Tonight was the night, arriving at America West Arena and feeling the je ne se quois of going to a concert. It is packed, as we wait outside kids are coming literally by the school bus load.
We make our way inside and find our seats. We faced stage-left, James' side, in our less-than-stellar seats.
Garbage opened for them, they tried hard and all but they didn't get the crowd into it, only about five girls in the front row actually stood when they came on. is it just me or does shirley manson remind you of dolores o'riordan on crack? she wasn't even dressed nice and sexy like in the videos she had oyster grey sweatpants and a white tank top. Her fiery-red hair on a pony tail. The band performed Queer, Happy When it rains, Vow, and the surreal Milk among others. After 45 minutes they stopped-the Pumpkins were now only minutes away. This is what I've been waiting and hoping for since the release of MC&IS, after a month of savoring, my mouth watered in anticipation. The house lights went out, the crowd screamed...
The recording of Mellon-Collie and The Infinite Sadness filled the air as lighters lit it up the house like stars in the charcoal black night. Then the stage lights, in sync with the music came on. The Pumpkins began with the rocker Where Boys Fear to Thread. The obliterating, Zero followed, everyone jumping and singing along ("I'm your face in your dreams of glass...") The triple video screens displayed giant blue eyes that stared onimously at the crowd. The stage had this christmas-tree/wizard cone/rocket-carcass structure on the back with lights and they also had video screens on. Billy's face was on the screen as well. Of course the usual billy-isms were present; him raising his hand towards the audience as if to offer the music and throwing the pick in the air and catching it in his mouth and as always being very polite and thanking everyone for "coming to the show", it was more like 'thank you Billy for coming here!'.
The symphonic Tonight Tonight came next, during which the video screens had the 'Journey to the Moon' the film that inspired the video.

After that song Billy introduce the next song as "probably the last happy Smashing Pumpkins song" and began the opening riff to Today and everyone cheered and sang. The band followed up with their hit Cherub Rock, how easily can one riff excite the crowd. D'arcy with her new short blonde hair, wearing black on black pounded the bass lines and the audience howled along "tell me all of you secrets."
Through the eyes of Ruby brought the house down ending with a long, very cool guitar duet performed by Billy and James. James was dressed well with black pants, violet shirt and tie as he told jokes and displayed the playful side of 'the quiet one.' Next came Galapogos, during which an idiot in first rows threw a metal rod at Billy "hawkeye" Corgan. The enraged singer stopped the song, pointed the idiot out to security and had him thrown out. The band did not disappoint when Billy brought the acoustic guitar to play another favorite from Siamese Dream Disarm.

The arena darkened and circus music began with a recording saying "howddy doody kids-welcome to the greatest show in the world, the world, the world" which introduced Bullet with Butterfly Wings. The crowd sang a long to the rest of the songs Muzzle, and Porcelina. During the latter, a girl threw Billy a paper plane, he opened it, read it, smiled and threw it back at her. After the blistering XYU the pumpkins went off stage. Exhausted from putting so much into their music, but of course we wouldn't let them leave.
While the band took a break Billy and the frog guy, with a green angel suit came out. Jimmy Frog played guitar and guitar-less Billy grabbed the microphone and sang Landslide. The performance was incredibly moving as it got the lighter seal-of-approval. The rest of the group came out to do 1979, james asked the whole crowd to dance to it and of course we did. Meahwhile the screens put the 1979 video. That performance had a very party-like feel as the stage lights lit up the house and once again that guy from the Frogs was trying to outstage the Pumpkins going down to the floor level and threatening to throw D'arcy's stuffed bear at them.
After the song James thanked the crowd for being so kind and introduced Jimmy and Dennis frog(Flemming) along with drummer Matt Walker-giving this story about how James's dad and Matt's dad used to go ice fishing together. They played an extra long version of Siva and during the mid section Billy stated that James wanted "sprinkle all his kisses upon your head, and leave you wishing for more in his bed" The Pumpkins left the stage afterwards as the crowd screamed for an encore. Matt came out and started doing this tribal drum solo after about two minutes D'arcy and James came out and they jammed along with matt. Everyone was thrilled that we would get another song and went hysterical when Billy came out.

With the on-going drum solo he bagan singing "I hear your winter..." the opening lines for their jam-inspired song silverfuck. A ten minute guitar jam to ended the concert. D'arcy got tired, took off her bass and walked off stage, Billy motioned to James who picked up the bass and continued the jam. Billy wearing his usual, trademark silver pants and zero shirt, was the last one to leave the stage after thanking everyone for coming and staying till the end of the show-he wave goodbye and blew kisses to everyone and promised to see us again on the "other side". A VERY VERY COOL CONCERT indeed, the atmostphere, the music, the band. Billy Corgan the man, the myth, the legend in his own time.

return
[get back where you belong]

reach
[humor me before you go]