Roger Waters: Us + Them Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.5

Roger Waters: Us + Them Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 8, 2020

How you personally feel about artists offering their political views in a supposed “entertainment” setting may well augur how you’ll respond to Roger Waters’ Us + Them. Waters has never been shy about expressing what some might call his “activist” side, and extracurricular efforts like his narrating of The Occupation of the American Mind: Israel’s Public Relations War in the United States should certainly leave no question as to where Waters stands on at least one contentious issue. Waters does indeed go on record in a brief speech toward the end of this concert about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, singling out the Palestinians in comments that are otherwise more “global” in terms of arguing for equality of all peoples. But even aside from Waters’ overt comments, Us + Them might arguably have been better titled Us Vs. Them since it rather liberally (no pun intended) suffuses the video element of the concert with all sorts of messaging, some of which evidently deprived Waters of some concert sponsors, at least for its United States leg.

I say the following with tongue planted at least somewhat firmly in cheek, in case my tone is not clear, but as someone who lives on the outskirts of a recently designated "anarchist jurisdiction", you might think my political views would likely align quite handily with Roger Waters', but that's frankly not always the case. I say this because despite any screed like propensities that this concert offers (and I'm absolutely positive a lot of people will feel like it is screed like at times, no matter what their political persuasions), I found Us + Them absolutely riveting almost all of the time. As anyone familiar with either Waters' own previous Blu-ray releases or perhaps especially some of the so-called "Immersion Sets" of Pink Floyd material, Waters has a really inventive live performance approach that combines sometimes astounding visuals with his often cinematic music. The result is even if some may feel they're being manipulated by the combo platter of visuals and Waters' songs, they may end up not caring all that much since the result is so often bracing. While the Us + Them tour was undertaken at least in part to promote Waters' most recent album, Is This the Life We Really Want? (a title which in and of itself has a certain political undertone, or maybe actual tone), as can be seen below, there are a number of Waters evergreens from the Pink Floyd era which are also performed.

The track list for the concert is as follows:

• 01. Intro
• 02. Speak to Me
• 03. Breathe
• 04. One of These Days
• 05. Time
• 06. Breathe (Reprise)
• 07. The Great Gig in the Sky
• 08. Welcome to the Machine
• 09. Déjà Vu
• 10. The Last Refugee
• 11. Picture That
• 12. Wish You Were Here
• 13. The Happiest Days of Our Lives
• 14. Another Brick in the Wall Part 2
• 15. Another Brick in the Wall Part 3
• 16. Dogs
• 17. Pig (Three Different Ones)
• 18. Money
• 19. Us & Them
• 20. Brain Damage
• 21. Eclipse
• 22. The Last Refugee (Reprise)
• 23. Déjà Vu (Reprise)

Roger Waters: Us + Them Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Roger Waters Us + Them is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Sony Music Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer (largely) in 2.38:1 (as can be seen in some of the screenshots, aspect ratios can vary somewhat during the cutaways to the video feed on the projection screens behind the band). This was captured by RED cameras, and while I have been unable to find any absolutely authoritative information in this regard, I frankly wouldn't be surprised if this was culled from a 4K DI considering the overall excellent detail levels on display. A lot of the filmed material and other projected elements are on the psychedelic, hallucinogenic side, with tweaked imagery and an at times bizarre looking palette. The actual concert material offers typically impeccable detail levels on everything from guitar strings to the odd white bobbed hairdos of Waters' backup vocalists (and occasional percussionists). Stage lighting often bathes things in deep blues and/or reds, and things step right up to posterizing territory on more than one occasion.

Roger Waters: Us + Them Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Roger Waters Us + Them features Dolby Atmos, Dolby TrueHD 5.1 and LPCM 2.0 tracks, and you can't really go wrong with any of them. The Atmos track offers good overhead placement right from the get go with the arresting opening imagery of a thunderstorm, where the billowing sounds of the oncoming downpour waft vertically. I personally loved the fact that the crowd noises never really intrude too strongly into the actual concert fare, but you can also hear the general clamor of the approving hordes of fans pan overhead on more than one occasion. The setlist is almost on an ambient side at times, meaning vocals are intentionally buried in the swirl of instrumental layers, but overall things are clear and well prioritized. The interplay of keyboards and guitars is spacious and well defined, with superb fidelity and nice dynamic range.

Roger Waters: Us + Them Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• A Fleeting Glimpse Documentary Short (1080p; 15:03) is a kind of making of piece with some ruminations by Waters on what "it all" means.


• Smell the Roses Live (1080p; 5:44) features LPCM 2.0 audio.


• Comfortably Numb Live (1080p; 7:39) features LPCM 2.0 audio.

Roger Waters: Us + Them Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Roger Waters himself evidently went on record in a kind of slightly (or maybe more than slightly) snarky, dismissive way when both sponsors and even some audience members expressed their disapproval for the more overt political edge of this concert, reminding people that if they didn't know where he was coming from by this point, he really couldn't help them (so to speak). If you can get past that content, or in fact if you're more or less completely aligned with it (which many of the fans in attendance at this Amsterdam event certainly seem to be), Us + Them is a really beautifully wrought performance from both a stagecraft and filming perspective. Technical merits are top notch, and with caveats duly noted, Roger Waters Us + Them comes Recommended.