Concert Review 17th March 2084 - Ayers Rock.au

Concert Review 17th March 2084 - Ayers Rock.au

From TheGunnersDreamGrandDaughter,

Tour: Cryogenic Arthritis Tour

Venue: Ayers Rock, Uluru National Space Center, Australia

Artist: Mr Roger Waters and friends

Crowd: 14,376,987 (with a margin of error of 0.3%)

I had the privilege of being present for one of the most amazing almost concerts of all time. The venue, located as it is, was a superb setting for one of the most phenomenal rock events of this century.

Fans started streaming in from all parts of the world via the Uluru International Airport, and from off-world locations through the recently constructed space port, for up to one week before the event. As the concert was free to enter, there was little sign of the ever-present Scalping Squad one sees at mega events. The most intriguing site was the eclectic nature of the fans, ranging in ages from young babes in arms, to medically reconstructed centenarians of all shapes and sizes. If I didn't miss my initial guess, the gathering resembled a religious gathering at the Haj in Mecca, but on a far grander scale.

I took my place in the crowd, trying to listen in to the general conversation of some of the fans and was amazed at the diverse topics being broached, the seemingly peaceful mood that pervaded the mass, and the amount of 20th century hippie paraphernalia that abounded. This concert, I concluded, was going to be a lot different to your average technoPunk dance festival. I shivered in virgin anticipation. Was this man, as his fans proclaimed almost religiously, the new God after all.

On the day of the concert, the sky dawned clear with a typical Australian red dawn, which soon gave way to opaque purples and finally an azure blue desert sky. Not a cloud in the sky, nor any sign of pollution from the clogged cities located on the vast continent's coastline.

The crowd, now amassing 10 million plus, was scattered tightly around the massive edifice that protruded from the desert like a giant turd from some long forgotten space elephant. The stage, set up on a massive revolving platform of some 1 km round, and backed up by the latest Two sided Bio-Digital Plasme' Screen and almost as big as the stage, was being put through it's paces for the last time before the show started. The crowd seemed to be enjoying reruns of The Wall movie, The Wall Live in Berlin DVD, The Wall Rebuilt for the Centenary on Heirovision, and The Wall - Pink Floyd Centenary Reunion sonicvid (featuring Roger Waters, Dave Gilmour, Rick Wright, Nick Mason, and a cloned Syd Barrett). I reminisce slightly on that famous concert in Madison Square Garden and the failure it was. But argh, enough of that. The real show was about to get underway.

I took an invitation from some corporate raiders, who'd cleverly disguised themselves as Pigs, complete with curly tails, and joined them atop a Jumbo 989 parked in the derelict plane lot to the east of the Rock, prime viewing location elevated as it was. I scan the crowd to gauge the affect this man has on his fans and marvel at the conglomeration of humanity he has amassed in his honour. One area was set aside for the Psychologically Impaired, complete with attendant medical staff and armed guards, another section housed a large group representing the Fascist Love Me movement, replete in their Black, Red and Pink uniforms, and still other groups dressed in their Hypodermic Needle suits, had prime viewing from mid air locations. (Still amazes me how they manage to stay high and remain in Nirvana. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.)

Their are large groups of people carrying round blow-up Dave Gilmour dolls and large Arab Knives, obviously ready for the closing song of set seven, "I Love Dave But Still Want To Kill Him Because...." the classic anthem from the "Floydian Reconstruction Was Shit" album released after the disastrous reunion concert. I couldn't wait for that song because, having seen a previously recorded live clip on NetMtv, I found acceptance of the mans' anger and revulsion at being coerced to do the show. I pitied him, and the fans certainly took it out on the dolls big time in that show, and to finally see it live would be awesome.

The large speaker stacks start to become quiet, the final sonicvid blinks off on the Plasme' screen, and a small object can be heard to approach from the west, with if one looked hard enough, a Gyroscopic Helohover whizzing effortlessly towards the Rock, with a fading Full Moon sinking below the horizon as a backdrop. This guy certainly knows how to make an entrance. The HeloHover, complete with it's Cryogenic Resuscitator onboard, touches down on the stage, with the sound of 14 million fans screaming his name, chanting the eternal "Rog, Rog, Rog" and the sound of Pigs on the Wing belting out from the speaker system. This was so perfect!

The camera zooms in on the HeloHover and displays to all there, the sight of a frail old man, kept alive by Cryogenia, exiting the conveyance and bearing his ever present bass guitar dangling from his pale exposed shoulders. The caftan slips somewhat as he leaves the craft, exposing the tubes that pump his life preserving fluid from bottles strapped under the garment, into his body organs. The crowd gasps in stunned silence. He has revealed a little part of himself to his faithful. The scene is overwhelmingly moronic.

Then he raises the bass to his shoulders, motions to the rest of the band, and tucks into the classic from the Amused to Death album, What God Wants Pt I. The crowd goes silent, almost meditational, as the song belts out it's intonation of hope.

Sadly, I have to report that things did not go as planned, and another HeloHover, in the shape of a large blue pig, appeared out from the desert to the north, and with the sun behind it, made straight for the stage in a spiralling kamikaze death plunge. The resultant crash killed all on the stage, the crew of the HeloHover (later to be identified as Dave Gilmour and the members of the rebel Pink Movement Impersonators group Blue Floyd. Several thousand spectators were also killed or wounded, all innocent bystanders to this inhumane act.

Roger Waters, who was standing at the spot where the crash took place, was later seen to be boarding another HeloHover bearing a Crossed Hammers logo (Where have I seen that Before??) and was swooped off to places unknown. However the official medical reports state that one of the bodies found at the scene was that of Roger Waters!!

Was this the saddest day in human endeavour or is this the start of a new martyrdom in religious affairs?

This is TheGunnersDreamsGrandDaughter signing off from Uluru National Park, Central Australia (with a tear in my eye).

  

Aftermath - March 18th, 2084 -

NetBase Alpha(Home)

From TheGunnersDreamGrandDaughter,

at my Plazdic Desktop AVA PC

I'm appalled!!

After being teleported back to my home city of Awklin, I went to my grandfather's files, from his long days on the net, and reread many threads to discern a reason for the mad actions of one Dave Gilmour. I remember seeing a lot of rhetoric towards him in those posts and wanted to understand, from a Roger Waters group of nettiefans, why such a man could be capable of such an act.

I stayed up all night reading and at about 4 am decided that the cause was fairly clear cut. But to get a balanced picture, I also had to find a site dedicated to Dave and to see what his fans were saying back then. Alas, whether through the ravages of time, or his unpopularity, there was nothing to find. I therefore had to conclude that the précis' my grandfather's nettiefanmates were proposing were generalised truth concepts.

My conclusion then is that Dave Gilmour is a paranoid megalomaniac and social suicide jockey. He had always been highly capable of such an act. I was both astounded, and perplexed. Surely the World Anti-Suicide Investigation Squad (WAS IS) were keeping close tabs on this man, and his demented band of followers! It appears not.

I then net-jumped to the nearest news channel to discern the reaction from the previous day's events. I was still in a state of dismay at the situation at Uluru. There seems to be something sadly amiss with the world when hate can manifest itself in such dire manner, and I needed to see what the reaction world wide was before I delved too deep into the why's and wherefore's. CNetTV were running an extended News coverage from Uluru still, talking to the organisers, security, the State government, and anyone else who may have been culpable or responsible for the intercession of the Blue Pig HeloHover.

Intermingled with the official interviews, CNetTV were running one-on-one Q&A with some of the crowd who were present. It was these interviews that began to peak my curiosity again, even at 530 am. A large proportion of interviewee's (Roger Fans) appeared to be in a ghostly trance, as if their lives had been changed, and were all generally happy with the situation that they had witnessed yesterday. The interviewer, Bart Simpson III, an animated PLasScreen entity, was becoming increasingly perplexed with the answers he was receiving from the throng, his inanimate brain unable grasp what was taking place. Surely the Netmaster controlling this being was able to discern and therefore direct more pertinent questions?

I decided I needed another perspective, and logged on to the NetMtv Newscast, to gauge reaction from the wider music community. Shock horror! Halfway through a Posh Spice dedication concert broadcast, a news flash from their TVeye in Uluru, obviously sent out take bootleg coverage of the concert judging by his shady demeanour, reported that it was confirmed that a Mr Roger Waters and a Mr Dave Gilmour and some members of their respective bands, were killed in a tragic accident and that several spectators were either killed or injured in the accident.

Then the picture blinked 182 degrees to the left and behind a large figure in a Hypodermic Needle suit floating ethereally in mid air, could be seen the scene of the carnage. This picture was made more disturbing by the image of millions of people down on bended knees, all facing towards the rock, in an obvious state of homage. So it was to be martyr!

The picture faded out and the popular news reader from NetMTV, Eric Cartman, popped in to view, obviously showing signs of a private joke off-camera. He burst into voice with, if you can believe it, this tirade and I quote "Hey, dudes, this is bull shit. Who cares about two old farts throwing up at each other and wasting themselves. This sucks man, Kenny could have done a better job. Bullshit, Bullshit, Bullshit," and then he throws up all over the desk.

I choked back the tears, and just as the NetTv cast changed back to the Spice Girl reject, with the dying sounds of Eric yelling out "she's the babe, yeah!" the Editing desk popped up a message on the screen "Pink Floyd is Dead - we will no longer be carrying any commentaries on this wasted bunch of arse holes from the 20th century anymore." This really set me off blabbering once more, and I wondered how Grandpa would be taking this, wherever he was. Not too well I guess.

One last newscast before I went to bed. I checked the BBCNetTV Channel and surfed up their reports on the bizarre and tragic events from Australia. A very recent headline immediately caught my attention: "Large influx of humanity descending on Uluru after death of Roger Waters." The report, though brief, suggested that up to 8 million people had booked tickets to, or had arrived at Uluru, to pay homage to the deceased former leader of Pink Floyd, and social commentator of the past 100 years, Roger Waters, in the past 18 hours since the accident!

The congestion was causing major organisational problems for Central Australian State government officials who were already stretched with the existing gathering of 14 million at the site of the concert, now seemingly becoming a shrine to a fallen star."

I read the remainder and decided that a phenomena was occurring, and I was determined to continue covering this event, if only in the name of love for my grandfather's icon, and my own curiosity into the effect this man was having on an increasingly larger group of people than anybody, I think, had previously envisaged.

More tomorrow. I must get some sleep.

  

Termination - March 19th 2084

TheGunnersDreamGrandDaughter

Early Morning at my condopad.

The dream was taking hold, as I slipped into REM sleep. The visions of some far off carnage started to manifest themselves in my subconscious. Every now and then, that bastard from NetMtv would pop into view and infuriate the hell out of me. My subconscious rolled into the dream, the sound of chaos, and the vision of order rent asunder, people yelling in the desert sun at each other and no one in particular. Then the phone rings. I reach for it in my pocket, where it always resides when I’m on assignment. It’s not there. I search all my pockets, my bag. Nothing. The phone rings on, more incessant than ever. I break into a cold sweat. Why can’t I find it?

I sit bolt upright in bed. It’s not the phone. I look at the clock and see that I have been asleep for only one hour. The buzzer on the headboard rings again. "Shit" I say to myself. H Who the hell could be visiting at this time of the day? I reach over to the DoorCam Activator and flick the switch. I rub sleep from my eyes and concentrate on the figure displayed on the screen, mystified as to the identity of the visitor. It is robed and there are no features on display for me to be able to discern if it male or female.

I press the Mike and ask who it is and if they could look at the camera, in the same motion, sliding out of bed and placing a robe over my sweat glistened nakedness. The figure turns slowly towards the camera, almost ethereally, and stares directly into the lens. The light is poor and his features are still hidden by his hood, but I catch a hint of agedness.

"Are your the GunnersDream Grand Daughter?" he asks, his voice dripping longevity with every precise word.

I think for a while. Only a precious few know the correlation between my pseudonym and my persona. Who is this man?

I press the mike activator on the headboard.

"Who the hell are you and why are you ringing my bell at this time of the morning?"

"I am TheGunnersDream, and I need to know if you are my granddaughter, now!" he states, his voice more urgent but no less controlled.

My thoughts suddenly run stampeding across time, as I weigh up the importance of his words. My Grandfather! I had been told he and the other RW disciples had been killed in the plane crash over Nassau, after the failed reunion concert. This was a trick surely, and a very cruel one. I needed to find out for sure if it was indeed him.

"Who was the poster in the Roger Waters BBS that you handed an olive branch to when you were posting there in the year 2000?"

"Ebailey, god rest his soul, and it was plucked from the tree he was under in the field of dreams," came back the answer.

"Hold on Grand Father, I’ll be right down."

My mind whirled. Why was he here and why wasn’t he dead. My mind raced with the complexity of the situation, overwhelmed by the presence of the man my mother despised. I was going to meet TheGunnersDream at last. I felt, as I raced down the stairs to the door, feelings of joy, hope, love, and some of sheer exhilaration. But a sudden thought raced through and interrupted my reverie. He must be 125 years old now. Was he a cybertron being sent to fool me, or if it was him, was he a cryogenic centenarian? Either way, something strange was happening here and I realised I had to act cautiously.

I reached the door, checked the security screen once more and opened the seven electronically activated deadlocks, which on activation, removed the portal from in front of me into the wall recess and I could see him. He was tall, taller than I had envisaged and he seemed to be hovering in front of me as his movements were very gracefully controlled. He entered the room without saying a word, turned and surveyed it with a glance, and motioned me to stand to one side of the door, which I did, grudgingly. I needed to shut the door, to talk to him, but before I could do anything, he motioned for me to keep silent, placing his gnarled and ancient forefinger to his pursed lips, then moved out the door again and made a sign towards the trees surrounding my condopad.

Immediately, thirteen figures broke cover from the trees, all similarly caped and hooded, with one being carried by two others. Their motions seemed very smooth, as if they glided instead of walked. That motion I had seen before but I could not place it now. Later perhaps.

All of them entered the room, the figure being carried being placed on my imitation whale skin sofa settee, and my Grandfather shut the portal-door once all were in.

Two figures detached themselves from the main group, took some strange metallic object from under their capes and started to point them in all directions of the condopad.. The low whirr of microwave transmission accompanied their search and I guessed they were scanning for aural transmitters. Another two went to my two computers and started doing checks on them. The mystification of it all was beginning to get to me, and my obvious nervousness was picked up by another of the group, whereby he motioned me to his side. He pulled out a strange device, something I had never seen before but had heard of. I knew it was a paper pad and a pencil, two products banned in the mid 20’s for their overuse of natural materials. But why would he have one of these for.

It soon became apparent. He wrote down some words on the pad and handed it to me. ‘Please be patient, we must check that our presence here is not monitored. The consequences will be dire for world affairs if we are detected.’

***********************************

I looked into his hooded face seeking some sort of recognition, but none came. Who were they? Were they the disciples? But there were only twelve when the plane went down and all were presumed dead. There were thirteen here. It didn’t make sense. Then silently, with a signal from the original two figures carrying the detectors, they all started to remove their hoods and capes, revealing strange suits and another astonishing discovery. None of them touched the ground, they were all levitating! My mind raced back to Uluru and the Hypodermic needle suited figures suspended over the desert. There were only twelve figures there that day too. The coincidence was startling.

The figure on the settee however, remained cloaked, as if his identity was to be kept from me. This was indeed strange.

"Granddaughter, allow me to introduce my companions, whose names you will be very familiar with."

All the figures arranged themselves in a semicircle around me, their faces now clearly visible, their look totally becalming.

"I’ll start from left to right. This is Acid, Chuck, Mad, lix, the Dr, Flash, agi, Karmita, Kaos, Brain, and Sydis, and the person on the settee is Roger Waters."

I was shocked, all the names from the BBS, and more importantly Roger Waters was in my room. So he had boarded the Crossed Hammers HeloHover after all. But why was his lifeless form laying on my couch?

My reverie of the situation was suddenly broken by many alarms ringing simultaneously, and I watched as all the posters in front of me reached for their breast pocket, extracting small palmtop Internet terminals and opening them as one. Puzzled looks encompassed each face as they commenced tapping away at the touch pads on their respective units. An audible message transmitted from each palmtop, which I barely discerned with my own sensitive hearing. Each looked up as one, looked at Roger Waters on the settee, and turned to each other in stark bewilderment.

Acid spoke first, a sound of despair in his voice. "Dave Gilmour survived!"

They were all visibly dumbstruck by this information.

"How could he have survived," I replied hesitantly, "that HeloHover exploded on impact. And how the hell did he survive?". I pointed to the prone figure.

"Seems Gilmour sent a Robo-entity in his place," replied Chuck. "As for Mr Waters, he had a disconnect with the fans just before the crash. We saw him spit at a rather vocal Fascist Love Me fan a prearranged signal for us to get him out of there before anything else happened. You wouldn’t have seen us teleport to the stage and remove him to the Crossed Hammers HeloHover before impact. We are his protectors."

Now it started to fall into place, I think! Of course, It was Roger I saw getting into the HeloHover as I had first thought. I hadn’t made the assimilation to had actually accompanied him and now it struck home. The suits these guys are wearing were the same suits of the attendants I had seen placing him in the hover. These guys had some amazing technological gadgets. But the Gilmour scenario, started to bother me. Why was it so important?

Mad looked up from his palmtop, and whispered something to Grandfather. He turned towards me.

"Seems we have a object message coming through from Mr Gilmour. Have you got your heliograph-screen functioning, sweetheart?"

I pointed to the cupboard adjacent my PC desk. Lix moved over to it, opened it, disconnected my PC and interfaced his palmtop to the HGS. Immediately, the screen blinked into life, and an object started to take shape in the ether. Slowly, but surely, the form took shape, as the gigabyte data was transformed from an electronic signal to a floating three dimensional representation. Dave Gilmour, guitar by his side, and noticeably ancient in demeanour, was seen to be holding two objects in his ancient hands. One I could discern as a well thumbed cover off an LP depicting a prism with light passing through it on a black background. The other object, though smaller, held more significance. It appeared to be an Olive Branch, but there was something strangely odd about it. It was then that I noticed that it was broken in two.

"Hello, disciples of my mate," boomed the voice from the screen, "I know you have him in your possession. It will not be long before the WAS IS finds me, so I will make this short."

He turned slightly, as if looking over his shoulder and continued.

"This is the Olive branch that one of you handed my alter ego, ebai, and which he gave me to pass on to Roger before the Reunion show. Of course, the world saw me pass this to Roger, thinking that it was a significant step towards reparation, to peace. Everyone saw Roger take it, say thank you to me, and then saw in amazement the branch break in two and drop to the floor."

Everyone in the room, except myself and Mr Waters, who still lay comatose on the sofa, nodded in agreement.

"What the world saw was Roger breaking it in two and denouncing our attempt to heal old wounds. But I had broken it before I gave it to him. He didn’t understand that the concert was a way for me to embarrass him in front of his billions of fans. I have been consumed with revenge for years since he left Pink Floyd, because he took the soul of the group with him and left the body to carry on. It never really worked for us, as it did for him. I hated his BBS and sent insiders in to destabilise the concepts that you, and many of your fellow protagonists, were expounding in the name of him and your own beliefs. I thought it sick!"

He let out a resigned sigh, and continued, everyone in the room transfixed on his persona.

"I have kept this olive branch, and my original first pressing of the best album we ever did together as tokens of my desire to gain him back for the band. But you lot have continually thwarted my desire, and in so doing fuelled my resentment at the one you now call the Prophet. My attempt to finish it once and for all failed yesterday. That I know. One amongst you has told me as such. But I must end it now. I have failed once again."

Just at that moment, the helioscreen flickered briefly, and a bright light emanated from near the sofa. The figure laying there started to move, almost imperceptibly at first, then gradually more hurriedly, as the light above him intensified. The air was rent with the sudden burst of music from the speaker system built into my condopad, "What God Wants, God Gets" booming out at full volume. I held my hands over my ears, but kept my focus on Mr Waters as he stood up from the sofa and was enveloped by the light. The light intensified and grew even further as it enveloped the twelve disciples as well and those it touched seemed to be peacefully content with what was happening. I wasn’t so sure though. The scene was surreal, yet frightening. The music seemed to increase in volume, through my hands, as the light grew.

Then, as my focus was directed towards movement on the HGS and I saw Mr Gilmour being wrestled to the ground by the WAS IS squad, a sudden deafening voice encroached on my mind. "Hello, there. Love to everyone and peace to all." And in a blinding flash and deafening explosion, they all disappeared, Roger, Dave, my Grandfather and his eleven BBS mates. Poof! Gone!

I started to cry. The full realisation finally hit me. God got what he wanted in the end and it didn’t matter what any of us had to say about it. He is nature personified and nature had run its’ course. I started to shiver. I was shaken by my sudden revelation. I started to black out at the sheer enormity of it all.

***************************

I sit bolt upright in my chair. Where the hell am I. I survey the area immediately before my eyes. Familiarity reaches out to my consciousness, my faithful IBM Aptiva and it’s associated monitor, my well beaten keyboard, and worn down mouse sit in front of me. The half smoked packet of Winfield Red’s and a cold milk-curdled cup of espresso by my side. Ah, I think. I must have been dreaming.

I look out the window. The world is still the same. It is the year 2000.