Latest news with #HowtoReassembleanAtomicBomb
The Citizen
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Citizen
‘Roger Waters: The Wall' is an epic watch of powerful music
'Roger Waters: The Wall' sees the rock star explore his emotional nostalgia. Music can be powerful. Incredibly powerful. It can agitate for social or political change, lament or celebrate love and speak for the collective. Other music speaks directly to the soul, the afraid in each of us, the trauma and the hurt. It can teach us lessons, inject new ideas, inspire and decelerate thoughts or speed up personal metamorphosis. Such is the power of Pink Floyd's music. And it's been around 45 years since the band released The Wall, toured the album and produced the first cinematic incarnation of the music's narrative. Yet, it's as relevant today and inwardly touching as it was on the first day of release. And Apple TV's now put the Roger Waters 2014 epic live concert documentary on its menu. It is a must-watch, a must-collect. But it makes you wish that you were in the audience, then. The film is long. It stretches over two hours with beautifully shot cinematic scenes of Waters on another kind of journey. While the music and the Alan Parker-directed 1982 film tells of the character's progressive journey as a reluctant rock star and the walls – demons he must manage inside – the clips spaced between the live performance tell a contra-narrative. Waters explores his emotional nostalgia, in many ways quietly faces his own demons and traces the actual moments and people in his family, like his dad and grandfather, who lie at the base of the original music. Biographical account of Waters' life Roger Waters: The Wall, after all, is a biographic recount of Waters' life, his struggle with the death of his dad in the Second World War, and being bullied at school. It's a treatise to the mistrust of the State at a grand scale. The film is Nietzsche's existentialism coupled with Orwell's Animal Farm, along with a measure of emotional turbulence that can resonate with both the dark and lighter side of our inner selves. Roger Waters: The Wall is in forward and reverse motion at the same time. And despite the long running time and numb-bum risk, it's an epic watch. The show is a far cry from the Dome performance in South Africa during the same tour. Here, Waters was close to unplugged and intimate. On stage in the film, he conducts a larger-than-life audiovisual spectacular that showcases his showmanship. Also Read: U2's 'How to Reassemble an Atomic Bomb' is a satisfying throwback If you are a Pink Floyd fan and followed the angry split between Waters and the rest of the band – the copyright punch-ups and mutual dislike between the parties – this is the moment to forget about it and just immerse yourself in the music. Drummer Nick Mason reunites with Waters in the film and, at the end, the pair answer questions from fans around the world. The two also spend some time talking and tracing nostalgia at earlier intervals. Last year David Gilmour joined Waters in celebrating the 45th anniversary of the album. Best-selling double album of all time The Wall remains the best-selling double album of all time with 30 million copies sold and ranks just behind the band's Dark Side of The Moon. The latter musical sortie holds the collective highest sales tally at 45 million copies. Another Brick In The Wall Part 2 – the anthem off The Wall – has been streamed well over a billion times. The band's progressive rock is not for everyone, and is for everyone at the same time. Because the truths in the lyrics are not unlike our own prayers for emotional asylum. Roger Waters: The Wall brings it all full circle. Of course, there are naysayers and when the film was first released it suffered some pretty nasty reviews from critics who relegated the entire effort to an ego trip. But when you watch the work and experience the music, it's easy to see the codswallop and ignorance of negative impressions. To fully understand the show, audiences new to Pink Floyd or anyone who has not seen Bob Geldof as Pink in the original film, must watch it. It is a cinematic masterpiece of its time and a sensory ride unlike any other. From the Nazi references to the evils of conformity, war and inner conflict, The Wall was an explainer film like no other. Roger Waters: The Wall sees it coming full circle. Also Read: Nasreen's the thinking Swiftie's kind of music
The Citizen
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Citizen
Rachel Kolisi finds strength amid Tokai inferno and personal struggles
As devastating fires tore through parts of Table Mountain National Park over the weekend, Rachel Kolisi, estranged wife of Springbok captain Siya Kolisi, found herself facing a different kind of storm—both environmental and emotional. On Sunday, Rachel took to Instagram to share shocking images of the fire inching dangerously close to her Tokai home in Cape Town. 'We are all safe (thank God), our home is safe. So grateful for our firefighters, community, and SPECIALLY @carliannsmithy and Dale – honestly no way I would have managed the last 24 hours without you,' she wrote, visibly shaken but grateful. Rachel, who recently separated from Siya Kolisi after over a decade together, has been slowly piecing her life back together amid the painful dissolution of her marriage. The Kolisis were once considered the golden couple of South African sport and philanthropy, rising together in the public eye as Siya captained the Springboks to Rugby World Cup victory in 2019. ALSO READ: Zam Buk: The winter go-to But behind the scenes, cracks in the relationship widened over time, culminating in a quiet separation earlier this year. While the details remain private, Rachel has shown resilience in navigating her new chapter, often sharing honest and vulnerable moments with her followers. This weekend, however, that resilience was tested most terrifyingly. A blaze ignited on Friday afternoon along the slopes of Table Mountain and rapidly spread across Lower and Upper Tokai Cape Town, prompting emergency evacuations and sleepless nights for residents. By Monday, SANParks confirmed that around 3,000 hectares of vegetation had been destroyed. Rachel described the ordeal as both physically and emotionally draining. 'Exhausted, and hope I'm not speaking too soon, but I think the worst is over,' she wrote, her words reflecting not only the fire's toll, but perhaps also the emotional weight she's carried in recent months. ALSO READ: U2's 'How to Reassemble an Atomic Bomb' is a satisfying throwback Despite everything, Rachel continues to rise. From managing the safety of her children during the fire to remaining vocal in her support for local heroes, she's become a symbol of quiet strength during turbulent times. SANParks resumed aerial water bombing operations at first light on Monday, with flare-ups still being reported in areas like Boyes Drive and Chapman's Peak, moving toward Hout Bay. Authorities remain on high alert.
The Citizen
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Citizen
U2's How to Reassemble an Atomic Bomb
Despite the tracks being dusted off and panel beaten, there's a hollow longing inside of them. It's U2, but unlike what we have heard for some time. And even though it has been six months since its release, I just can't stop listening to How to Reassemble an Atomic Bomb. It's rock, it's raw and unpolished. It's music in the life-melody that saw early albums like Boy, October and War assault and the kidnapping of popular culture into a universe of conscious rock. But there is a lot more to Bono, The Edge, Larry Mullen Jr and Adam Clayton's music. It's easy to get sidetracked by the activism of it all when, in actual fact, the post-punk anxiety and emotionally depth-charged melodies and lyrics of U2 is what made the band incredible in the first place. It's music we can relate to, dance to, meditate to, and feel to. How to Reassemble an Atomic Bomb is a solid reminder of this. It's the music that made U2 incredible On The Edge said that the original sessions for How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb were a very creative period for the band. 'We were exploring so many song ideas in the studio. We were inspired to revisit our early music influences, and it was a time of deep personal introspection for Bono, who was attempting to process-dismantle the death of his father,' he said. 'I went into my personal archive to see if there were any unreleased gems, and I hit the jackpot. We chose ten that really spoke to us. Although at the time we left these songs to one side, with the benefit of hindsight, we recognise that our initial instincts about them being contenders for the album were right, we were onto something.' There are ten tracks on the album, and some never even made it to B-side status. But it's good. Really good. That is, if you can look past the rawness of it all. Because despite the tracks being dusted off and panel beaten, there's a hollow longing inside of them, a yearn for punk-infused emotive rock and roll like only this band, really, knows how to make. Also Read: Candlelight show's a must go … mostly In an interview with frontman Bono said that 'the sound of a crowd was still ringing' and that it was this energy that sparked the band's return to the basics. 'These are the primal sources of our instinct to make a record that would be the primary colour of rock and roll. Go back to those 45s, those rock and roll 45s, and we stayed there for maybe a few weeks. And then, of course, subject matter takes you down different musical paths.' 'We hit the jackpot' – The Edge The Edge said he 'hit the jackpot' when he dug into his personal archives while looking for tracks to Reassemble. He shared that although the songs had once been shelved, the band's instincts about them being serious contenders as album material had been right all along. 'What you're getting on this shadow album is that raw energy of discovery, the visceral impact of the music, a sonic narrative, a moment in time, the exploration and interaction of four musicians playing together in a room. This is the pure U2 drop,' he shared. 'That raw energy, condensed into ideas that were, at the time, contenders. But for various reasons along the way, they sort of slipped. Slipped off, they fell off the back of the truck, so to speak, into the ditch.' Bono said, 'You are hearing us discover,' and Edge added, 'You hear us really going after those big guitar songs. A lot of poets would take their earlier works and reuse them, add verses, take verses out. I think that's cool, there is a living, breathing aspect to music. It shouldn't be monolithic in that sense,' The Edge said to on release late last year. The music's strangely relevant There was also a strange sense of timing, The Edge added. He noted that while many of the songs had been inspired by the Iraq War. Though almost two decades ago, they feel just as relevant now. 'Things have kind of come full circle. At the time, we were writing about what was happening in Iraq. But now, if we sort of transport back to today, with what's happening in the Middle East, that really could have been written last week.' How to Reassemble an Atomic Bomb is an album that is a curiously satisfying throwback to very early U2. But it's very today, too. The currency of the band remains emotion, social commentary and political tuning. But it's as rock and roll and hot as hell in its intent as ever. It is a testament to four guys, a guitar, a bass, drums and a frontman. A collective that believed they could change the world. And, to a great extent, they did. Now Read: Coldplay's 'Moon Music': A new vibe, same heartbeat
