Kevin Bronson on October 10th, 2016

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Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters brought both “The Wall” and his band’s legendary inflatable pig to Desert Trip on Saturday night. And Waters used both to castigate the “ignorant, lying, racist, sexist pig” who wants to build a wall, Donald Trump.

As screeds go, Waters’ extravagant show at the Empire Polo Club in Indio — fusing arresting visuals, surround-sound effects and the conceptual music — was more eloquent and artful than anything the GOP presidential candidate could imagine. Coincidentally running concurrent to Sunday’s second presidential pissing match, the show injected substantial socio-political heft into a three-day weekend drunk on nostalgia and $14 beers.

Sure, the Who’s anthems of youthful rebellion had sounded fresh as ever earlier in the evening — and there were some actual youths there banging their heads to them. “Good luck with your election, folks,” Pete Townshend had told the crowd laconically. But beyond Desert Trip’s obvious message — probably put best by Townshend: “Well, here the fuck we are” — there was little pontificating as overt as Waters’. Neil Young’s rapturous Saturday set had an environmental and political thread; Paul McCartney and Bob Dylan let their songs do the talking (although was anybody awake when Dylan encored with “Masters of War?”); and the Rolling Stones repped their brand.

||| Also: Day 1 review/photos; Day 2 review/photos.

Waters, though, gave a clinic in how music can soundtrack protest and even elevate it to grand theater.

How his volley went over with the moneyed middle-agers that dominated the crowd of about 75,000 is anybody’s guess. In the pit, there was shock and then scattered cheers and then lots and lots of phone photos when the pig floated over the crowd as Waters and his 10-piece ensemble began “Pigs.” On one flank, the message “FUCK TRUMP AND HIS WALL” was reversed out of a silhouette of the U.S., along with the hashtagged labels “ignorant, lying, racist, sexist.” On the opposite flank, “DIVIDED WE FALL.” At the same time, posterized images of Trump appeared on the massive video screen behind the band, superimposed over a giant image of the wall.

Earlier, during “Us and Them,” the visuals referenced the Black Lives Matter movement, with a photo of one protest sign reading “White Silence Is Violence.” And later, Waters’ hand would get even heavier. “It’s rare somebody like me gets a platform like this,” he said, “so I’m going to use it.” He gave a reading of the poem “Why Cannot the Good Prevail,” written after George W. Bush’s re-election in 2004. Then he voiced his support for the pro-Palestinian BDS movement and urged Israel “to end the occupation.”

Prior to “Shine on You Crazy Diamond,” Waters referenced his work with MusiCorps, a nonprofit that helps disabled veterans learn to play music. He then introduced guest guitarist Greg Galeazzi, a veteran who lost both of his legs in Afghanistan, to play the solo in the song.

Waters, 73, was as generous with the hits as he was his opinions. Owing to his ace band — including singers Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig of Lucius — and what the rocker told the L.A. Times was the world’s biggest quadrophonic system, they sounded magnificent. Backdropped by Gerard Scarfe’s mesmerizing visuals, the set heavy on material from “The Dark Side of the Moon,” “Wish You Were Here” and “Animals” seemed to transform the vast expanse of the polo field into an alternate universe, energizing the festival-weary crowd. “Makes me even more glad I didn’t die before I got old,” joked one man limping toward the exit as Waters drenched the crowd in “Comfortably Numb.”

The Who were their own brand of defiant in their two-hour set, with Townshend as endearingly prickly as ever. “Did y’all come here to see old people dance?” the 71-year-old guitarist said, doing a little jig. And after opening with “I Can’t Explain” and “The Seeker,” he acknowledged what plenty of Indio first-timers had been talking about all weekend. “It’s not so much desert as just a lot of fucking dust,” he said, adding as he spread his arms toward the bright orange horizon, “but then you look at that …”

He recalled coming to the U.S. for the first time when they were a chart-topping band. “We were a 1967 version of Adele or Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber or Rihanna,” Townshend said, when in reality, “We were just a bunch of reprobates.” He also referenced his legendary loathing for Led Zeppelin, introducing material from the album “Who’s Next” by saying, “It was our biggest radio album … And then they stopped playing it and just played ‘Stairway to Heaven’ over and over again.”

The Who’s set was hit after hit after hit, played ferociously. Except for brief melodic and lyrical concessions to diminished range, 72-year-old Roger Daltrey’s vocals sounded much better than recent reports led many to believe. He can still swing the mic with anybody, too. Townshend revved up his signature windmill, and, two hours into the set and drenched in sweat, he executed a mini-scissor-kick and a knee-slide across the stage.

They ended with “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” which foreshadowed, intentionally or not, Waters’ heavier set. That song seemed an imperative when it was released, and even though it still has the same spine, there’s something about 4 1/2 decades of world events that reduces it now to faint hope. At least there’s that.

The Who setlist: I Can’t Explain, The Seeker, Who Are You, The Kids Are Alright, I Can See for Miles, My Generation, Behind Blue Eyes, Bargain, Join Together, You Better You Bet, 5:15, I’m One, The Rock, Love, Reign O’er Me, Eminence Front, Amazing Journey, Sparks, The Acid Queen, Pinball Wizard, See Me, Feel Me, Baba O’Riley, Won’t Get Fooled Again

Roger Waters setlist: Speak to Me, Breathe, Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun, One of These Days, Time, Breathe (reprise), The Great Gig in the Sky, Money, Us and Them, Fearless, You’ll Never Walk Alone, Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I-V), Welcome to the Machine, Have a Cigar, Wish You Were Here, Pigs on the Wing 1, Pigs on the Wing 2, Dogs, Pigs (Three Different Ones), The Happiest Days of Our Lives, Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2), Mother, Brain Damage, Eclipse, Why Cannot the Good Prevail, Vera, Bring the Boys Back Home, Comfortably Numb

Why Cannot the Good Prevail

Why cannot the good prevail?
Here in America there is at heart
A people, just and true,
Open, sometimes to the point of ridicule.
Good neighbors to rebuild the barn,
The doctor’s note of western legend
Carried forth beyond the grave
I knew your Pa, enough.
In caucuses across the land
Deliberate they’ll always stand,
Defenders of the Rosenburgs.
Symbolic of their inner yearning
To be better than before.
They never will give up their brother
To the grocers cold machine
Belt welts livid from the strong arm of the law.
On campuses,
In boardrooms,
Over giving thanks
And pumpkin pie,
On hustings, in committee rooms,
Whenever tyrants loomed,
We always held in our esteem
The ones who hold on to the dream,
Unflinching,
While the bullies
Pose and fiddle on the hill.
Has commerce so reduced the free,
That,
Blinded like a tot,
Contaminated by the dog shit in the grass,
We blunder, slaves to humbug, and this Texan dynasty.
NO!
Beyond the grip of trade
The young strain beautiful and proud,
The hoar frost breath of new blood
Needs but nudges from
The old forgotten guard
To scale the moral high grounds
In the clouds