Roger Waters is best known as the principal creative force behind Pink Floyd, a band in which he also played bass. He played with Pink Floyd from the founding of the group in 1965 until 1985, when the rest of the band felt his creative powers were spent. He took the solo route after leaving, working at his own pace and under his own direction. Roger Waters tickets for his 2012 concert series will not be for any of that solo work though, they will be available for a re-introduction to The Wall.

The tour is part of a trend bringing the rock stars of the 1970s and early 1980s out of retirement or exile and putting them on parade once again. Waters' time with Floyd definitely counts as time spent as a rock star. He founded the group with Syd Barrett, Richard Wright, and Nick Mason. This early version of Pink Floyd had Syd Barrett as its muse. He wrote all the songs and decided the creative direction of the band, but he also suffered from a deteriorating mental health. By 1967 Barrett no longer had the mental capacity to write. Barrett's departure left a void filled by Dave Gilmour on stage and Roger Waters in the creative department.

For two decades Roger Waters defined rock genius, reaching new heights along the way with The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, and The Wall. He also made himself, the rest of the band, and anyone associated with the production at the label level filthy rich (Dark Side of the Moon has reached 15-times platinum and The Wall has reached 23-times platinum). He left under contentious circumstances, but left with the rights to the album, The Wall.

As a solo artist, Waters continued to push concept albums, perhaps overshadowing the instrumentation with the deeply symbolic language. His first album after leaving Pink Floyd, The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking, dealt with a now clichéd midlife crisis. He weighs the excitement of adultery with the safety of monogamy. The album notably featured actor Jack Palance and guitarist Eric Clapton, but only managed to reach Gold Certification nine years after its commercial release.

So is the story for much of Roger Waters' solo work. The best received work seems to have been Amused to Death in 1992, which peaked at number eight on the UK Album Charts and number 21 on the Billboard 200. The album's concept, disillusionment with Western Society as mass media has become more and more part of our daily lives, spoke to the generation coming of age in 1992. The album did not come with a promotional tour though. Instead fans who purchased Roger Waters tickets to the In the Flesh Tour enjoyed many of the memorable tracks in the second half of the show. The first half featured material form Dark Side of the Moon.

Roger Waters has since appeared on stage with Oink Floyd for a brief reunion for a Live 8 performance, but has remained an artist dedicated only to himself. He has found success in a new genre though, the Classical Chart, a chart dedicated to those aging rockers making comebacks. He reach number one in the UK and the number five in the U.S. with Ca Ira (2005).