November 8th, 2008 11:44am
Whatever Will Be Will Be Again
The Smashing Pumpkins @ United Palace, 11/7/2008 (White Crosses)
Ava Adore / Cupid de Locke / 1979 / 99 Floors / Owata / Sunkissed / Soma / Cherub Rock / Zero / Bodies / Crestfallen / I of the Mourning / Song For A Son / Landslide / Disarm / Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness / Galapagos / Gossamer / As Rome Burns / The Sounds Of Silence + Little Red Riding Hood metal dirge medley / The March Hare / Suffer / The March Hare (reprise) / Age of Innocence // That’s The Way (My Love Is) / I Am One, Part Two
The Smashing Pumpkins “Soma” (Live in 1993)
This was much more like it, though there were still some problems. The band wisely got the audience on its side right away with strong, faithful versions of three old classics before settling into a handful of mellow and nondescript new numbers. Following that, they just totally killed it from “Soma” through “Bodies,” which, as you can probably imagine, made the audience go bananas. “Soma” in particular was exactly as amazing and powerful as you’d hope, and thoroughly brought the house down. Why it was not saved for the end of the show is beyond me. In both nights, Corgan’s logic appears to be “I’m going to give you some songs you want, but then the rest of show will be very taxing and questionable in terms of quality,” and I think it would be wiser to have those more challenging moments followed up by the reward of a mind-blowing fan-favorite like “Soma” or “Zero” rather than to burn through all of those songs by the 90 minute mark. (That said, I got a lot out of “Age of Innocence,” which is one of my own sentimental favorites, but I don’t get the sense that a significant number of people share my affection for that song.)
A few notes:
* Before “Landslide,” Billy had some guy from the audience come on stage to tell him that the previous night’s show sucked, but that he didn’t want his money back. While Corgan was unreasonably gracious to give this dude a voice, he followed it by mocking the guy in a way that was obnoxiously defensive and somewhat homophobic, something to the effect of “Oh, I loved that song you wrote. “Take Your Dick Out Of My Ass And Stick It In My Mouth,” that was a big hit in Europe.”
* Of the new material, the reprise section of “The March Hare” is the most interesting, if just because it goes off in this sorta quasi-Afrobeat zone that is genuinely different from music the band has done in the past. Ultimately, the trouble with much of the new tunes is that they generally seem like uninspired versions of archetypal Pumpkins songs. “Gossamer,” for example, aspires to be this grand, epic psychedelic ballad, but it lacks anything in the way of an ingratiating hook, and so it just comes off like 15 minutes of aimless riffs and noodling. “As Rome Burns” recalls the heavier songs from the Mellon Collie era, particularly the outtakes that ended up on the “Zero” EP, but Jimmy Chamberlain’s drumming is overly busy and prevents the piece from gelling into something strong and cohesive. The group’s extended metal take on “The Sounds of Silence,” which has virtually nothing to do with the Simon & Garfunkel hit aside from retaining its opening lyrics, was a distant cousin of “X.Y.U,” but was utterly devoid of that song’s brilliant dynamics and momentum.
* More to the point, I found myself thinking about whether or not Corgan is noticing, as he plays the songs, that his compositions from the early to mid 90s are far more sophisticated and well constructed than his latest work, which mostly seems rather lazy and tossed-off. “99 Floors” and “Owata” are pleasant, but desperately need to be tightened up, as both go on too long, and just plod from part to part in a way that robs the chord changes and nice bits of melody of any impact. His work has become increasingly undisciplined, and it breaks my heart because he’s capable of such great things.
Buy it from Amazon.
11/8/08 12:17 pm
So, in case any one was interested, this is what I would’ve changed about the setlists for these two nights. Any added songs are selections played previously on this tour — there are songs that have not been performed that I would love to have seen, like “Ruby” and “Geek USA” and “XYU,” but it seems unfair to slot them in.
Night one:
Where Boys Fear To Tread / Glass Theme / Tarantula / GLOW / Siva / Eye / Mayonaise / Tonight, Tonight / Set The Ray To Jerry / Drown / Superchrist / United States / To Sheila / The Crux / Rose March / Try Try Try / Today / Bullet With Butterfly Wings / Hummer / Shame / Porcelina of the Vast Oceans
e: Crush / Muzzle
Night two:
Ava Adore / Cupid De Locke / 1979 / 99 Floors / Owata / Sunkissed / Cherub Rock / Zero / Bodies / Song For A Son / Landslide / Disarm / Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness / Galapagos / With Every Light / Thirty-Three / Starla / Doomsday Clock / Silverfuck / March Hare / Suffer / March Hare (reprise) / Age of Innocence
e: That’s The Way / Soma
11/8/08 12:23 pm
So, in other words you wanted essentially a greatest hits show with exception of a few new numbers thrown in.
11/8/08 12:46 pm
How is that not fair? It’s what they did pretty much everywhere else on the planet for a year and a half! They haven’t played in NYC in nearly a decade!
The proposed revisions basically cut out the time-suck songs that few people enjoy and replace them with well-loved album tracks from the entire catalog, it’s not just the tracklisting from the greatest hits cd. Not counting covers, the only new songs I omitted were “Gossamer” and “As Rome Burns,” the latter only because I feel that “Doomsday Clock” would’ve been more enjoyable for everyone, and that Zeitgeist was slightly under-represented.
I can’t imagine there are very many big fans of the band who would not prefer my revision to the existing setlists on this tour. Even if you’re a sorta sycophantic follow-the-band-from-city-to-city sort of fan, you have to admit these revised setlists would have been much more awesome and enjoyable.
11/8/08 1:57 pm
Matt, my point in giving you a hard time is that it really doesn’t fuckin matter what setlist you want played. If they did play what you wanted I’m sure they wouldn’t have played it how you’d want them to play it. They wouldn’t have any one of those the “Heavy Metal Machine” treatment and you still would have been pissed off. Ask yourself why you liked the second show better. Is it because of the songs or how the songs were played?
“awesome and enjoyable” is pretty much as vague as you can get. If you want to passively listen to them play “Galapagos” just as you wanted them to play it, then you should have stayed at home. Personally, I would want them to tear it apart and fuck with it to the point that it’s unrecognizable. I’ve been to enough concerts where I got what I thought I wanted. When I got there I just sat, listened, and wondered why I just paid $50 to listen to a greatest hits mix and that I could have been doing my laundry.
11/8/08 2:20 pm
I think you’re mistaking artistic decisions based on Corgan’s really wack combination of arrogance and insecurity for integrity and, you know, actually good work. It is not the job of the audience or the critic to just go along with whatever an artist decides to do — if they do something bad, it’s not some betrayal of your fandom to call them on it! A failure is a failure is a failure, and when you top that off by making it clear that you disrespect your fans with a spiteful rant at the end of the show, that’s just self-destructive, stupid, and cruel.
It’s kinda bumming me out that there seems to be this small segment of Pumpkins fans who seem to be in this really creepy Stockholm Syndrome sort of mindspace when it comes to Corgan. The second show was better because they played better songs. End of the story! The band has a large catalog, containing a large number of excellent songs. The more excellent songs that are played, the better the show will be; it’s very simple! Why would anyone want to hear lesser material when there is the option to hear top-notch material?
Also: “If they did play what you wanted I’m sure they wouldn’t have played it how you’d want them to play it.” — Well, they played all the oldies last night more or less exactly as they should be played, and that’s pretty much the case for most oldies performed by the band in the past year and a half. So….?
11/8/08 2:31 pm
“The second show was better because they played better songs. End of the story!”
No they didn’t.
“Well, they played all the oldies last night more or less exactly as they should be played,”
How should they be played Matt?
“It’s kinda bumming me out that there seems to be this small segment of Pumpkins fans who seem to be in this really creepy Stockholm Syndrome sort of mindspace when it comes to Corgan.”
Why should it bum you out? That I don’t agree with you and think Corgan is not necessarily off base when he does the things he does? Oh well, pardon me. I kind of like the fact that he’s pissing people off. Oh, and the word you are looking for is masochism, not Stockholm Syndrome.
“Self-destructive”
……now how long have you been a fan? At this point you come off as if you’ve only listened to the albums.
11/8/08 2:46 pm
No, Stockholm Syndrome is exactly what I meant.
Okay, for the five billionth time: No, I never got to see the Smashing Pumpkins in their original incarnation because I was a teenager and it never worked out. The only real opportunity I had was to see them on the Machina tour in 99, and I was broke and had to pass. They have not played in NYC since then. So no, though I have heard many live recordings from over the years, I never had the chance to see them. THAT IS PART OF WHY THIS IS FRUSTRATING. Because these are shows which are at best intended the small number of people who follow them around, and NOT for the majority of people who live in the area and have not had a chance to see the group in almost ten years. Which is a long, long time!
Bands should not feel obliged to be slaves to the renditions of the songs that appear on their albums, but they should have a sense of what works and what does not work when reworking their material. I would say that with the exception of the variations on “I am One” and “Heavy Metal Machine,” Corgan’s impulses in the way to perform the older material in both nights was pretty right on.
This is definitely an issue with the Fiery Furnaces — they have similar impulses to radically rework material and deliberately fuck with audiences (maybe this is a Chicago thing…), but their instincts are generally much better than Billy’s have been since the Adore era. Still, the Furnaces have their share of failures when it comes to touring. There’s certainly a slippery slope that starts off with inspired new takes on songs, and bottoms out with butchered versions of songs that betray everything good about the band.
I’m also really curious why these people who front as hardcore superfans are apparently totally hostile to material from Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie!
11/8/08 5:11 pm
“I’m also really curious why these people who front as hardcore superfans are apparently totally hostile to material from Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie!”
Speaking for “these people”……it’s because they’ve released more than those two albums. Personally I’m sick of hearing a lot of those songs when they play them live unless they completely fuck with them. With that said, when they do completely fuck with the arrangement often the people who want to hear those songs are mad because they don’t sound like the album version.
and p.s. I don’t “front” as a hard core fan, I am a hard core fan. Also, that wasn’t “I am One”, it was “I am One pt. 2″
11/8/08 5:54 pm
I just see no point in giving these old songs extreme makeovers that basically strip out everything that made the song a song, and replace it with, pretty much invariably, lame metal chugging and no real dynamics or melody. It’s spiteful AND artless! Give a song a new arrangement, that’s great, but eliminate everything that made a song work, and you’re just making yourself look bad, because it strongly suggests that you have no idea what made your own songs work as pieces of art.
I strongly resent the implication that I’m not a “real fan” because I have the critical faculties to go through 20 years of work and isolate what songs were good and which were not! There’s definitely great songs in every period, but the only time Billy could really do no wrong was the Siamese/Pisces/Mellon Collie/Aeroplane era, and everything since has had their ups and downs.
11/9/08 1:33 am
Matthew, you are bang on about what is wrong with these shows. My only confusion is to why exactly you might have expected too much more from Billy Corgan. He’s always had an obnoxious and pompous streak, and when I saw him play in (I think) 97, I had never, ever seen someone fax it in like that. To this day, it remains one of the worst shows I’ve ever seen.
No-one ever got into the Pumpkins because they thought that on the off chance late in the career(s) they might get into that sort of tedious, lumpen prog dross. That music is pretty close to the definition of music which sucks, and it doesn’t represent the artist being challenging - it is a very, very long way from being remotely edgy. So to stand by and laud anything an artist does is just mind-blowingly cretinous. I mean - what good does that sort of behaviour do art, ever? Call yourself a hardcore fan if you want. But you should also perhaps consider that it’s a pretty gullible position to occupy too.
11/9/08 4:08 pm
CL: “So, in other words you wanted essentially a greatest hits show with exception of a few new numbers thrown in.”
“How is that not fair? It’s what they did pretty much everywhere else on the planet for a year and a half! They haven’t played in NYC in nearly a decade!”
LMAO. Yes, what the world needs now is Entertainment and Concert Fairness to New York City. Maybe that can be the title of a new legislative package for Obama to sign.
Again, like in my comment on the other post — I think you and I would just disagree on where the 50-yard line (in the sense of the band meeting the collective audience halfway) lies. Your version of midfield looks to me more like an audience first down inside the red zone.
And, very sorry that you were young in the ’90s — and this is your blog, so whine it up if you like — but why don’t you go complain that the Beatles aren’t together and playing your dream setlist? It’s over, man, you missed it, sucks to be you. Take it out on your parents, not a rock band.
11/9/08 6:48 pm
Matthew, in hopes that you read this… I have to say that the outline-effect titles are pretty bad from a design standpoint. They’re needlessly, significantly harder to read. And their use in the comments and smaller size occurrences are borderline illegible. Here’s hoping that style gets reconsidered and replaced in the next round of design tweaks.
11/10/08 12:38 pm
Ye gods, what a dick. I’m going to console myself with the footage of them from a few years back doing “Don’t You Want Me” back when they had a vague sense of humour and at least 2 killer haircuts in the band.
11/10/08 6:10 pm
[...] Kyle Anderson of Rolling Stone, echoing a similar remark by blogger Matthew Perpetua: New songs like “Song for a Son” and “As Rome Burns” got lost in the theater’s strange [...]
11/10/08 8:00 pm
Billy must have some giant chip on his shoulder when it comes to playing NYC. I’m still in utter shock and disbelief that they skipped NYC on last fall’s tour to instead play 3 or 4 nights in Boston and 5 in Philly. It was absolutely ridiculous, however it was 100% worth the trek down to Philly to finally hear Set the Ray to Jerry live. And then this setlist and strange aggressive behavior just further confirms it. And don’t get me started on the strangely homophobic remarks on night two. I was with him until he went down that particular pathway.
I totally agree that the setlist could be peppered with more non-single tracks from previous albums, or hell even all of Zeitgeist for all I care, but that 40+ minutes of droning isn’t worth it at all. And seriously, Heavy Metal Machine is just about their worst “song” which is just as desperate and pathetic lyrically as you can get. Why they even insist on playing it at all has baffled me, and yet it has been a fixture at every show of theirs that I’ve seen since Machina was released.
But honestly, I would’ve prefered to hear just about any deep album cuts to what they actually played. I do think that some of the new songs, especially 99 Floors are lovely and Sunkissed has some nice guitar work that reminds me of the Pumpkins at their finest, I didn’t mind them. They sounded like actual songs. I have already downloaded and listened to both United Palace Shows (from archive.org) and can’t even pick out The Sounds of Silence.
For years, I always thought that Billy’s problem was that he wanted the Pumpkins to be EVERYONE’s favorite band, and thus played a ton of singles eschewing most deep album cuts. This always frustrated me, because as a devoted fan I wanted to hear something like Jupiter’s Lament, not Tonight Tonight or Cherry or Set the Ray to Jerry instead of 1979 and so on. To hear them play Galapogos, one of my all time favorite songs was a revelation. That said, these setlists show that being everyone’s favorite band is no longer the goal. How could it be? There’s absolutely no populist interest in playing 40 minutes of droning jams. There’s also no reward to long-time fans by playing sets full of singles either. When he said “this is for all the long-time fans” and launched into Today, I felt like it was a total dig. I’m sorry, but Today doesn’t represent long-time fandom the way dedicating something like Mayonaise would’ve.
And don’t get me started on the fact that I saw them in 96, 97, 98, 00, and 07 and this is the first time I’ve ever heard Mayonaise live. Mayonaise has always been like the Pumpkins version of Nightswimming, to me… except it’s more seldom played. But it’s one of those amazing songs that is almost universally loved by fans and really should just be played all the time.
Anyway, by way of long summary, I agree wholeheartedly (and broken-heartedly) with your assessment of these shows, though it was all worth it for Mayonaise and Galapogos, if nothing else.
11/10/08 8:39 pm
Yeah, “Mayonaise” really did make that first night worthwhile, almost entirely on its own. It actually is a fairly regular presence in the band’s touring over the years — regular on the SD touring, semi-regular for MCIS, often on the Machina touring, and regular for the Zeitgeist touring in Europe/Australia and on through present. But, ha, I know how it feels to somehow just not ever see a frequently performed song — I’ve seen U2 and REM at least five or six times each by now, and I’ve never seen “New Year’s Day” or “Everybody Hurts.”
For me, “Soma” was definitely the major highlight of the two shows. Also, “Cherub Rock” and “Zero” and “Bodies” and “Cupid.” It’s funny — “Today” and “Bullet” felt very rote, and though I enjoyed them, they didn’t register, but “1979″ really hit the spot. I guess I just like that song a lot more and always have.
If I knew back then what I knew now, I totally would’ve tried to see one of the Boston shows, particularly the second night there, which had a totally amazing setlist.
11/10/08 9:21 pm
“I would say that with the exception of the variations on “I am One” and “Heavy Metal Machine,” Corgan’s impulses in the way to perform the older material in both nights was pretty right on.”
Matt, it wasn’t “I Am One” reworked, “I Am One pt. 2″ is an actual song that has been kicking around the bootleg circles since 1989. Actually, “I Am One pt. 2″ has not been performed live until this tour.
http://www.spfc.org/songs-releases/song.html?song_id=77&song_type=-1
p.s. I’m a relatively young fan (22) and I didn’t get to see them in the 90s and I’ve heard the bootlegs from both NYC shows. Was not disappointed with them. Then again, I’m used to the long jams, weird medleys and not the populist side of the band.
11/10/08 9:26 pm
If you want the MP3 of it I could post it on a link here. Back in 1989 they did it acoustically.
11/10/08 9:37 pm
Hey. I was there on Friday and agree with your take on the show. I’ll just say that I feel very lucky to have been able to see the band multiple times with the original lineup and then the lineup after Auf Der Maur had replaced D’Arcy.
I’ve quoted and linked to your review in mine, here:
http://TheMusic.FM/2008.11.10/smashing-pumpkins-united-palace-2-review-downloads-photos-video
11/10/08 9:43 pm
JMG, I did not know that about “I Am One Part Two.” Or maybe I read it at some point in the past and just forgot? Either way.
I think listening to live recordings of these shows is probably a much better experience than watching them in person — you can kinda tune out/zone out on the jams, or just flick through them. More physical comfort, more leeway. In a concert hall, it can just get totally tedious, and you can feel antsy or bored or disengaged.
11/10/08 9:52 pm
I’ve heard enough bad shows on tape that I thought sucked in person and have seen enough good shows in person which I found were also good on tape to know the difference Matt.
and in response to the guy above, I saw a couple shows in 2000 from the Machina shows and the majority of the ones with Auf der Maur were really sloppy. And you know what? I attribute more of that to Iha than I would to Auf der Maur. I was 13 at the time and what I remember distinctly is a lot of people saying that Iha look absolutely checked out and that he was playing like he was checked out.
11/11/08 8:08 am
Matt, I was much older than a teenager when Gish came out, and as someone who saw the band on a few of those original lineup tours, you weren’t missing a damn thing. I rarely saw Corgan ever sing in key and Iha and D’Acry were passbale at best. As someone who was a fan through (and including) Adore, this was always a sore point for me. And being someone who had to deal with Corgan on the label side of things, he’s has had a huge ego problem since Siamese Dream debuted in the Top 10.
That being said, one time I thought I might pass out with joy when they did a majestic version of “Drown.”
11/11/08 10:19 am
Upon hearing some of those bootlegs from the Gish shows Steve, I totally agree with you.
As for the ego issue, realistically that was before Siamese Dream. Maybe not as big, but read some of their interviews from back then. It has always been there.
11/11/08 12:35 pm
Matt, I can understand your frustration with the band because I felt the same way, only it was about 8 years ago. I saw them on my 20th birthday in Lowell, MA on 4/29/2000 and it is still the worst show I have ever seen in my life.
The same problems plagued the set: bad covers, not enough crowd favorites, boring endless prodding numbers, less-than-perfect new songs. I saw the band a few times in 1996 in Boston, Providence and Worcester and they were epic rock shows. But look at the 4/29/2000 setlist:
* Pale Scales
* Heavy Metal Machine
* The Everlasting Gaze
* Glass and the Ghost Children
* Blew Away
* Stand Inside Your Love
* Blue Skies Bring Tears
* I of the Mourning
* To Sheila
* Disarm
* Try, Try, Try
* Rock On [Essex]
* Zero
* Today
* Tear
* With Every Light
* Bullet with Butterfly Wings
> Once in a Lifetime [Talking Heads]
Encore 1:
* Blank Page
* Cherub Rock
Encore 2:
* Drown
The entire show was made worse by the fact that the band decided to play with their instruments tuned REALLY low…maybe to C? I couldn’t tell, but it made for an awful concert. After that show, we all marched out the arena pretty defeated. I swore I would never go to a SP after that, and I still have kept that promise.
11/12/08 12:48 pm
Wow, people are still expecting Smashing Pumpkins concerts to be good? Didn’t we establish back in the 90s that they’re the worst live band in America? That was my experience in 1994 and I don’t know anybody who has seen them and felt differently.
11/14/08 9:17 am
What exactly should a concert be? I think it is perfectly logical to expect a small show at a bar to be different from a big arena concert. If fans so invested in an artist’s music that they’re willing to buy expensive tickets in advance, wait in line, tolerate the miserable behavior of people in crowds, deal with drunks, etc. is it really so unreasonable to think that the artist could find some kind of musical bridge from familiar material or performance styles to new, or put some thought into building a coherent total performance? Do the people who thought the show was amazing have any comments about the way the show itself was crafted, rather than about their general feeling about what artists are entitled to do? It’s great if you particularly enjoy an ‘unrecognizable’ version of a song (though how you know you’re hearing that song and not something new if it’s unrecognizable is mysterious). But how does that fit in with the concept of the show as a whole?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but Matthew, if you knew that the band was going to play material (any of it, hits or not) in a more familiar manner, then build up or branch out to newer, more challenging styles, would you feel less distressed? It seems that your argument is not really about the individual songs, about the construction of the entire experience as not being thoughtfully or deliberately crafted.