Roger Waters staged The Wall – Live in Berlin on 21 July 1990 to commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Waters, the English musician and former Pink Floyd bassist and songwriter, presented the concert on vacant terrain near Potsdamer Platz and the Brandenburg Gate. The site had been part of the Wall’s former no-man’s-land, making it a powerful setting for a performance based on The Wall, an album about alienation, authoritarianism, and psychological barriers.
The production was much more than a standard rock concert. A huge stage wall was built during the performance and then demolished during the finale. Waters was joined by numerous guest artists, including Cyndi Lauper, Bryan Adams, Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell, Sinéad O’Connor, the Scorpions, and members of The Band. The concert also used orchestral and choral forces.
The event is sometimes mistakenly described as a Pink Floyd concert. Waters had left Pink Floyd years earlier, and David Gilmour, Nick Mason, and Richard Wright did not perform with him at this event. The live album and video were released later in 1990, preserving one of the most elaborate musical responses to the Wall’s collapse.