Roger Waters announces UK arena shows for his "first farewell tour"

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By ( Prog ) last updated

Former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters will play three UK shows next year as part of his This Is Not A Drill world tour

RW on US TV
(Image credit: The Late Show CBS Television)

Roger Waters has announced three UK arena shows as part of his This Is Not A Drill world tour, a trek which Pink Floyd's former leader has described, with tongue-in-cheek, as his "first farewell tour". 

Waters will launch his UK mini-tour in Birmingham on May 31 at the Utilita Arena, before moving on to Glasgow’s OVO Hydro on June 2 and performing at London’s The O2 on June 6.

The dates follow on from an extensive tour of Europe, set to commence on March 17 in Lisbon, Portugal.

Talking up the tour, Waters says, “This Is Not A Drill is a groundbreaking new rock and roll/cinematic extravaganza, performed in the round, it is 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.

“The show includes a dozen great songs from Pink Floyd’s Golden Era alongside several new ones, words and music, same writer, same heart, same soul, the same man. Could be his last hurrah. Wow! My first farewell tour! Don’t miss it."

Tickets for the UK dates go on sale on September 30, at 9am, on the LiveNation website.

Waters is currently on tour in the US.

Roger Waters UK tour 2023

(Image credit: Lived Nation)

In a recent interview, Waters talked about the introduction to the This Is Not A Drill shows, where a warning is displayed that reads, "If you're one of those 'I love Pink Floyd, but I can't stand Roger's politics' people, you might do well to fuck off to the bar right now. Thank you, and please enjoy the show."

Waters said that the message was a way of "setting things straight" before going on to say that, "It also encourages a lot of the people who've come to the show because they have listened to everything I've written since, you know, 1965 or wherever I started writing songs. So, they do know what my politics are and they do understand where my heart is and they understand sort of why I'm there."

Paul Brannigan
Paul Brannigan
Contributing Editor, Louder

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.