I finally got to see my favorite band in concert last Thursday night at Illinois State University in Normal, IL.
This was easily the best show I’ve ever seen, and I’ve probably seen 100 concerts in my life.
They played for about three hours, and it was absolutely amazing. I was fortunate enough to get some freebie insider tickets through work. The extent of it, is actually because I work for a company that owns a certain local radio station, and bugged the program director every day for months until I finally had a pair of tickets in my hands.
I tried to purchase them when they went on sale, but they sold out in a matter of minutes. Luckily for me, I work in the radio biz, and get good tickets for all kinds of cool crap on a regular basis. One of the perks of showbiz…
They played my favorite Pumpkins song Hummer, I believe, on the third song. The acoustic Billy Corgan solo version of 1979 was amazing!
They really played a wide variety of their hits and misses. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it!
2 Comments
I too am a SP fan, but I really disagree with you on this one. First of all Brian Aubert is a guy not a girl and he plays guitar not bass. Like D’Arcy, Nikki sings backup. I really suggest you check out My Bloody Valentine, Ariel, and Elliot. SSPU (as they prefer to be initialed) owes so much more to the shoe-gazer scene. There is definitely an early-nineties influence on SSPU and certainly the Pumpkins can be included in that among others. However, it is far more likely that the vague link between SSPU and SP is James Iha’s guitar style not Billy’s. Thanks for the post. Let me know what you think about the other bands I mentioned.
I stand corrected. He (apparently?) sounds like Iha too. I suppose it is just the style of singing, of which D’arcy and James Iha sound very similar.
I am surprised that a man is singing this, not a woman. I could have sworn differently by my ears.
I was wrong apparently. Thanks for setting me straight.
I’d agree with your comment on Iha’s guitar style, not Corgan’s and regret that I did not specify this originally. Nobody sounds like Corgan on the guitar –he is one of a kind (in a really good way).
SSPU does remind me of early Pumpkins, and that was my point. Perhaps it is my fault for being so old, and not realizing that the Pumpkins have much younger fans than I as well. I have been listening to the Pumpkins well before most people had ever heard of them, let alone before they became a household name. Heck, even my Mom has heard of the Smashing Pumpkins at this point.
It’s too bad that Iha and D’arcy left the group. Their influences are missed. But I will say that Corgan and Chamberlain (the drummer) are still the backbone of the sound — heavy yet ambient guitars and rocking drums. Both are two of the best at the instruments they play. There are only a couple of other drummers that I have seen that I would put in the same category as Jimmy Chamberlain. Those would be Dave Grohl and Chad Sexton (from 311). Corgan gets all of the credit, but Chamberlain deserves some as well.
Nevertheless, it was the best concert I have ever seen (out of about 100 shows).
Peace dude.