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David Gilmour still markets himself as “the voice and guitar of Pink Floyd,” but the band’s swagger and sneer always belonged to Roger Waters who, if he removed much of Floyd’s self-pity when he left for a spotty solo career, also took the concept that made the whole thing worth watching. In the last three decades, Waters has collaborated with Eric Clapton, sued his former bandmates for daring to make indifferent records under the Floyd moniker, and written an opera about the French. Perhaps more interesting was Waters’ mock-fascist staging of The Wall in Berlin in 1990 not long after the fall of a certain barrier in that city. This October, the brains behind the Floyd operation brings his visceral indulgence and deceptively awesome basslines to the Verizon Center, an arena with room enough for both 1) the record’s tinselly narrative; and 2) Waters’ ego. Sure, you’ll have to sit through a handful of the more sluggish numbers, but as the schoolmaster intones in “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)”: “How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat?”
ROGER WATERS PERFORMS AT 8 P.M. AT THE VERIZON CENTER, 601 F ST. NW. $53-$253. (202) 397-7328.