Roger Waters: This Is Not a Drill - Live From Prague Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.5

Roger Waters: This Is Not a Drill - Live From Prague Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 4, 2025

Here's an idea: how about a modern day update of Neil Simon's inimitable The Odd Couple starring Roger Waters and Eric Clapton? Instead of two guys with incompatible lifestyles trying to cohabitate, this version could simply be two curmudgeonly guitar players sitting around and commiserating about the state of the world, and ranting about everything from global conspiracies to, well, global conspiracies. No takers? Well, okay, at least collectors of Blu-rays (both 1080 and 4K) have their pick of each "doing their thing" in terms of certain quasi (and maybe not even quasi) activist concerts, as in Clapton's Eric Clapton: The Lady in the Balcony - Lockdown Sessions release, or this latest effort from Roger Waters. Waters in particular almost seems to feed off of the controversy he has long engendered, and in fact this concert begins with a text crawl (evidently shown to the concertgoers) where Waters talks about continuing to "resist" in the face of being "cancelled", and in a closing swipe alerts anyone in the audience who loved Pink Floyd but who hates Waters' politics to (in just the first of many droppings of the f bomb) "f*** off". Sounds like a really fun time, eh? And that's probably going to be the rub for at least some here. Waters delivers an extremely musical concert, with some interesting if unavoidably screed like stagecraft, but that very screed like essence is no doubt going to drive some potential music lovers away.

The disc's track list is as follows:

1. Introduction
2. Comfortably Numb
3. The Happiest Days of Our Lives
4. Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2
5. Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 3
6. The Powers That Be
7. The Bravery of Being Out of Range
8. The Bar Part 1
9. Have a Cigar
10. Wish You Were Here
11. Shine On You Crazy Diamond
12. Sheep
13. In the Flesh
14. Run Like Hell
15. Déjà Vu
16. Is This the Life We Really Want?
17. Money
18. Us and Them
19. Any Colour You Like
20. Brain Damage
21. Eclipse
22. Two Suns in the Sunset
23. The Bar Part 2
24. Outside the Wall
25. Credits

Roger Waters: This Is Not a Drill - Live From Prague Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Roger Waters: This is Not a Drill - Live from Prague The Movie is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Sony Music with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. Various online sites state this was captured in 8K, and about the only qualm most videophiles may have with this release is that it wasn't offered in a 4K UHD release to capitalize on that source resolution. This is nonetheless often a pretty stunning looking transfer, with exceptional detail levels on all of the participants when framings and lighting conditions allow, and with some rather good, problem free renderings of all the projected material. The palette is surprisingly vivid, with a lot of the bright red verbiage filling the screens popping particular well. There is some passing crush (which frankly also might have been improved with HDR on a 4K UHD release) with, for example, the backup singers black dresses and Waters' own black t-shirt kind of disappearing into the shadows at times.

Roger Waters: This Is Not a Drill - Live From Prague Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Roger Waters: This is Not a Drill - Live from Prague The Movie features Dolby Atmos, Dolby TrueHD 5.1 and LPCM 2.0 options. Both of the surround tracks are really beautifully spacious, but this is definitely an Atmos mix where you can hear added surround activity when toggling between it and the "standard" 5.1 track. In fact, the Atmos speakers emanate what almost sounds like wind but then turns out to be background crowd clamor from the very opening, even before imagery starts. The Atmos mix probably also tends to (no pun intended) elevate the crowd noises. One of the kind of interesting things is how kind of "ambient" a lot of the music is throughout the concert, especially in the early going, but some of the higher energy pieces have really nice channelization of instruments (it's kind of fun to hear, for example, individual kick drums in the right front speaker, to cite just one example). Optional subtitles in several languages are available.

Roger Waters: This Is Not a Drill - Live From Prague Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Comfortably Numb Music Video (HD; 8:55)


• Two Suns In The Sunset Music Video (HD; 6:20)

This is another "uniquely" packaged release from Waters, in what vintage vinyl collectors might compare to an old 45 sized cardboard sleeve that measures 5 1/2" wide by 6 1/4" high. An insert booklet (more like a leaflet) with photos and production credits is included.

Roger Waters: This Is Not a Drill - Live From Prague Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

If you're a fan of Waters, you probably already have a sense of what to expect here: the music is fantastic and the politics are not going to be everyone's cup of tea. Technical merits are first rate and the two music videos really enjoyable. With caveats for a certain demographic noted, Recommended.