Regardless of whether a jolly Roger is an oxymoron too far, sentiment and nostalgia persuaded the famed former miserabilist to don his long dark coat for a last hurdling of the old, eponymous obstacle.
Out came the old props, from angular schoolteacher to the suffocating mother, the polystyrene bricks and the flying pig and, in the centre of it all, the lithe, limby figure of the man himself.
Waters did not exist in corporeal form when I was younger. I saw no photos and heard no interviews. This fed nearly into the delusion that he was my improbable alter ego, prepared to get out there telling tales of howling anguish and pitiful alienation while I, his mild-mannered introverted counterpart, could stay safely ensconced in my bedroom brooding in damp and greasy isolation.
His identity emerged slowly, bleached and vacant like the image on the shroud of Turin, and I learnt to adjust to our separate lives while he underwent a similar learning experience with the embittered rump of Pink Floyd.
Never mind. We would always have The Wall.
The Wall said it all and when there was nothing more to say Gerald Scarfe painted the angst in acid ink, creating an indelible iconography.
All was on display in this rerun of the stunning multimedia extravaganza that saw a wall constructed throughout the first half upon which epic animation flashed images from a scrawny, hollow soul.
Waters missed not a note or an opportunity.
His voice, always weirdly unique, has not lost its strain and strength and he still sounds like a ghost wailing for release from behind the skirting board where a large devil in stilettos is stomping on his toe for eternity.
There was moist-eyed carousing and genuflection from the pot-bellied hippies when Water's performed a duet with his younger angrier self in Mother.
He called that incarnation - filmed the last time the wall was performed in London 30 years ago - "f***** up little Roger" and stately pensioner this time around positively revelled in the adulation for his neo-camp prog rock opera.
Highlight was the searing, heart thumping rendition of crowd pleaser Comfortably Numb which saw Waters smash the wall into a kaleidoscope of colours while the guitarists, atop the structure made sweeping angels on a fret board.
"30 years ago I was famously grumpy with rock and roll audiences," said the man. "Now I couldn't be happier."
Thanks Rog, for everything. It was a close run thing at times but we made it through, didn't we?
– From May 2011
