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

Live Earth notes part deux

Watched the whole end plus highlights
for another couple hours.
Some more personal notes...

Genesis -- yawn.
AFI -- disgusting.
Lenny Kravitz in Rio -- way cool!
Metallica doing Enter Sandman -- blitzed the stadium!
Black-Eyed Peas -- never before gave them even a minute of my time but they weren't bad.
Alicia Keys -- yowza!!!!
Kelly Clarkson -- eh.
Beastie Boys -- missed 'em.
Kanye West -- despise him, did not watch.
Melissa Etheridge -- turned her off.
Red Hot Chili Peppers -- total L.A. funky cool!!!!
Foo Fighters -- slight edge over Chili Peppers.
Madonna playing guitar(?!) on Ray of Light -- Surprisingly cool. I've never seen her play guitar before. She looks great.

Bon Jovi -- tis a mystery how they have remained so popular for so long. I can remember getting their Slippery When Wet tape way way back... saw 'em at the closing ceremonies of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake and they rocked. They've actually gotten better since then! Part of the reason they brought down the house at Giants Stadium is 'cause they're from Jersey and man, probably ain't more Bon Jovi fans anywhere else. They coulda closed the show if it wasn't for The Police.

Smashing Pumpkins -- Holy freakin' cow. They destroyed. Made an earlier band, The Fallout Boys, look like the Fallout Little Girls. Monster sound even if without original members D'arcy and Iha. Holy crap. Corgan didn't have to pimp their new album but still they were the best of the night!! And to the new bassist, Ginger Reyes -- will you marry me?!?!?!?????

Roger Waters -- might as well listen to the CDs. Excellent stuff, he looks great, he was having fun, it's great music, bringing the kids from Trenton, NJ on stage was totally cool... but it just wasn't Pink Floyd which could have had such a commanding presence.

The Police -- whoa. First time I have heard them live aside from that CD they issued of an old show. Whoa! Freakin' blew away every great studio version of their tremendously loved songs. Right now they qualify as one of The Coolest Rock n Roll Bands In Existence... along with The Rolling Stones and U2. A-freakin'-mazing. And they don't have a half dozen extra musicians up on stage giving them a fuller sound, just these three guys. Stewart Copeland looked like he was gonna have a stroke only 'cause he was wailin' away on them drums and Andy Summers can still wail on guitar, and Sting... well, he's gone from soft rock wuss back to totally cool again. Only complaint is that Kanye person kinda ruined Message In A Bottle. Too bad. Still a great, great set of music!!! They've got to record an album and tour more 'cause they are incredible. If this current tour is just a one time thing that would be too bad.

All in all a great day of music. Some stuff I didn't care for but a lot that was new and cool or old and cool and I just loved watching this! It's so not every day or even every week or even every month that I sit and watch music on TV but this was worth it! I'm ready for the DVD set so long as it's intensive and not some yada yada yada compilation.

Smashing Run. Simply Smashing...

Fairly easy run. I just kinda wish I could do this mid-day but it's always gotta be in the evening when the sun's goin' down. Kinda also wish I could sometimes go in the morning but the grassy areas of the trail get too much dew which would soak my shoes... not good. Oh well. Evening runs are fine and dandy so long as I keep succeeding!

Trail Time: 70 minutes...

Running Time -- 16 minutes & 55 seconds (+22 seconds!)

Smashing Pumpkins

Siamese Dream (1993)

Cherub Rock
Mayonaisse
Soma
Geek U.S.A.
Disarm
Sweet Sweet
Silverfuck
Quiet
Rocket
Spaceboy
Luna
Hammer
Today

Siamese Dream, the follow-up to their debut album, Gish, is without a doubt on the same level of greatness. Perhaps the best band to ever come out of Chicago? Probably. And later this spring they'll be going back out on the road, primarily in Europe at first, to play shows in support of their new album coming out in July. Hey, way to go Corgan! Solo stuff and side bands are excellent side projects but to abandon The Pumpkins forever woulda been a tragedy in the music world. Lookin' forward to the new album!