Roger Waters”Wall’ stopping in Vegas, giving Pink Floyd fans cause to dream

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Now that the show that could never tour finally has, could it not tour again? And could it do that not touring in Las Vegas?

Pink Floyd fans have hopeful reasons to ponder the future of “The Wall.” But for now they’re just happy Roger Waters has taken his magnum opus on the road, for a tour that pulls up at the MGM Grand Garden today.

“The Wall” was a lot of things in 1979 and 1980: A 30 million-selling double concept album. The beginning of the concert as theatrical spectacle. The beginning of the end of Pink Floyd, and, as it turned out, the whole era of FM-rock culture and its storied bands, which MTV would soon replace with a new set of rules.

But one thing it most certainly was not said to be: a prototype of 2010 Las Vegas.

And yet, the 12 U.S. performances of “The Wall” in early 1980 pointed the way to the city’s entertainment future.

Celine Dion and Cher now park on the Strip and let their fans do the traveling. If you were a college student on any campus between New York and Los Angeles in February 1980, the Floyd show was the fantasy road trip the change jar failed to finance.

“The Wall” only played seven arena dates in Los Angeles Sports Arena and five in the Nassau Coliseum in Long Island. The shows became legend, preserved only in blurry bootleg videos (never officially released) and, years after the fact, a live album.

Beyond the band’s internal strife — Waters dominating the other three Floyds, hastening the group’s demise — it was deemed too complex to tour.

But Las Vegas is nothing if not about making baby boomer fantasies come true. And it has run with nonportable entertainment, even using some of the same talent for its top-shelf titles.

Mark Fisher, production designer for both the 1980 and 2010 versions of “The Wall,” worked on Cirque du Soleil’s “Ka” and “Criss Angel: Believe,” and the non-Cirque “Le Reve.” Marc Brickman, lighting designer for both versions of “The Wall,” designed the stage for the Blue Man Group at The Venetian.

Waters, 67, has rumbled that this tour will be his swan song as a live performer. But there surely will be tempting offers to give the giant puppets and the 36-foot wall of cardboard bricks a life beyond the storage unit.

The city’s two big corporate promoters — Live Nation and AEG Live — have expressed interest in a resident version of “The Wall.” Live Nation has favored-nation status (but not exclusivity) with the artist, promoting the current tour. But it would have to build or adapt a venue.

AEG has the more easily imagined place, the 4,000-seat Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel. “If he would ever want to do it, we would love to talk to him about it,” AEG executive John Meglen said last year.

Of course, the idea of Waters actually performing it, at least with any frequency, is unlikely. It also would negate the lure of repeatability Vegas brings to the table. (Seeing him do it every once in a while? Why not. The Las Vegas Hilton’s owners were trying to sell Michael Jackson on a revue he could step in and out of.)

“The Wall” still could be intriguing with other rock names playing the tortured rock star. And Waters seems open-minded to a theatrical spinoff.

A Broadway deal with Harvey Weinstein was reported in 2004. The success of Green Day’s “American Idiot” could reopen that avenue.

But the movie version of “The Wall” suffered from overliteralizing the story of a rock star’s isolation and mental breakdown. “The Wall” was conceived as arena spectacle and seems most at home as a concert, using the medium as metaphor.

By all reports, the 2010 “Wall” widens its range of metaphor and is no longer so self-absorbed.

“(I)t has occurred to me that maybe the story of my fear and loss … provides an allegory for broader concerns: Nationalism, racism, sexism, religion, whatever!” Waters writes on his website. “All these issues and ‘isms are driven by the same fears that drove my young life.”

The delightful irony of Waters’ two previous tours (in 2000 and 2007, both at the MGM) was how warm and human he came off. Especially for a man whose grandest idea came from the fantasy of building a wall between him and the audience.

He tore down the wall in his own life. Perhaps some day, Las Vegas can tear it down again each night.

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.