Rock music still a platform for protest, says Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, as he talks about Us + Them, his new concert movie

Waters says he has ‘run up against a huge brick wall’ championing the Palestinian cause, something his new two-hour documentary references

The film, featuring footage from his 156-date tour that ended in 2018, debuted at the Venice Film Festival. Waters says he rescued it after ‘boring’ first cut

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A still from Us + Them, Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters’ new documentary recorded on his recent concert tour.

Published: 8:00pm, 15 Sep 2019Updated: 7:16pm, 16 Sep 2019

“Don’t get up,” says Roger Waters, as he enters the Excelsior Hotel. He’s on a whistle-stop trip to the Venice Film Festival, where Us + Them, a concert film of his last lavish 156-date tour, has just had its world premiere. It will be shown in several places around the world, including Hong Kong, on October 2.

Most films of musicians performing on stage are usually denied cinematic exposure, relegated to DVD-only release for ardent fans. But there’s no question Waters’ background as the driving force of mega band Pink Floyd means spectacle comes as a big part of the show.

Showing Waters and his band on stage for two hours, it’s a selection of mid-era Pink Floyd, as well as tracks from his recent album Is This The Life We Really Want? At one point, multiple moving screens featuring Battersea Power Station, the southwest London landmark that famously featured on the cover of Floyd’s Animals album, unfold in the air above the crowd.

“A lot of people who haven’t see the concert, they see the Battersea deployment and go, ‘F*** me, how do they do that? Is that a hologram?’,” says Waters.

While he has often used cinema in relation to music – Alan Parker’s 1982 film, The Wall , being a prime example – Us + Them came from a desire to “make a record” of the latest tour on film.