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October 22, 2007 - Tower Theatre - Philadelphia, PA, US Concert review by Jim Amato (otamamij at hotmail dot com) Admittedly, I'm not a big fan, but I write a review of every show I see, so I figured I'd submit it: Smashing Pumpkins @ the Tower Theatre in Philadelphia, PA 10/22/07 Last weekend, the Smashing Pumpkins were in town for four shows at the Tower Theatre, and I had tickets to the third show. I've never been a huge fan of the band, but I did like them back when they put out Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, but I haven't gotten another album since then. Still, I was curious to see what one of their shows would be like since I never did get to see them before. Opening for the Smashing Pumpkins was a band called Explosions in the Sky. They were a four-piece band playing two guitars, bass, and drums, or at least that's what it looked like from where I was sitting. Being just a few rows from the back of the balcony made it a little tough to see... They were an instrumental rock band, which was a bit unusual. They sounded alright, but it's always tough for me to get too excited about an instrumental set. I was also really tired after work, so I ended up dozing off a bit during their set. So what I heard sounded fine, but I really wasn't paying a whole lot of attention... After a break that lasted about as long as the first band's set (around 40 minutes), a guy came out and took the mic. He talked about how he hated the Smashing Pumpkins, tore up an SP flag, and went on about how they could never sell out four shows in Philly because the city won't support them. He also added that Corgan had come up with the idea of doing a half acoustic/half electric show the following night to try to sure up a fourth sellout. Then the guy said he was deciding to cancel the show and told everyone to go home. As the theatre lights started to go out, he kept asking why and repeating that everyone should go home until some weird circus-esque music started playing, the band took the stage behind him, and he left. There was no explanation as to who the guy was or what he was trying to accomplish, so it just came off as a stupid, pointless intro. It wasn't until sometime later that Corgan finally explained that the guy was one of his friends from ECW, but that still didn't make his rant seem any more relevant. The Smashing Pumpkins started off with Where Boys Fear to Tread, which I didn't even recognize, showing my lack of familiarity with their songs, even on the CDs I do have... They added an extra little jam to the end of that song too, which sounded pretty cool. The next song was Rocket, which is one of their nice older songs. They followed that with another slower song, Bleeding the Orchid, from their new album, which wasn't a bad song. Before moving on, Billy Corgan stopped to tell some guy in the crowd to put his sign away. He said that they all saw his sign, and this was the second show he brought it to, but they didn't know the song he wanted. I wish Corgan would have mentioned what song it was though... Instead, he just introduced their next song, Neverlost, mentioning that it is on the new album. After that, Billy Corgan started playing the opening strains of Today, and the place went crazy. It's definitely one of their best songs and was good to see live. The next song was Starz, another new one, which included a nice keyboard part. At the end of that, they went right into Zero, which is a great song, but I thought it sounded kind of rushed when they played it. After that song, they went into some kind of slow jam that I didn't really like and thought went on too long. That led into Glass and the Ghost Children, which I had never heard before but didn't really stand out to me. Jimmy Chamberlain started a tribal jungle beat on the drums as the band went into their next song, Lucky 13, which was another one I didn't know (from Machina II), but sounded pretty cool. For the next song, the keyboardist came out to play the keytar, and they did another new song, That's The Way (My Love Is), which was a nice one. The next song started with just drums and bass, and I had no idea what it was. After a little while, Billy Corgan started singing some of the lyrics over the drum and bassline, revealing that it was Bullet With Butterfly Wings, which is my favorite Pumpkins song. I didn't particularly care for how they started the song, but once the whole band kicked in, it sounded really cool. They also had a great light show going on during it. They had a bunch of broken triangles set up behind the stage that would light up with different colors during each song. But on this one, they seemed to be using more colors than during any other song, and it just looked really cool. After Bullet With Butterfly Wings, the band left the stage and Billy Corgan came back by himself with an acoustic guitar. He started with another new song, For God and Country, which was a really moving song. He followed that with Disarm, getting some accompaniment from the keyboardist, who filled in for the strings that appear on the recorded version of the song. I really didn't like the way that worked though, so I thought it took away from the song. Billy stopped to talk about the show they were planning for tomorrow, urging people to come back out for the combination of acoustic and electric stuff that he said they don't do very often. I was surprised that they pushed that so hard because it made them sound desperate for a sellout... Of course, fronting two different bands with little success, then digging up an old band name without bringing back half of the members seemed kind of desperate too, so maybe it was fitting after all... Corgan played one more song by himself, 1979, which worked really well as a solo acoustic song and included a short part that he sang with no instrumentation at all, which sounded great! The band then came back and played To Sheila, which I didn't know, but it had a cool blues lead part and a nice keyboard part as well, so it sounded really good. At the end of the song, they went right into Tonight, Tonight, which got another great reaction from the crowd. They then got back to the new material with Tarantula, which I believe is the first single from Zeitgeist, which included a really cool solo by Billy Corgan. They followed that with one of their older songs, Hummer, then went right back to a new one in Bring the Light. Billy Corgan then said it was time to rock, and they played another of their older hit songs, Cherub Rock, which sounded very good. They then finished their set with one more new song, United States. It had a weird, experimental jam in it, which led into Billy Corgan playing the star spangled banner before leading back into a jam with the rest of the band to end the song. It was a pretty cool song, and a good closer, even if I didn't know it. After a bit of a wait (longer than most bands seem to make you wait now), the Smashing Pumpkins came back and played Heavy Metal Machine, which was another one I didn't know, but it sounded pretty cool. They took that into Joan Jett's I Love Rock N Roll, getting the crowd to sing along to that chorus. Billy wasn't happy with the crowd's participation, and he yelled at us, complaining that other countries that don't speak English do a better job. He got the crowd to sing some more, to his satisfaction this time, I suppose, then the band went back to Heavy Metal Machine to finish off the show. Not being a huge fan of the band, I didn't really expect to love the show, but it did live up to my expectations. It was fun, and even the songs I didn't know sounded good to me for the most part. I probably won't be in a rush to see them again, but I was glad that I at least got to see the Smashing Pumpkins this one time... PS - Thanks to http://blamo.org/sp/tour/1201.html for the set list, since I didn't know the names of half the songs...
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