How Roger Waters' 'Us + Them' Tour Retooled Pink Floyd Classics for the Trump Era

The “Us + Them” tour (2017–2018) didn’t just revisit Pink Floyd songs—it dragged them into the present by swapping abstract Cold War anxieties for live footage of border walls, climate protests, and migrant boats. The result was a stadium show that felt less like a nostalgia trip and more like a nightly anti-authoritarian rally.

Where The Dark Side of the Moon originally used taped voices and synth swooshes to suggest paranoia about money and death, Waters replaced that existential fog with pointed visuals: a burning planet for “The Great Gig in the Sky,” a ticker of refugee deaths during “Us and Them.” The song’s famous line about “forward and he who denies” was now accompanied by images of police and ICE agents—no subtlety, just clear political indictment.

The Animals material got the most aggressive update. The 1977 album already functioned as a fable about capitalism’s pigs and dogs. Waters doubled down: “Dogs” played over footage of bankers and politicians, while “Pigs (Three Different Ones)” featured a massive inflatable pig with a Trump hairdo and a scrawl reading “BLACK LIVES MATTER” and “RESIST.” The original track was aimed at Mary Whitehouse; the 2017 version went after the entire Trump administration, complete with a mocking “fuck you” chant aimed at the president during