I was on 2 hits of acid and it made the video and light show that much more amazing. The highlight was the end when they played silverfuck for 20 min. The sound was incredible.
Pumpkins carve niche amid cliches - Menacing Billy Corgan looms larger than life in his quest to be guitar god
The Smashing Pumpkins' power came perfectly into focus Friday night during the approximate 15th minute of their wrenching performance of Silverf--k, when leader Billy Corgan telegraphed he was about to rip into yet another guitar solo ... by assuming The Stance.
One foot forward, one foot back, knees slightly bent, guitar neck held almost parallel to his hulking frame, eyes closed as his fingers rip up and down the fretboard. It's the kind of deliberate, rock star move musicians of Corgan's generation are supposed to shun.
But what makes the Pumpkins' concert experience tower above many others is that simple fact: Corgan WANTS to be a guitar god. That's why he's here.
Most of the big bands you could vaguely describe as alternative have tried to resolve the dilemma of how to fill an arena with sound and light, without turning into Ted Nugent or Yes, by reacting against the conventions of big-time rock performance.
The Pumpkins embrace the cliches of arena rock without ever succumbing to them, and end up remaking them in their own image.
After a piano intro version of Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness, the Chicago quartet arrived amid a hail of strobe lights, shuddering through Where Boys Fear To Tread.
Behind them loomed a lighting rig that looked like a spider web designed by Buckminster Fuller, flanked by giant projection screens displaying a barrage of images: Rockets lifting off, astronauts testing anti-gravity jet packs, flaming crashes, clips from their videos and shapeless psychedelic color blobs.
"We're gonna toss you some 1995 cyber-metal, straight outta Chicago," Corgan quipped, and that pretty much sums up their sound. Cherub Rock and Today were delivered with uncommon gusto.
Disarm began as a solo acoustic number before erupting into a full-band performance. Their hit song 1979 saw them joined onstage by guitarist Jimmy Frog from the weirdo band The Frogs.
Perhaps the most impressive visual feature of the performance is Corgan himself. In the past, he often appeared slight and bratty, but he has remade himself as a menacing presence.
Lanky and now heavier set, his head shaved, dressed in silver spaceboy trousers and a black "Zero" T-shirt, he looks like Lurch from the Addams Family doing a guest spot on The Jetsons.
"The world is a vampire," he screamed by way of introducing Bullet With Butterfly Wings, and the grateful audience drowned out the chorus: "Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage."
During an epic reading of Porcelina Of The Vast Oceans, Corgan tiptoed along the edge of the stage, wielded his guitar behind his head, then sashayed over to his amp to hump some feedback out of his instrument. Nothing too original in that, but the response suggests audiences are tired of deadpan-cool rock stars. They want larger than life, and Corgan is happy to oblige.
Now I know why the caged rat sings.
Even if the Pumpkins have hockey-rink rock sussed, expecting the smart, impassioned music of Grant Lee Buffalo to win over such a big room was too much. Only a fraction of the crowd was on hand to catch the trio work its magic. With nothing more than bassist-keyboardist Paul Kimble, drummer Joey Peters and acoustic guitarist-singer Grant Lee Phillips, they create an intricate sonic stew.
Bethlehem Steel, a chilling vision of post-industrial America as ghost town, built around a funereal piano melody, was overwhelming. Ditto Phillips' unnerving falsetto on Mockingbirds.