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"Too Late to Turn Back Now, I'm Running Out of Sound." (Updated)

December 9, 2008 10:33 AM

o, after an initial delay, I finally saw The Smashing Pumpkins again last night. This was the fourth time I've seen them, and I can now say that I've seen them tour for every album since and including Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.

The first time I saw them, it was on the "Infinite Sadness" tour on December 7, 1996. It was in a giant arena, and Billy was wearing his most iconic outfit: the Zero shirt and the silver pants. I believe he had just started shaving his head. I don't know for sure because our seats sucked and I had a hard time making out the stage. The show was good, but it was slightly disappointing because I was pretty far away. But the band delivered, both in terms of the setlist and the actual performance. My only real gripe my distance.

The second time I saw them, they were on the "Arising" tour, which coincided with the release of Adore. They weren't nearly as huge anymore, and this translated to them playing in a smaller, general-admission venue. So we got our tickets, showed up early, and fought our way to the front. At some points, I was less than ten feet from Billy Corgan, and D'arcy was always right in front of me. This was also the only time I've seen the whole original lineup, and it was by far the best of their shows I've ever seen. Things were really intimate, and they fucking rocked. They also did a beautiful new version of "Today" that involved some really pretty interplay between Billy and James's guitars. I've never heard that version anywhere else. Also, the version of "Soma" that they played that night was excellent, and D'arcy did some good backup singing on it. Oh, and she looked hot.

The third time I saw them was at the Mesa Amphitheater, an outdoor, general-admission venue. This was on their tour for Machina. It was all the original lineup except that D'arcy had been replaced by Melissa Auf Der Maur. Again, it was another really good show. We fought our way to the front just as they played "Bullet with Butterfly Wings." They again rocked.

But lots of things have changed in the last few years that made me really anxious about the show. First of all, it was only half of the original lineup: this would be the first time I was going to see The Smashing Pumpkins but not see James Iha. I always thought that he added way more to the band than he was given credit for. He cowrote "Soma" and "Mayonaise," two of the band's best songs. And I'm pretty sure he did the string arrangements for "Disarm" and maybe "Tonight, Tonight." Plus he was an excellent guitarist and he had a really good stage presence. And he seemed to keep Billy in check at times.

And then, of course, there's the fact that the band's latest album pretty much sucks really hard. So I knew going in that I'd have to listen to some crappy songs, but I hoped that the good songs would more than make up for it.

In the end, I was almost right.

The show started with "Ava Adore," "Cupid de Locke," and "1979." I was fairly unimpressed, especially since Billy wasn't even holding a guitar. It was just strange, really. And there were backing tracks. Like, the echoy repeated vocal part of 1979 was there, even though no one was singing it. So that was strange.

Also noteworthy was the fact that, for the first time, there were more than four musicians on stage. In fact, there were nearly a dozen different people. With one glaring exception, I could have done without most of these extra people.

So, the show continued. After a song or two I had never heard, the band quietly went into "Soma." The crowd went wild. The rendition was good, and it was the first time I had seen it performed live with the piano parts. It did seem a little rushed, but it was still amazing. You just can't screw up a song that powerful.

"Soma" started off what was the strongest portion of the concert. It was quickly followed by "Cherub Rock," "Zero," and "Bodies"--a song I don't think I had seen live before. It was an awesome little portion.

If I remember correctly, that section was followed by some truly bizarre noise, then by an extremely surrealistic metal portion. And I'm talking thrash metal here. Jimmy Chamberlain did some double bass action. The solos sounded like something Kirk Hammett wrote and rejected. It was awful.

Then things turned around. Billy strapped on his acoustic guitar and strummed the opening notes to "Disarm," and everyone was sucked right back in. And I have to say that this was, by far, the best live version of the song I've ever seen. It started off being just Billy, but then all of the extra musicians chimed in. There was a violin and some fucking horns. They recreated the album's string sections beautifully and possibly even surpassed the awesomeness. It was the highlight of the show. It was just really, really good.

Then there was some more noise. A lot of it. For a long time.

And then the most unbelievably strange thing happened. I'm actually still in shock. The Smashing Pumpkins laid down a funky Latin groove. The Smashing Pumpkins. A funky Latin groove. I couldn't do anything but sit there with my jaw on the floor. It was strange. But wait! There's more. See, Billy at that point wasn't playing guitar, so he was free to move around and fucking dance. Like he was at a rave or something. While wearing a skirt. And a top hat. And carrying tambourines. All while there was a fucking Latin groove going on. Complete with those whistles. And all the main musicians put down their instruments and started using those rhythm stick things. It was fucking shit-tastic. "Indefensible," one of my friends said. And I agree.

Then they sort of got back on track and did a serviceable version of "Galapagos." And then it was back to the noise.

In the end, I would say that about 40 percent of the concert literally consisted of noise. Of that, about half of it in terms of total time was completely indefensible nonsense. At times, it really did seem like they were trying to make us listen to the exact opposite of music. The other half of it was just songs that no one had ever heard and didn't care about.

Another 30 percent was extremely "meh." Why would they choose to perform "Cupid de Locke," for example? That's not really a song that anyone cares about.

The remaining 30 percent was either good or amazing. The highlights were definitely the amazing, amazing version of "Disarm" and a very intimate rendition of "Landslide," but the songs they played from the Siamese Dream era were all pretty good, and most of the songs from MCIS were good, too.

One other thing. Although there were literally about seven different keyboard instruments on stage, they didn't use a single one of them when they played "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness." Instead, they performed that as an orchestral piece. It was almost unidentifiable. Not necessarily bad, just not what I was expecting.

In the end, if the band comes near me again, I will probably go see them again. But I can't blame RPM and SNS if they don't wanna join me.

Update:
I found some Youtube videos that I think are fairly relevant here.

First, this is a video of the band's performance of "Landslide" last night: