Production started on Pink Floyd's The Wall movie on this day in 1981. The original plan to cast Roger Waters in the lead role was scrapped after producer Alan Parker and director Gerald Scarfe reviewed his screen test and decided it would be better to have Boomtown Rats front man Bob Geldolf play the part. There were reportedly frequent clashes within the production ranks during the making of the film. Parker later described the project as "...one of the most miserable experiences of my creative life." The movie was screened at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival and had its official screen premiere on July 14, 1982 at the Empire Theatre on Leicester Square in London. Waters, David Gilmour and Nick Mason attended. Richard Wright did not. Also in attendance at the opening were Pete Townshend, Sting, Andy Summers and Roger Taylor. Gilmour later said the the rift that developed between him and Waters grew out of conflicts the pair had about the making of the movie.
Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on September 14 include...
1946 Nazareth bassist Pete Agnew born.
1949 Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Steve Gaines born in Miami, Oklahoma.
1950 Free and Backstreet Crawler guitarist Paul Kossoff born.
1968 Pete Townshend reveals Who plans for Rock Opera Tommy in Rolling Stone magazine.
1969 Genesis gets its first paying gig at the home of Peter Gabriel's childhood Sunday school teacher.
1975 Supertramp releases Crisis, What Crisis?
1978 Grateful Dead play first of 3 concerts at Great Pyramid in Giza, Egypt.
1979 Jethro Tull release Stormwatch.
1981 Billy Joel releases Songs in The Attic.
1981 Injunction granted to block unauthorized bio about Queen.
1981 Rolling Stones do tour warm-up at Worcester, MA club, performing under the name Blue Monday & The Cockroache.
1984 ZZ Top's Leggs wins best group video MTV Music Award.
1993 Counting Crows release August and Everything After.
1995 David Bowie opens his Outside tour in Hartford, Connecticut.
1997 Plaque unveiled outside London apartment Jimi Hendrix lived in.
1999 The Guitar John Lennon played the day he met Paul McCartney sells for $225,000.
2000 Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Crosby, Stills, Nash, Paul Simon play at a fund raiser for Al Gore at Radio City Music Hall in New York.
2005 Johnny Van Zant has surgery in Nashville to remove polyp from vocal chord.
2008 Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson pilots on a flight to return British tourists to the UK after their tour operator files for bankruptcy,
2010 The Promise, a documentary about the making of Darkness on The Edge Of Town, premiers at Toronto Film Festival. Springsteen does hour long interview with actor Ed Norton before the screening.
