Roger Waters has announced that he will undertake an arena tour that will present the rock-opera The Wall in its entirely across North America next year. The 36-date tour will kick off in Houston on May 1 and run through July 14 when it culminates in Philadelphia.

Waters’ former band, Pink Floyd, released The Wall in 1979, and the album went on to be one of the most acclaimed and best-selling double albums of all time. Other than during a 1980 Pink Floyd tour and a one-off show in 1990, The Wall had not been performed in its entirety until Waters’ began playing the album with his band on tour in 2010 and 2011. But the new shows will be a much bigger production than those previous performances.

Speaking to Rolling Stone, Waters said all the shows will be in arenas, and the projections behind the band for the show will be 1,500 pixels wide. Waters said the show had been tested in venues like Fenway Park and Wrigley Field and the show is working well.

Waters left Pink Floyd in 1985 after several years of fighting within the band, particularly between Waters and David Gilmour, who shared songwriting and lead-singing duties in the band. Gilmour and the rest of the band continued to tour and sporadically record under the name Pink Floyd until 1994.

Tensions remained strained between Waters and Gilmour, and since the early 1980s, the classic lineup has only appeared together once. This occurred at the 2005 Live 8 concert, where the band came together to perform one set together. Subsequent tour rumors were put to rest, as both Waters and Gilmour said they didn’t regret playing the show, but that rehearsals had been relatively troublesome.

The two appeared together at a charity event in 2010, and Gilmour later played the Pink Floyd classic “Comfortably Numb” at one of the Waters’ 2011 performances of The Wall. No such reunion has been announced for this recently announced tour.

One of last year’s most successful tours was Roger Waters resurrecting ‘The Wall.’ Though he didn’t have his Pink Floyd cohorts to keep him company onstage, Waters sold out arenas across the country with his rediscovery of the classic Floyd album. It seems success is contagious as Roger Waters has announced ‘The Wall’ tour will be returning to North America in 2012.

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Waters said that the 2012 tour will be targeting baseball stadiums in key cities as well as arena in those locales neglected on the tour’s first pass. In the interview, Waters said, “we want to base the tour around Saturday nights in baseball stadiums. As we speak, I’m at my office working on an outdoor version of the show.” A few stadiums mentioned were Yankee Stadium, Fenway Park and Wrigley Field.

Waters made ‘The Wall’ Tour a worldwide phenomenon in 2011, spending most of the year on the road crisscrossing the globe. You can almost guarantee that tour promoters are looking to line up another run in Europe to compliment the coming US dates. Roger Waters has said that this run may be his last tour. I think the real question on fan’s minds is will there be any other special appearances by David Gilmour like we saw towards the end of last year’s tour at London’s O2 Arena.

Pink Floyd released the concept album ‘The Wall’ in 1979, and toured in support of it in 1980-81. It is highly recognized as one of the greatest albums of all time, selling 11.5 million albums as of 1999.

We already learned this week that albums sales in 2011 have increased, which is the first increase since 2004. Now the music industry has just received more good news. For the first six months of this year, concert revenue has increased 11 percent.

Pollstar reported the good news. The company’s figure was arrived at by examining the earnings from the top 50 highest grossing worldwide tours, which earned a total of $1.65 billion. North America’s music industry was particularly strong, with a 16.2 increase in earnings.

Overall ticket sales, however, showed a 2.1 decrease, down to 16.4 million. What this means is fewer tickets were purchased but more was paid. The cost of the average ticket price saw a 13.6 increase to $10.23.

Gary Bongiovanni, Pollstar editor, hypothesized that perhaps the figures could be explained from better artist packaging or artists performing in smaller venues with higher prices, which tend to increase the costs of the show but offer better value for fans when it comes to their money spent on tickets.

So who were the artists driving the increased revenues? The leader was U2, unsurprisingly, with revenues of $164 million. The band was followed by $97.9 million from Roger Waters, $92.1 million from Bon Jovi, $65.3 million from Lady Gaga and $62.2 million from Usher.

Later this month, the gigantic “360 Tour” of U2′s is coming to end. Hopefully the music industry will be able to remain strong once it current biggest earner is no longer on the road.

Thursday night, the surviving Pink Floyd members reunited onstage at O2 Arena in London during a stop from the Wall Tour of Rogers Waters. It’s just the second time Waters, David Gilmour and Nick Mason have performed together during the past 30 years. “Comfortably Numb” was performed by Gilmour and Waters, with the arena crowd going completely insane. During the “Outside the Wall” finale Gilmour came to the stage with Mason, who was playing a tambourine.

Just like on the 1980-81 original tour, Gilmour performed his epic solo over the Wall. Last July, Roger Waters promised Gilmour would be playing the song at one of his tour shows. However, the surprise involvement of drummer Nick Mason was kept under tight wraps. The last time they performed together was in 2005 at Live 8. Richard Wright, the original Pink Floyd keyboardist, died in 2008.

The appearance of Gilmour was confirmed on the official Gilmour fan blog just hours before their reunion. The blog noted, I want to remind everyone tonight is definitely a one-time performance. David will not be repeating another special guest performance in the future. I’m sorry I have to disappoint those crossing your fingers and with tickets for upcoming shows.

This past July, right before Waters launched the Wall tour, Gilmour played a short set with him that benefited the Hoping Foundation. They did a cover of “To Know Him Is To Love Him” by Phil Spector to close the set. Initially, Waters told Gilmour he wouldn’t sing that song with him due to the superior vocal skills of Gilmour.

On Facebook, Waters wrote, I resolutely clung to my fearing failure until he made one last plea one day. He said, if you will perform “To Know Him Is To Love Him” at Hoping Foundation’s gig, then I will come and perform “Comfortably Numb” for one of the Wall shows. I could have been knocked down using a feather. That was so fucking cool. It blew me away. It was an offer I couldn’t refuse. I just couldn’t. No way.

Pink Floyd fans went hysterical when they heard the news, especially since they had no idea which show from the very long tour it would end up being. Although, it was a safe bet that it would be during the run of six shows at the O2 Arena in London since Gilmour lives near the venue. Pink Floyd, earlier in the week, announced a gigantic reissue campaign. No doubt the timing was to coincide with the seminal event. The press would voraciously cover the concert event as well as mention details from their reissue campaign.

It’s the third reunion for the former band mates since Waters departed after the original 1981 Wall tour. The first reunion came in 2005 at Live 8. The second was last year for the Hoping Foundation’s benefit. Waters says he would be interested in a short Pink Floyd reunion tour. However, Gilmour won’t even consider it. Mason was asked by Rolling Stone last week if a reunion was possible. He said, there were no plans at all. Live 8 was great. We we are able to do something to help people. We also proved we were capable of working together again. I am really happy my children were able to see it. I would think at some time it could be regenerate. I live with hope. However, there isn’t any reason to put on Twitter “Nick Says Pink Floyd Will Reform!”

Rumors have been circulating for years that fabled Pink Floyd principle Roger Waters would resurrect “The Wall” and take it on the road, performing it cover-to-cover. Well that day is here. Waters has announced that he will be hitting 33-cities in North America in the fall. The run will kick off in Toronto, Ontario on September 15 and carry through to December 13 wrapping in Anaheim, California. A complete listing of Roger Waters tour dates are outlined below.

“The Wall” was originally released in 1979, and has only been played in its entirety a handful of times – during the 1980-81 Pink Floyd tour as well as commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1990 where Waters was joined by and ensemble cast.

Roger Water’s last studio album was 1992s “Amused to Death” and he released Ca Ira, an opera based on the French Revolution, in 2005. He had had a new album in the works for years, but no new light has been shed concerning its release or if he has even entered the studio to lay tracks down.

2010 Roger Waters Concert Tour
September 2010
15 – Toronto, Ontario – Air Canada Centre
20, 21 – Chicago, IL – United Center
26 – Pittsburgh, PA – Consol Energy Center
28 – Cleveland, OH – Quicken Loans Arena
30 – Boston, MA – TD Garden

October 2010
5 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden
8 – Buffalo, NY – HSBC Arena
10 – Washington, DC – Verizon Center
12 – Uniondale, NY – Nassau Coliseum
15 – Hartford, CT – XL Center
17 – Ottawa, Ontario – ScotiaBank Place
19 – Montreal, Quebec – Bell Centre
22 – Columbus, OH – Schottenstein Center
24 – Auburn Hills, MI – Palace of Auburn Hills
26 – Omaha, NE – Qwest Center
27 – St. Paul, MN – Xcel Energy Center
29 – St. Louis, MO – ScotTrade Center
30 – Kansas City, MO – Sprint Center

November 2010
3 – East Rutherford, NJ – Izod Center
8, 9 – Philadelphia, PA – Wachovia Center
13 – Fort Lauderdale, FL – Bank Atlantic Center
16 – Tampa, FL – St. Pete Times Forum
18 – Atlanta, GA – Philips Arena
20 – Houston, TX – Toyota Center
21 – Dallas, TX – American Airlines Center
23 – Denver, CO – Pepsi Center Arena
26 – Las Vegas, NV – MGM Grand Garden Arena
27 – Phoenix, AZ – US Airways Center
29 – Inglewood, CA – The Forum

December 2010
1 – Inglewood, CA – The Forum
6 – San Jose, CA – HP Pavilion
10 – Vancouver, British Columbia – General Motors Place
11 – Tacoma, WA – Tacoma Dome
13 – Anaheim, CA – Honda Center