle prism rising above the stage.
But Waters' biggest prop was an inflatable pig the size of a school bus that emerged while he played a version of "Pigs" from 1977's capitalism critique, "Animals."
The pig, which was led above the crowd from lines held on the ground, displayed the words "Don't be led to the slaughter" and a cartoon of Uncle Sam wielding two bloody cleavers. The other side read "Fear builds walls."
The underside of the pig simply read "Obama" with a checked ballot box alongside.
As Waters drew the song to a close, flame bursts exploded on the sides of the stage and the swine floated into the night sky. Waters said sadly and comically, "That's my pig."
The performance also included speaker towers placed around the outside of the crowd. Smoke machines funneled across the stage and over the audience, thickening the atmosphere.
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JAKE COYLE | April 28, 2008 07:31 AM EST |
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