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Rediff.com  » Movies » Pink Floyd on Broadway!

Pink Floyd on Broadway!

By rediff entertainment bureau
August 10, 2004 12:45 IST
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If you stop for a minute and listen closely, very closely, you might catch the sound of salivating.

It's what thousands of Pink Floyd fans around the world are probably doing at this moment, while considering the prospect of their favourite band hitting Broadway in New York.

The band's seminal The Wall album is the latest piece of rock to be turned into a musical (All Shook Up, based on Elvis Presley, is currently in the works).

First unleashed on an unsuspecting public in 1979, the semi-autobiographical concept double album is famous -- particularly in India -- for the anthemic chorus of Another Brick in the Wall and the moody madness of Comfortably Numb. That it is a popular piece of music is undoubted.

Certified 23 times platinum, it is the third best-selling album of all time.

Now, 25 years after it first hit record stores, Miramax Films has struck a pact with former Sony Music chief Tommy Mottola -- and Mariah Carey's ex -- to develop and produce the musical, while Roger Waters, who co-founded the Floyd in 1965, will arrange

and orchestrate.

The Wall follows the journey of a disillusioned rock star called Pink, who looks back at the experiences that forged his neuroses.

Live performances of the album have long been considered among the most ambitious spectacles attempted in modern rock. It has had its share of criticism too, thanks mainly to the semi-animated film it was adapted into, in 1982, starring Bob Geldof. The attempt was ravaged by critics, with one describing it as 'a vacuous, bombastic and humourless piece of self-indulgence' at the time.

Even though Waters split acrimoniously with the band in the 1980s, he retained the rights to the album's music.

When he left, he said he would not stop performing it until the Berlin Wall was torn down, a comment that lead to a huge performance in Berlin when it was eventually destroyed. For the moment, according to news reports, he wants to write in some laughs, 'notable by their absence in the movie.'

The Floyd's substantial hordes of fans wait with bated breath.

Whether or not Waters does come up with something funny, the man could definitely be laughing all the way to the bank.

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