Pink Floyd

Tearing Down The Coliseum Wall preserves one of the five sold‑out nights Pink Floyd performed at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, New York during their monumental The Wall tour. Recorded on February 28, 1980, the bootleg captures the complete performance of the band's ambitious rock opera in a setting that became as much spectacle as concert. Released as a limited edition triple‑LP on splattered vinyl (350 numbered copies) and adorned with reproductions of Gerald Scarfe's iconic illustrations from the album, this audience recording documents a tour that was as technically groundbreaking as it was logistically punishing - a "stationary" run that began in Los Angeles in February 1980, closed in London in August, then resumed in Europe in 1981.

The Nassau Coliseum stand was a New York media event. All five nights sold out within five hours, with scalpers fetching up to $100 for orchestra seats and 150 fans at one show smashing through the box office glass to force their way inside. What they witnessed was rock theatre on an unprecedented scale: a wall constructed brick by brick across the stage during the first half, isolating the band from the audience, then torn down during the climactic finale. The setlist follows The Wall album sequence from start to finish, beginning with the ominous "In The Flesh?" and "The Thin Ice," moving through the narrative arc of isolation, madness and judgment ("Mother," "Comfortably Numb," "Run Like Hell"), and concluding with "The Trial" and the wall's destruction.

John Rockwell, reviewing the shows for the New York Times, called The Wall "a milestone in rock history," declaring that "never again will one be able to accept the technical clumsiness, distorted sound and meager visuals of most arena rock concerts as inevitable," and predicting that it would be "the touchstone against which all future rock spectacles must be measured." The performance married Roger Waters' dystopian vision with David Gilmour's soaring guitar work, Richard Wright's atmospheric keyboards (including a notably loud organ during "Waiting For The Worms") and Nick Mason's precise drumming, all supported by additional musicians and theatrical elements including film projections, pyrotechnics and giant inflatables.

Tearing Down The Coliseum Wall stands as one of the most widely circulated audience recordings from the 1980 leg of the tour, prized by collectors for its relatively strong sound quality and the palpable energy of the Long Island crowd, who loudly approved the trial and the wall's destruction at the climax. The bootleg edition's multi‑disc format mirrors the scale of the original event, with some pressings even including the post‑concert PA music - Glenn Miller's "Pennsylvania 6‑5000" and "In The Mood" - that played as the audience filed out of the coliseum. For fans unable to witness one of rock's most ambitious and expensive live productions firsthand, this document offers a vivid, if unofficial, window into a spectacle that redefined what a rock concert could be.