Roger Waters is offering his thoughts on how his musical legacy measures up against some of today’s biggest stars.
The subject arose during a recent interview with Toronto’s The Globe and Mail, when a reporter told the former Pink Floyd rocker that he was assigned by the Canadian publication to review The Weeknd‘s show at the city’s Rogers Centre on July 8 (which was ultimately postponed) rather than Waters’ back-to-back concerts at the nearby Scotiabank Arena on July 8-9.
“But the Weeknd was canceled, and my show was for two nights,” Rogers said, referencing a nationwide power outage that caused The Weeknd’s show to be postponed. “I have no idea what or who The Weeknd is, because I don’t listen to much music. People have told me he’s a big act. Well, good luck to him. I’ve got nothing against him. Would it not have been possible to review his show one night and my show another night?”
The 78-year-old icon added that he wasn’t “trying to make a personal attack” against The Weeknd, but that it “seemed odd” that the newspaper couldn’t review both concerts on separate nights. Waters then took aim at another Canadian superstar: Drake.
“By the way, with all due respect to The Weeknd or Drake, or any of them, I am far, far, far more important than any of them will ever be, however many billions of streams they’ve got. There is stuff going on here that is fundamentally important to all of our lives,” Waters said without elaborating.
Waters is currently on the road as part of his This Is Not a Drill tour, which visits North American arenas through mid-October. The musician’s next concert is scheduled for Sunday (July 17) at Quebec’s Videotron Center.
A news release for This Is Not a Drill describes the tour as 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.”