Roger Waters: I Would Consider Playing Concert On US-Mexican Border

Roger Waters: I Would Consider Playing Concert On US-Mexican Border

Pink Floyd's Roger Waters has said he would consider performing on the border between the US and Mexico as an act of “celebration” against the rhetoric of building walls.

The veteran musician, who lives in the US, hit out at President Donald Trump's plans to construct a permanent security barrier along the border, and said the controversial Republican would face mass protests in the streets when he visits the UK.

The 73-year-old famously commemorated the fall of the Berlin Wall with a live performance in 1990 to an estimated near half a million crowd in the German city.

It followed Pink Floyd’s own The Wall tour from their album of the same name in 1980, while Waters later took his own version of the show on a world tour.

He was speaking alongside the band’s drummer Nick Mason at a preview of the upcoming Pink Floyd retrospective exhibition at the V&A in London which documents the group’s 50 years since their first single.

Asked if he would perform on the border to protest against Trump, Waters said: “I get asked quite often if I'd do The Wall again because I stopped a couple of years ago.

"I've always said I'd do it again if they ever figure out what to do about Israel and Palestine and get rid of that appalling security barrier.

"If there was a resolution and we could realise there is no 'us and them' and that we're all human beings and we all need to figure out how to live together because at the moment... as an act of celebration, if that moved towards a humane way of organising ourselves, I would be only too happy to perform that concert in some place that was significant geographically.

"If that happened to be the border between the United States and Mexico then yeah absolutely.

"But there needs to be an awakening period... before something like that can happen... because at the moment enough of us are being convinced by our leaders that the problems that we face are because of foreigners and because they are bad people and because they need to be destroyed or at least competed with to the point where they are stopping.

"Trump and Theresa May and the right wing as you know is raising its ugly head all around the world so yeah as an act of celebration it would be.

"The sewers are clogging with greedy powerful men as we speak and they are backing up and that is what is causing this stuff.”

Waters said he believes people with "more humane ideas" will "gather together and say 'No, enough, we saw all this before, we're not going to take it again', and take to the streets."

On the prospect of the US leader travelling to the UK for a visit, Waters said: "I'm quite sure if President Trump comes to this country there will be an enormous taking to the streets.

"I think we would see demonstrations in London bigger than any demonstrations than have ever been seen."

Earlier this week the Foreign Office rejected a 1.85 million-strong petition calling for Mr Trump's trip to be downgraded, stripping it of the trappings of a full state visit.

Waters and Mason's rare public appearance together saw them discuss the opening of The Pink Floyd Exhibition: Their Mortal Remains which includes more than 350 objects from the band's history.

The show's entry point will be a giant replica of the Bedford van the band used as their touring vehicle in the 1960s, while instruments including David Gilmour's famous Stratocaster guitar - nicknamed the black strat - will also be on show.

Waters said he was most looking forward to seeing a cane used to punish him for fighting while at school in Cambridge.

The pair also revealed they would consider playing Glastonbury, with Mason saying: "I think it would be nice to add it to the list. It would be fun to do it, but I don't think its very likely."

Waters said: "I did Glastonbury once. It was really cold ... there were a lot of people and it seemed very jolly. I'd do it again."

The V&A is hoping for a repeat of the huge success it enjoyed with its show on David Bowie and Mason floated the possibility that it could later go on a tour.

:: The Pink Floyd Exhibition: Their Mortal Remains runs from May 13 to October 1 2017.

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