Roger Waters’ upcoming North American tour coincides with the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, and that’s not by accident. Waters’ “This Is Not a Drill Tour” promises to be his most political outing to date, because “as the clock ticks faster and faster and faster down to extinction, it seemed like a good thing to make a fuss about it… To be blunt, we need to change the way we organize ourselves as a human race or die.”
Waters expanded on those sentiments during a screening of his concert film Us + Them in New York on Tuesday night, as Rolling Stone points out. When the moderator, BMG’s John Loeffler, commented that he “was equally moved [in the film] just to see kids all over the world getting the message that they’re not alone,” Waters said was the case everywhere, except America.
“Funnily enough, they are [connecting to that message], but unfortunately not fucking here,” he said (via Rolling Stone). “Because if they were, you wouldn’t have Donald Trump as a president, you wouldn’t be having all this nonsense with the Democratic primaries, with them trying to destroy the only candidate who can possibly win against Donald Trump, [Bernie] Sanders.”
From there, Waters waxed despair on the sad state of affairs of which America currently finds itself in.
“We’re living here in a fool’s hell,” Waters remarked. “The United States of America is not a fool’s paradise; it’s a fool’s hell. And watching [the film], it reminded me that the great battle is the battle between propaganda and love. And propaganda is winning. And sadly, the buttons of the propaganda machine are being pushed by people who are fucking sick. These sick, sociopathic fuckers, all of them, every single one of them. Believe it or not, Donald Trump is somewhere down here, floundering around in the muddy water at the bottom of the oligarchic pool.”
“And this is a man who has failed at fucking everything in his life except becoming the biggest … tyrant and mass murderer and mass destroyer of everything that any of us might love or cherish in the whole [world], only because he has the power,” Watters added. “Unfortunately, he has his finger on the button on it, and he’s right. In ‘Pigs,’ when we put up that he has a bigger button and it works, it does. And it’s working all over the world, murdering brown people for profit.”
Waters’ “This Is Not a Drill Tour” runs from July to August, with each performance taking place in the round. You can find tickets to his upcoming dates here. And if you aren’t a fan of Waters’ politics, go see Katy Perry, because he doesn’t care.
Roger Waters 2020 Tour Dates:
07/08 – Pittsburgh, PA @ PPG Paints Arena
07/10 – Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center
07/14 – Detroit, MI @ Little Caesars Arena
07/17 – Toronto, ON @ Scotiabank Arena
07/21 – Quebec City, QC @ Videotron Centre
07/23 – Montreal, QC @ Bell Centre
07/25 – Albany, NY @ Times Union Center
07/28 – Boston, MA @ TD Garden
07/30 – Washington, DC @ Capitol One Arena
08/01 – Cincinnati, OH @ Heritage Bank Center
08/05 – New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden
08/11 – Raleigh, NC @ PNC Arena
08/13 – Orlando, FL @ Amway Center
08/15 – Miami, FL @ AmericanAirlines Arena
08/18 – Nashville, TN @ Bridgestone Arena
08/20 – Atlanta, GA @ State Farm Arena
08/22 – Milwaukee, WI @ Fiserv Forum
08/25 – Minneapolis, MN @ Target Center
08/27 – Chicago, IL @ United Center
08/29 – Kansas City, MO @ Sprint Center
09/02 – Denver, CO @ Pepsi Center
09/04 – Las Vegas, NV @ T-Mobile Arena
09/10 – Los Angeles, CA @ STAPLES Center
09/14 – Vancouver, BC @ Rogers Arena
09/16 – Edmonton, AB @ Rogers Place
09/19 – Tacoma, WA @ Tacoma Dome
09/21 – Portland, OR @ Moda Center
09/23 – Sacramento, CA @ Golden 1 Center
09/25 – San Francisco, CA @ Chase Center
09/30 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Vivint Smart Home Arena
10/03 – Dallas, TX @ American Airlines Center
