When Corgan Had Hair

Some tunes for a Saturday night. 1994 doesn't seem all that long ago to me. I know I've done so much since then and in many ways I'm a completely different person than I was way back when... yet in a way it seems like only a few years ago.

In any case, not too long ago I found out that Billy Corgan has decided to allow people to freely record Pumpkins shows and permission's been given to Archive.org for people to upload audience recordings into the vaults there. Lookin' at the setlists, they mix it up which is nice, unlike some other bands who essentially roll out the same friggin' setlist night after night. Not a bad selection of stuff! Lots of juicy shows from 1988 right on through to pretty much the present. Which one first? How about this one...

Smashing Pumpkins
August 5, 1994 - Downing Stadium
Randalls Island, New York City
Lollapalooza Festival

Rocket, Quiet,
Miss World [Hole] (tease) -» Disarm,
Today, I Am One -» Zero (tease),
Drown -» Hummer,
Geek U.S.A., Soma, Cherub Rock
Encore:
Siva (abandoned) -» Star Spangled Banner (tease),
Stay [Lisa Loeb] (tease),
All That She Wants [Ace of Base] (tease),
Bullet With Butterfly Wings (tease),
Dancing In The Moonlight [Thin Lizzy]

"The wind sucks," says the taper. Yes, yes it did that night and I know because the mics seemed to've picked up every gust. The mics also picked up people talking and not only between songs but talking while the headlining band of Lollapalooza '94 was winding up the day, talking while they were playing! Hello?! And on top of that, oh how lovely it was to seemingly be listening to the crowd do Pumpkins karaoke at times. Nice to sing along with Billy, eh? No! Just listen!! All of those flaws unfortunately kinda wreck this recording and that's too bad. Interesting freakin' show!

The year before, their latest release, Siamese Dream, had been one of the best selling albums of 1993. They truly got launched. No more playing clubs night in and night out. Time for bigger venues and bigger ticket prices... and now here they were playing the biggest festival in the land (Moneystock '94 aside) and totally destroying.

Summer of '91 was my first of two times seeing these guys. Cruised on up from the Jersey Shore for a night of drinkin' with friends and a show in good ol' Hoboken. Few months later back out in Utah, the Pumpkins hit Salt Lake City and there was no passing that up! Both shows were in fairly small clubs and were a couple of the best non-Dead related shows I've ever seen! But after seeing a date on each of the first three Lollapaloozas, I didn't go in '94. Missed the Pumpkins (as well as the Beastie Boys and L7 and P-Funk) but since I got to see 'em back in the day when they were still almost nobody, no huge loss. Although, this was an incredible show (when it's able to be heard nicely.) A funny show, too, man, holy crap! Corgan goes off during I Am One -> Zero -- F this and F that and he doesn't F'in care about MTV and people now don't know integrity and yada yada yada. Yeah, and then before the encore starts up he and Iha are making fun of NY Knick John Starks for blowing it in the finals a couple months earlier against the Chicago Bulls. Then throw in some insults against the NY Giants for letting quarterback Phil Simms go... and mention Mike Ditka for good measure. There's just a whole bunch more that I ain't gonna take the time to document but it's good, entertaining Billy Corgan at his "great at sucking" best. So despite the piss poor quality, okay, well, maybe just near piss poor quality of the recording, it's an interesting listen to say the least. I'm almost debating with myself on whether or not to keep it. Since I'm from New York, kinda sorta -- 22 miles west of midtown Manhattan -- even though I wasn't there, it's a show from my hometown area so maybe I'll hang onto it. Just too bad about the audio quality 'cause they freakin' ripped!!

@ Archive.org,
Listen or Dload over this way --> here

Homer & the Pumpkins
backstage at Hullabalooza

Great Music Ruined

Some live tunes for a Wednesday night... I found this completely by accident. Wasn't even looking for anything related to the band or the festival. I can't even remember what I was lookin' for when I found it. But I thought it would be freakin' sweet to listen to and, well...

Pearl Jam - August 5, 2007
Grant Park, Chicago

Why Go?
Corduroy
Save You
Do The Evolution
Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town
Severed Hand
Education
Even Flow
Given To Fly
World Wide Suicide
(improv) Don't Go BP Amoco
Lukin->
Not For You
Daughter/Another Brick In The Wall, Part II
State of Love and Trust
Wasted Reprise
Alive

Encore 1: Alive (acapella)
Better Man/Save It For Later
Crazy Mary
Life Wasted
Rearviewmirror

Encore 2: No More (with Ben Harper)
Rockin' In The Free World (also w/Harper)

At the Lollapalooza website you can "Download iPod Festival Guide" and if you were there then perhaps you saw a band at the Adidas Stage? Or the Bud Light Stage. Later you coulda headed on over to the Myspace Stage. "Wow" I think and type in a perplexed state of mind. That's not a positive wow in any shape or form. Why? This is not the Lollapalooza that I saw Pearl Jam at in 1992. Perry Farrell has completely sold out. In between songs somewhere, Mr. Vedder happened to mention that 1992 festival and all the acts that were there. There were no corporately named stages then. It was not a corporate event. It was music. This festival is not that one. Not by any means. Still some good music.

Headlining, or at least closing out the whole three days was Pearl Jam and they were incredible... almost... somewhat... mostly... but disappointing. Great stuff right up through the rant and ditty about BP Amoco polluting Lake Michigan. Avoid 'em, Eddie tells the fans. He might have a case. I've not read about what BP Amoco does to Lake Michigan but I wouldn't doubt it.

Daughter/Another Brick in The Wall was awesome... uh oh, right up until Vedder messed with the lyrics a little and said, "George Bush, leave the world alone." The recording cuts out for about 20 seconds after that. What we can't hear, thanks to editing by AT&T who fed this through to a webcast, is the additional line, purportedly: "George Bush find another home" or something like that.

Alright, so "George Bush leave the world alone" that is referring to Eddie's desire for the U.S. to not intervene anywhere for anything? A few would agree with that. It's preposterous, though. In the event of a natural disaster that takes the lives of tens or even hundreds of thousands of citizens, the U.S. should close their eyes and say, "Hey, your tough luck." We should never offer aid to anyone. Where people starve due to drought -- let them starve. No aid for you!! "George Bush leave the world alone." And we should cease trading goods with everyone. And we should only be concerned with terrorism here within our borders. If someone's in another country planning to attack us or planning to attack others, then we should just let them plan away and if it happens, even if it's a nuclear attack of some kind, murdering thousand of Americans, then so be it. It shouldn't be our place to intervene in a terrorists plans outside of our borders. Afterall, leaving the world alone would mean allowing whatever happens outside our borders happen. Leave the world alone, right, Ed? We should act as if the world outside of here doesn't exist. And "George Bush find another home"? Eddie, if you don't like the president then it's not up to him to leave America -- you should.

So much of this show rocked that it's a shame he had to ruin it. Again later on he mentions the "illegal occupation of Iraq." Is that was it is, Eddie? 17 United Nations resolutions in 12 years Saddam Hussein ignored and/or outright broke. 17 times a line was drawn in the sand and the U.N. said, "Cross this line once more and you're in trouble, mister." Hussein crossed it. "One more chance to obey, Hussein. This time we mean it." And again and again, over and over -- 17 times in 12 years. Here in America we try to lock up a murderer for life. Why was Hussein allowed to so horribly abuse human rights for 12 years?!? It happened and that's sad. Hussein never wanted to be a decent leader aiming to take care of his very own citizens. So he kept screwing up and according to the treaty agreed upon by Hussein at the end of the Gulf War in 1991, his forceful removal was LEGALLY justified.

Also, and man, I really didn't wanna have to type any of this but it's buggin' the crap out of me now, also if it's an "illegal occupation" then are the freedom fighters attacking U.S. troops doing the right thing? If the U.S. is acting horribly wrong by "illegally occupying" Iraq then shouldn't the insurgents, I mean Freedom Fighters be lauded for their efforts to kill U.S. troops? If U.S. troops are the bad guys illegally occupying then shouldn't all means necessary be used to drive out them bad guys? Those freedom fighters should be supported by everyone who believes in fighting an illegal occupation!!!!!!! Those freedom fighters killing U.S. troops are doing the right thing, aren't they, Eddie?

Eddie seems to be of the All Things Bush Are Bad camp, the very same camp who would say, if they found out that they and Bush liked the same music, they'd say he listens to it the wrong way, the moron. This is the group of people who completely shun a Pro-Democracy In Iraq, Let The Troops Win The War point of view. This is the same group that wants a cowardly exit from Iraq, to let the Freedom Fighters win and for the illegally occupying U.S. troops to leave in shame. Shame! When Eddie brings this into a concert then it ruins it and it's dangerous 'cause it poisons the minds of impressionable listeners. Why should the U.S. pack and leave as quickly as possible? If it could happen in three days, wouldn't that be great, Eddie? Allow Iran to take over Iraq. Allow Iraq to become a Free Zone for al Qaida, to live and thrive and train and plan to kill me... and to kill you... and your family. Genocidal warring will take place far and above what's happening now. 25 million human lives are not worth the life a single U.S. soldier? 25 million human lives are not worth 4,000 U.S. soldiers? The U.S. should just stick to being isolationists and what happens in the world who cares? We're human beings. Iraqis are human beings. To just up and leave and not help that nation try to gain peaceful freedom would be immoral. Vedder just doesn't get it. The first song of the second encore was a new song about "no more war" that has the line:

"The lies we were told to get us to go
are criminal, let us be straight."

Damn, Vedder, that's you lying about Bush lying. Bush never lied. Intelligence on WMD was wrong coming from many different people including people in Hussein's very own govenment who knew that the only way to gain freedom over there was war to remove that bastard. When you have a buttload of intel that says things are dire, you act on it... or was Bush supposed to go factcheck everything himself? "Umm, Mr. Hussein, could you verify this for me? Thank you, sir." NO! Look, dude, wrong intelligence isn't lying. No one wanted war. The war isn't about Bush and his cronies making money from oil there. That's absolutely ludicrous thinking with absolutely no evidence to back it up. (And if Bush is so stupid then how is it he would be smart enough to pull that off anyway?!?!?!?!?!)

So much of what's been happening since Hussein's removal is so badly messed up, but to up and leave would be the worst tragedy of all.

To live a life concerned with only what happens in our own borders would be immoral. To live a life ignoring the human suffering at the hands of an oppresive regime such as the Taliban or Hussein's regime, that too would be immoral. For many years governments ignored the problems there and people blamed them on the U.S. but never on Hussein himself. We're already ignoring the tragedy inside North Korea. We're already ignoring Darfur. We ignored Rwanda. We're seemingly going to allow Iran to build a nuclear weapon to obliterate Israel but I guess that's okay with you, Eddie, so long as the U.S. doesn't get involved.

Sheesh, man, come on now.

All I wanted to do was enjoy the Lollapalooza show that I happened upon. A lot of it I did enjoy. Much of it kicked ass even! But I'm left with this bitterness because of you. My heart aches for every wounded soldier and of course every soldier that's lost his or her life and the families left with an emptiness that can't be filled because their loved one is gone. But ya know what? If I could live my life over again there's one thing I might change and that's I'd sign up to defend America's freedom and I'd be willing to die trying to secure freedom for others. Rockin' In The Free World? Without war no one would be free.

128 kpbs one long huge mp3 found -> Here

256 kpbs individual files -> Here