I'll admit it, I was a little nervous about this show, especially after being so thoroughly rocked by the Arcade Fire. My excitement about the Pumpkins reunion had been on a slow decline since about a month after Billy first announced it. As much as I defend calling it the Pumpkins without James or D'Arcy, it was a blow to my enthusiasm to find that out. The more announcements I read about the new album, the less jazzed I grew. Then I failed to get swept up in the first two singles. Then the MySpace tribute, and so on. In all this pessimism, I forgot one thing: Billy Corgan puts on a damn good show. It's just a thing that he does.
My two biggest concerns were that Billy would treat this as (a) a greatest hits tour or (b) a 'hey, listen to our new album! It's new!' tour. It really just felt like a Smashing Pumpkins show, and I was happy with that.
There was a fair amount of new stuff, but it didn't really feel forced. "United States" makes a great intro, especially with the extended jamming and a little "Star-Spangled Banner." "Tarantula" is rockin' live, as I suspected, but the real surprise of the new songs was "Starz." When I listened to the album, this track seemed really sub-par, but it fit really well into the live show, right between "Today" and "Zero." While none of the new songs sounded too forced, I did notice that "United States" sounded quite a bit like "Lucky 13" [from Machina II] and "That's the Way My Love Is" was reminiscent of "Try, Try, Try", but that might just have been my headspace at the time.
Something I really appreciated was the presentation of songs that we hear all the time, but are still anticipated. Rather than deprive the audience of "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" like wanted, it simply got re-worked a little, being sped up and starting with the bassline rather than the legendary vampire line. I really didn't want to go see the Smashing Pumpkins so I could hear songs I hear on the radio anyway, but this was enjoyable. I remember when I was young and more stupid than I currently am, hearing my friends praise live performance that sounded just like the album. They were stupid. If I wanted to hear album versions I'd not go to shows. Three songs especially got reworked well: "Heavy Metal Machine," "Glass + The Ghost Children" and "Ava Adore." Billy did "Perfect" and "1979" acoustic and alone, and it was super excellent, then the band joined in for "To Sheila."
The only Gish-era song they played was "Drown," but it was very much appreciated, especially when I think about reports of Incubus snubbing S.C.I.E.N.C.E and Make Yourself in favour of material written after they got popular. And the Pumpkins have a lot more material than Incubus.
It wasn't everything I hoped and dreamed it would be, but I had some far-fetched hopes. It comes down to what I said earlier: Billy Corgan puts on a damn good show. Re-forming the Pumpkins just gave him a chance to play the old songs again.
Final Verdict: rockin'! Also, "Muzzle" as a final encore wins the day.
For more Smashing Pumpkins/Zwan/Star Children/The Marked information than you'll ever need, go over to blamo.org.
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Smashing Pumpkins - Muzzle Live MP3
[audio:http://lovethemusicreviews.com/audio/Smashing%20Pumpkins%20-%20Muzzle%20Live.mp3]
posted by D. | 10.04.07 | 12:24 pm | 1 Comment
Filed under: Concert, Concert Review, Rock, U.S. 
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