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Infinite Sadness

December 8, 2006 2:55 AM

know that December 7th is a day that will live in infamy, but the day is special for me because something positive happened that day. You see, it was ten years ago today (or yesterday, I guess) that I first saw the Smashing Pumpkins live and in concert.

It was on their Infinite Sadness tour, in support of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. It was at the very height of their popularity, and it was the biggest crowd I've ever seen them play for. It was at the America West Arena in Phoenix. And it was awesome.

The Smashing Pumpkins were the first band I was ever really, hard-core into. I had to know every single thing I possibly could about them. Each of their songs felt like it was for me. It was just an experience I hadn't and wouldn't have with any other band. So when the Pumpkins came to my state, I was going to go, no matter what. As it turned out, going meant that I had to go with this fucking kid from my pre-calc class.

We got along rather antagonistically. He was a dork. I was, too. The difference was that I knew I was, where he pretended that he wasn't. Part of that meant that, whenver "cool" people were around, he had to be pretty much an unmitigated dick to me. That was fine with me--his brother had a car and was willing to drive us to the concert, which was three hours away. This guy may have been an asshole, but he was my ticket to the band.

We got to the Arena and I was ridiculously excited. I had never been to a concert before. The guy I was with, his name was Sam, played it cool, but I think he was relatively excited as well. Anyway, we got patted down by security and went to our seats, which were extraordinarily shitty. We were way up in the nosebleed section. But, hey, that's what we could afford.

The opening band was Garbage. Little did I know then that I would see Butch Vig again at Genna's, one of my favorite Madison bars. But I digress.

Garbage sucked. They were fucking horrible. I've never really cared for the band, and they weren't a good live band. It doesn't matter, though. The opening band could have been awesome, I wouldn't have noticed. I was so excited to see the Smashing Pumpkins that I wasn't really paying attention to anything that was going on.

The house lights went up after Garbage played and I took a minute to examine my surroundings and the people around me. There wasn't anything too interesting going on until, just a few rows in front of me, I saw someone rolling a joint! Holy shit, man, a joint! That was the first time I had ever seen pot in real life. Crazy.

Anyway, after what seemed like forever, the Smashing Pumpkins finally got on stage. It was pretty much unbelievable. They played all of the awesome Mellon Collie songs (Zero, Bullet with Butterfly Wings, Tonight, Tonight, Here Is no Why, 1979, Thru the Eyes of Ruby, almost the whole album) as well as tons of songs I didn't know at the time because I hadn't had a chance to buy all of their older albums yet. Although I was really far away, I could see Billy Corgan moving around on stage, being really dynamic. I could also tell that he was wearing his classic costume for that era: the silver pants, the yellow belt, the black Zero shirt. It was awesome.

At one point (I think during Muzzle), the band stopped playing and Billy got on the microphone and said that it wasn't cool to throw things at the band. He pointed out one guy who had apparenty thrown something sharp and asked that security remove him. They did, and the band resumed playing. And it was awesome.

Ultimately, I saw The Smashing Pumpkins a total of three times before they broke up (I've seen Billy Corgan four times total--I saw Zwan when they were in Phoenix. They were decent. Now, maybe I'll get to see the Smashing Pumpkings again. I hope so, anyway.). The second time I saw them was the only time that I saw the original line up, and I have to say that that was definitely my favorite show by any band ever. The third time I saw them was on their Machina tour. That was also an awesome show. The first time I saw them, honestly, was my least favorite. But it was still my first time. And I'll never forget it.

Wow. I really can't believe it's been ten whole years.


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