Roger Waters at AO Arena

Johnny James, Managing Editor

Book now

Roger Waters

Manchester Arena, Manchester
10 June 2023

Always double check opening hours with the venue before making a special visit.

Roger Waters
Book now

Pink Floyd legend Roger Waters continues his This Is Not A Drill tour at Manchester’s AO Arena, bringing both solo and Pink Floyd material to the city for the first time in five years.

Following Syd Barrett’s 1968 departure from Pink Floyd, Roger Waters quickly emerged as the band’s grand conceptualist, and the driving force behind blockbuster albums like Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and The Wall. A formidable songwriter with a sober morality and sardonic sense of humour, Waters, via his band, is responsible for some of the most iconic songs in rock music, from ‘Us & Them’ to ‘Comfortably Numb’ to ‘Wish You Were Here’.

Leaving Pink Floyd after 1983’s The Final Cut, Waters continued to put out brilliant work as a solo artist, recording an acclaimed triptych of concept albums between 1984 and 1992: The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking, Radio K.A.O.S. and Amused to Death. All of these wedded musical genius to pressing political struggles – something, it seems, will always be a marker of Waters’ art.

After a long period spent composing classical music, engaging in activism and reviving his classic Pink Floyd albums in the form of increasingly grandiose live spectacles, Waters teamed up with producer Nigel Godrich (most famously the cornerstone of Radiohead) to record Is This the Life We Really Want? in 2018. The album featured some of Waters’ best solo writing to date, imbued with the then-75-year-old’s pleasingly weathered, gracefully gruff voice. Not quite late-era Johnny Cash but getting there.

A plea for sanity in a world whose moral compass broke some time ago, tunes like ‘The Last Refugee’ showed us Waters the poet, weaving lines that stand up to anything he’s written – “While bathing belles soft/ Beneath hard bitten shells/ Punch their iPhones/erasing the numbers of redundant lovers.” And even casual fans could spot his characteristic way with melody and harmony, evoking the jagged parts of Wish You Were Here and Animals, when his melodic instinct was arguably at its best.

Waters’ This Is Not A Drill tour, originally planned for 2020, draws from that last album and other solo efforts (including brand new songs like ‘The Bar’), but more heavily from Pink Floyd’s golden era. In terms of production, it is, by all accounts, incredibly ambitious. Centred around the most pressing social issues of our day, from permanent war to police violence, it’s a show that harks back to an era when artists’ moral authority was not compromised by commercial interests; Waters is and always will be fierce against the forces of oppression.

The man himself describes the show as “a groundbreaking new rock and roll/cinematic extravaganza, performed in the round” and “a stunning indictment of the corporate dystopia in which we all struggle to survive, and a call to action to Love, Protect and Share our precious and precarious planet home.”

Now pushing 80, the whisperers are wondering whether this will be Waters’ last tour. As he says above the archetypal ticking clocks and beating hears of ‘When We Were Young’, the opener of Is This the Life We Really Want?, “Who gives a fuck, it’s never really over”. Echoing that sentiment in typically sardonic fashion, he recently referred to the This Is Not A Drill his “first farewell tour”. And yes, while there might be another opportunity to catch the genius that is Roger Waters live, there might not be. Why not take the opportunity now.

Where to go near Roger Waters at AO Arena

Virgin Red Room
Manchester
Virgin Red Room

The Virgin Red Room is a new private members space located at Manchester’s AO Arena, with VIP access to some of the city’s biggest gigs.

Chetham’s Library in Long Millgate in Manchester
Manchester
Library
Chetham’s Library

Chetham’s Library is one of the must-sees of any visit to Manchester. The library was founded in 1653, and is the oldest public library in the world – but the building dates back even further, to 1421.

Cathedral Quarter
Restaurant
Mamucium

High-class restaurant next to Victoria Station in Manchester, and attached to Hotel Indigo. Famed for steaks.

City Centre
Event venue
Sadler’s Yard

Sadlers Yard is a public square and events space in Manchester from NOMA Mcr. Home of the Pilcrow Pub and PLANT NOMA.

Manchester
Music venue
The Stoller Hall

The baby in the family of Manchester’s concert halls, The Stoller Hall greatly enhances the city’s already enviable live music provision.

Manchester
Event venue
Federation House

Federation House in Manchester is a pop-up project space that provides opportunities for artists, artist groups and artist development agencies.

Manchester
Restaurant
Skof by Tom Barnes

We visit Skof, Manchester’s most raved-about new restaurants, mere hours before 2025’s Michelin Guide announcement.

City Centre
Restaurant
Allpress
at NOMA

Allpress at NOMA is a home to all things coffee, with a café and seasonal menu incorporating locally sourced ingredients.

The National Football Museum Manchester
Manchester
Museum
National Football Museum

The National Football Museum is now open to the public, ready to show off its impressive array of football-related exhibits and activities.

What's on: Music

Rina Srabonian.
Until
MusicCity Centre
manchester jazz festival 2025

manchester jazz festival is back this May with 10 days of live music from some of the best northern, national and international musicians operating in the world of contemporary jazz.

0-£30
Sextile
MusicManchester
Sextile at The White Hotel

From sunny Los Angeles to deepest darkest Salford, electronic punk duo Sextile head to their spiritual home of The White Hotel.

From £16.00

Culture Guides

Hannah Platt 'Playing Out', courtesy of Threshold, photograph by Jules Lister.
Exhibitions in the North

From city-wide art festivals to open-air sculptural installations, we have exhibitions from all around the North, both indoors and out.

Sextile
Music in the North

Gigs are coming in hot this spring – from long-awaited returns to one-off happenings you’ll blink and miss (unless you’re paying attention).

Theatre in Manchester and the North
Theatre in the North

Eclectic as ever. You'll find inventive reworkings, world-class contemporary dance and Greater Manchester's inaugural Improv Festival in our guide.

portrait of Lorsung in a dark shirt with dark hair and dark round glasses
Literature Events in the North

We've got laughs and we've got leftfield on the live literature radar this month. Something for everyone, from poets playing with form to short story writers looking long.

Classical Music in the North

Read our latest highlights from the live classical music offer in Manchester and the North, taking in a number of the region's most cherished orchestral forces and venues.