The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking: We Don't Need No Education: San Diego Kids Rock

2012/05/25

We Don't Need No Education: San Diego Kids Rock - San Diego Reader, May 15, 2012The Wall

"I'd heard from the School of Rock in Denver that they'd been able to get some of their kids on stage with Roger Waters, so I started looking around for contact information." Tyler Ward is the general manager and music director of the San Diego School of Rock in Golden Hill. He called everyone he could think of, but says that his attempts to get through to the Waters entourage came to a dead end.
"But then Waters' people contacted the Joan Kroc Center in La Mesa. I don't know, maybe they called Joan Kroc because they saw pictures of children on their web site. As it turns out, we've been good friends for a while. The School of Rock has done a lot of shows there. So when Waters' production people called them, they said to call us."

Founded as a single school in Philadelphia, PA in 1998, the School of Rock has become an international franchise with schools in the U.S. and Mexico. As it turns out, several of the students enrolled at the San Diego school are also die hard Pink Floyd fans.

"At least 20 of our students are working on performing Dark Side of the Moon from top to bottom. They're using, like, iPads to play back some of the sound effects sequences." The age range of the kids that got tapped to perform as the children's chorus on stage at Valley View Arena during The Wall tour stop here was from 10 to 15.

"We hung out in our green room area. Then, when Waters got there, we went out and watched them rehearse and try out some of the special effects." Waters taught the School of Rock kids their parts and showed them their marks on stage. "He was really sweet to the kids. He spent time with them, and after, he posed for pictures." The kids, Ward says, were star struck.

"When Waters was finished rehearsing, he just walked through this little hole in the wall into no man's land. It was so weird. They made this little hole in the wall he could walk back and forth through and talk to the band and give direction, and when rehearsal was over he just walked back to wherever it was he came from."

Ticket prices for 41-date Wall tour are reportedly extravagant. "The production value of that show is absurd. There's an airplane that flies overhead. There are all kinds of effects. They started building the stage at 5a.m. the day before the show to have it ready for sound check the following afternoon. There were dozens of trucks and trailers outside the arena in the parking lot." But the School of Rock kids performed pro bono and in the end, Ward thought it a fair trade.
"Most of our kids couldn't afford to go. They're 10 years old. They don't have, like, $300 dollars for a ticket."

Waters and San Diego School of Roch choir, Valley View Arena Photo:Josh Krimston

Written by Dave Good

From: www.sandiegoreader.com

No comments:

Post a Comment

George Roger Waters

George Roger Waters (born 6 September 1943) is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. He was a founding member of the progressive rock band Pink Floyd, serving as bassist and co-lead vocalist. Following the departure of bandmate Syd Barrett in 1968, Waters became the band's lyricist, principal songwriter and conceptual leader. The band subsequently achieved worldwide success in the 1970s with the concept albums The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals and The Wall. Although Waters' primary instrument in Pink Floyd was the bass guitar, he also experimented with synthesisers and tape loops and played rhythm guitars in recordings and in concerts. Amid creative differences within the group, Waters left Pink Floyd in 1985 and began a legal battle with the remaining members over their future use of the group's name and material. The dispute was settled out of court in 1987, and nearly eighteen years passed before he performed with Pink Floyd again. It is estimated that as of 2010, the group have sold over 200 million albums worldwide, including 74.5 million units sold in the United States.

Waters' solo career includes three studio albums: The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking (1984), Radio K.A.O.S. (1987) and Amused to Death (1992). In 1986, he contributed songs and a score to the soundtrack of the animated movie When the Wind Blows based on the Raymond Briggs' book of the same name. In 1990, he staged one of the largest and most elaborate rock concerts in history, The Wall – Live in Berlin, with an estimated 200,000 people in attendance. In 1996, he was inducted into the US and the UK Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Pink Floyd. He has toured extensively as a solo act since 1999 and played The Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety for his world tours of 2006–2008. In 2005, he released Ça Ira, an opera in three acts translated from Étienne and Nadine Roda-Gils' libretto based on the early French Revolution. On 2 July 2005, he reunited with Pink Floyd bandmates Nick Mason, Richard Wright and David Gilmour for the Live 8 global awareness event; it was the group's first appearance with Waters in 24 years.

In 2010, he began The Wall Live, a worldwide tour that features a complete performance of The Wall. During this tour, at The O2 Arena in London on 12 May 2011, Gilmour and Mason once again appeared with Waters, Gilmour performing "Comfortably Numb", and Gilmour and Mason joining Waters for "Outside the Wall".

He has been married four times and has three children. In 2004 he became engaged to actress and filmmaker Laurie Durning; the duo married in 2012.