Beneath The Outer Shell

The Rose March (acoustic)
That's The Way (My Love Is) (acoustic)
Disarm (acoustic)
For God And Country (acoustic)
United States
Bullet w/ Butterfly
Drown
Bring The Light
Tonight Tonight
Tarantula
Glass And The Ghost Children
Hummer
Pomp and Circumstances
Set The Ray To Jerry
Today
Superchrist
Heavy Metal Machine
-w/ Iron Man
-w/ I Love Rock and Roll

encore:
1979 (acoustic)
Perfect (acoustic w/ Jimmy on Tambourine)

encore:
Cherub Rock

I have no idea where to start. This was one of the top 3 concerts of my life...This one goes down with David Gilmour at the Rosemont Theatre in Chicago back in 2006, and Radiohead at Stone Mountain Georgia back in 2000.

I had a 3rd row Pit seat for the show..How? I payed double the $102 face value of the ticket. Stupid? Some people would say yes, but others near me also payed a hefty penny. Obsessively Retarded? Absolutely!

They let me in with my camera, so I took pictures until my batteries ran out (figures). The one on this blog entry is one of the many that I took.

The first 3 songs were acoustic, but the played "That's The Way (My Love Is)" acoustically for the first time on the tour. I love being at a show with "first" times. The funny thing was, as soon as Billy came out with an acoustic guitar, I just kinda walked up to the 1st row and stood there, along with the drunk men who also thought the same thing. Except, the drunk guys were asked to go back to their seats...yet I was able to stay there for the entire show, even though the security guards who talked to me before the show watched me walk up there and told me I couldn't move up. It was as if I had my lucky shirt made me invisible to the security guards.

So, I'm 5 feet from Jeff Schroeder and 10 feet from Billy...only because the stage is so big. I had to turn my head to catch all of the action! For me, this was the BIGGEST deal EVER! It was fantastic! No moshing and no worries regarding feet, hands, or bodies flying down on top of me. I couldn't of dreamed of a more perfect situation. I was in Pumpkin heaven like I have never been before!

Starting the show with 4 acoustic songs was great, just like the Nashville show. Billy and company felt bad about having to reschedule the shows, so they are clearly making it up to us by playing a more unique set list (and definitely longer sets as well).

Billy was screwing around a LOT with added solos and psychedelic guitar crap...it was quite a treat once again. Hell, for the intro to Tonight Tonight, he had some crazy ass solo! Once again, Glass And The Ghost Children was the best song of the night. This was my 3rd concert of the tour for them, and the 3rd different version of this Pink Floyd sounding hardcore JAMMING! Corgan and Schroeder were going off, and at one point I didn' even care if they played Starla or not (like I had been hopping for) because their improve jamming and face ripping guitar shredding was the best I had ever heard from them. My mouth was on the floor for the majority of the show. There was even a kickass keyboard solo by Lisa during GATGC, who for the most part of the tour is rather unnoticeable.

A funny moment came after they played Set The Ray To Jerry. Billy says, "That was Set The Ray To Jerry, for all of you that know Pisces Iscariot."...without hesistation, I come back and scream, "It's not on Pisces Iscariot!", for which i get a rather quick and uncomfortable glare from Billy. But hell, the song is NOT on that album! I wasn't trying to be an ass, but hell, the way I saw it during that split second, if ya have a chance to correct your favorite musician and a known perfectionist...do it! I thought he was pissed at me! As it turned out, he clearly wasn't (read on). After that, Billy looked at me various times throughout the show and smiled. I was one of the people who knew all the words to all the songs, including the unreleased ones...and I was moving around a LOT(NOT quite dancing, but more like head slamming to the grooves to keep my face from melting off). Actually, I may have looked like I having a controlled seizure.

Billy was in a GREAT mood the entire show...the best mood I've ever seen him. (This was my 10th Smashing Pumpkins show ever btw). He and the band were all laughing and goofing around the entire time. Everybody on stage was having a blast.

Another funny moment came when they start the usual Joan Jett cover during Heavy Metal Machine, called "I Love Rock N Roll (Put another dime in the jukebox baby!)" He trys to get everybody in the theatre to sing, but no one really was singing and he got a little frustrated. He starts talking to the crowd in the balcony and asks them, "What's the problem? Are you guys drunk? Are you guys stoned? Are you guys on a little PCP? Ohh wait, this is Georgia...it's Mushrooms isn't it! You guys in Georgia like walk around in fields and dig around in cow shit! You're on Mushroom aren't ya?!" This was HILARIOUS!

Also, during Heavy Metal Machine, they pulled out Iron Man by Black Sabbath! This was fantastic! Sabbath has always been an influence, according to Corgan, so it was very fitting to hear them rip into it.

Then, Billy notices a little kid in the balcony...this kid was in the newspaper here because he had the coolest Billy Corgan outfit, and when asked what he wanted to be for Halloween...he replied, "Smashing Pumpkins". Billy calls for every kid to come down and get up on stage. Believe it or not, there were maybe 10 kids under the age of 11 there with their parents. It was shocking for me at first, but then I realized...I'm 30 and so are may of his other old time fans, so it makes sense that the fans from way back have kids now. So, There are like 10 kids on stage and a few under the age of 4, and Corgan even picks one up and hold it for a while. It was quite neat situation. I haven't seen anything like this before from them. Billy was holding a kid and looking around and saying, "what do ya think?" as if he was getting approval to have kids. Very interesting. Ohh, and the poor little kid in the cool Billy Corgan costume was SOOO shy he never even looked out of his dads chest! One day that kid will kick himself! After like 10 minutes of fun with kids, Corgan says, "Okay!, get off the stage!"

Anyway, they finish the Joan Jett cover after the Iron Man tease, and Corgan starts a little more banter and says, "Ya know, 99% of the bands out there today kiss you ass! They will do ANYTHING to please you! And in doing so, they kiss your fucking ass!...Well, this band right here (points to himself) this band will NEVER kiss your fucking ass!" Crowd goes wild.

The encore was another acoustic set with 1979 and Perfect, once again with Jimmy on the tambourine. This was when Jimmy nodded at me and pointed (referring to my 666 shirt) TWICE (AWESOME!). Billy once again said how sorry they were for having to reschedule the shows. They seemed sincere, but ya know, it was a serious health issue, so who knows if they actually needed to feel "bad" for rescheduling. I was stoked though! I just knew that if I wore my lucky 666 shirt to an SP concert up close they would get a kick out of it since Billy wore the same shirt on rotation back during the Siamese Dream tour in 1993.

They came out for one more encore and played Cherub Rock...once again, ripping my face CLEAN off!

After the show, Billy starts to toss out the guitar picks...and man, I grabbed one as if I was diving for my last meal! I have ALWAYS wanted one of their guitar picks...and now I got one! PLUS, I have always wanted to "touch" Billy Corgan...and he ended up touching a total of 5 people after the show...including me! We touched fists (he only shook hands of a few girls)! His hand was very very cold and very bony. I was in heaven though. I felt like I could die and be happy!

On the way out, I picked up a Smashing Pumpkins flag...it's the United States Smashing Pumpkins black and white flag. $30, but well worth it for the cool original idea.

Well, all things must come to an end, and I have one more Smashing Pumpkins show tonight...and I'm really hoping they will play Starla.

but ya know...at this point, it really doesn't even matter to me anymore :)