THE SMASHING PUMPKINS
with DRAB MAJESTY
LIVE
THE SYLVEE
MADISON, WI
NOVEMBER 28, 2018
THE SMASHING PUMPKINS:
Jimmy Chamberlin: Drums, Percussion, Keyboard/Synth
William Patrick Corgan: Lead Vocals, Guitars
James Iha: Guitars, Vocals
Jeff Schroeder: Guitars, Keyboard/Synth
with
Jack Bates: Bass Guitar
Linda Strawberry: Creative Director
It finally happened and it was exceedingly more than worth the 25 year wait!!!!
Aside from the live event that was simulcast upon Twitter three months ago (which I covered extensively in the
September 2018 section of this blogsite), never in the 25 years of my life being a devoted fan, have I ever seen The Smashing Pumpkins live in concert. It has simply been an event that never quite lined up smoothly with the goings-on of my life over and again throughout the years. In fact, I think that by this time, I had quietly and secretly began to tell myself that maybe the ship of seeing the band live on stage and in person had sailed as it just never seemed to be something that would float itself as a legitimate possibility.
So, imagine my utter surprise when opened my Facebook page to find that a friend had messaged me an announcement that The Smashing Pumpkins would not only be coming to my home city of Madison, WI but to a brand new venue called The Sylvee, which had just opened in September, has already hosted a slew of triumphant artists from
Garbage, Kamasi Washington, Coheed and Cambria, Ghost, Gov't Mule, Bon Iver, Death Cab For Cutie, The Decemberists and more, and this is the most notable feature as far as I am concerned...The Sylvee is just a few short blocks from my place of employment. If need be, I could just walk there!!! It was as if the universe opened a door specifically for me, lighting a way to the inevitable. I purchased a ticket as quickly as I was able to do so as there was no excuse whatsoever to miss this performance!
On the late afternoon of November 28th, immediately after leaving my place of employment--a preschool located a few short blocks from the State Capital building--I drove and parked my car essentially one street away from The Sylvee. Yes indeed, it is a distance that I could've walked but as the temperature was 20 degrees at best, I found it preferable to stay warm for as long as I was able for my plan was to wait in whatever queue I happened to discover outside of the venue as this event was indeed a sold out show and my additional plan was to somehow, someway find my spot at the lip of the stage. Since this was to be my very first concert by The Smashing Pumpkins, then I wanted to be fully immersed in the experience.
Walking over to the Sylvee around 4:50 p.m., with the band's tour buses in sight and the booming sound check from indoors distinctly audible from the street (I heard
"Today," "Cherub Rock" and even the rarity
"Speed Kills"), my excitement instantly began to mount higher than ever...but that was NOTHING compared to the small gathering already lined up, most notably, a profoundly boorish and boisterous couple from Canada (the less said about them the better...).
For the following 60 minutes or so, I waited on-line to gain entrance into the club, while moving my body to attempt to create, and/or keep, some sense of warmth on this increasingly frigid night. As I was attending the show alone, I soon found myself conversing with three line-mates; one who had driven from La Crosse, WI to Madison, a lovely young woman who lived nearby and finally, another woman who arrived from Virginia and has traveled around the country to see the band over and again. While our city's show was a SOLD OUT affair, I essentially thought that the patronage was exclusive to Madison itself, with possibly some attendants from Chicago. So, imagine my surprise when my new Virginian fiend informed me that at her hotel, she had heard that there were people from Alaska who voyaged to Wisconsin jut for this show!! Incredible!!!
By the point where it felt as if we could not withstand the cold night air any longer (especially as word had traveled down the line that supposedly the venue would not open its doors until 6:30 p.m. instead of the advertised 6:00 p.m.), The Sylvee at long last opened its doors, we quickly ventured inside, passed through the metal detectors and we were all on our way.
While in line outdoors, my line mates and myself pledged to try and get ourselves to the stage and since we were all solo attendees, we would save each other's spaces for bathroom trips and so on. While I wanted to find a spot on James Iha's side of the stage, Heather (from Virginia) opted for Jeff Schroeder's, leaving my new friends Chris (from La Crosse) and Hilary (from a walking distance away from the venue) along with me.
With spaces right at the stage secured, and a brief bathroom trip (during which I was indeed wowed by the striking rock and roll paraphernalia designed lavatory decor as well as the stunning wall sized,
made entirely from cassettes portrait of
Sylvia Frank, the late co-founder of Frank Productions and whose nickname is the moniker for this venue, which is housed directly outside of the bathrooms), I returned to my front row, standing only perch right alongside Hilary to my left, with Chris right behind us.
It was only a matter of time...
DRAB MAJESTY
Shortly after 7:30 p.m., the house lights went down and out onto the stage walked the two tall, thin, essentially identical looking leather clad, silver wig adorned figures who make up the evening's opening act
Drab Majesty. The effect, even before one note was played, was undeniably eerie and even a little unsettling due to its immediate strangeness. One band member strapped on a guitar while the other set themselves up by a small set of synthesizers and after a somewhat pregnant pause, the music began.
Hilary had expressed to me earlier in the evening that after listening to some songs and samples, she felt that the music of Drab Majesty was reminiscent of something like what
The Cure or
Depeche Mode would have devised and once the band began their 45 minute set, I had to mostly agree with her assessment.
Yes, the goth aesthetic of The Cure and the grim electronic soundscapes of Depeche Mode were more than apparent. Yet, the band's synthetics, which flowed back and forth between feeling icy
and warm also weaved an intoxicating spell that conveyed a darkly romantic and turbulent sensuality as conveyed through the pulsating bass and throbbing programmed percussive rhythms.
The deceptively simplistic visual display was greatly effective in assisting the weaving of the band's somber spell. The gorgeous lighting found compelling ways to puncture the enveloping darkness which bathed Drab Majesty in a malevolent shroud. Musically, the entire set was beautifully seamless as each song was augmented by lengthy synthetic textures that, to my ears, recalled the hypnotic somnambulism that I have always drowned inside of when listening to
Tangerine Dream albums.
I can only imagine what it must feel like for artists placed in the position of being an evening's opening act, especially when, it could be argued, that a large amount of the audience is not there to see you and quite possibly are unfamiliar with you in the first place, much like myself. But I do have to hand it to Drab Majesty who indeed delivered a performance of wicked woefulness injected with a gloomy eroticism that did indeed captivate powerfully.
But now...it was time to ROCK!
THE SMASHING PUMPKINS
Around 8:40 p.m., after the road crew rapidly re-arranged the stage post Drab Majesty's set, the house lights faded and volume from the audience crested into a sonic wave as The Smashing Pumpkins took to the stage and immediately launched into the monolithic "Solara," the band's inaugural single from earlier this year signalling the opening shot from the reconstituted band featuring three of the original four members back together for the first time since 2000, plus longtime Pumpkins guitarist Jeff Schroeder.
It was an opening of sheer, unadulterated awe as Pumpkins lead singer/songwriter/guitarist/singer William Patrick Corgan menacingly decreed to "bring down the sun" like an alt-rock Thanos, as a projection of a giant, slowly revolving silver sun gradually approached the band and the audience , threatening to engulf us all.
With the peerless, epic sweep of Jimmy Chamberlin's drums propelling the hurricane force winds triple guitar attack of Corgan, Schroeder and James Iha, only to have the heroic efforts of touring member Jack Bates' bass work to ground everything into place, The Smashing Pumpkins immediately took over The Sylvee in a level of true rock and roll swagger, brashness, and vindication towards anyone who had ever counted them out as well as for all of us who continue to love and believe in them after 30 years.
When the band next launched into the glam rock snarl that is "Zero," and we all sang the classic music question "Wanna go for a ride?" with Corgan, it was more than evident that we were in for a night to remember and then some.
Much like The Smashing Pumpkins' triumphant summer arena tour, this winter mini-tour is also designed to serve as a celebration of the band's 30 year musical legacy as well as herald the reunion of Corgan, Iha and Chamberlin. Yet, unlike the summer tour, we now have a experience that serves to greater balance the history of the band and the possibilities of its future.
We are not only given the band's signature hits ("Bullet With Butterfly Wings," "Ava Adore," "Disarm," "1979" and the aforementioned "Today" and "Cherub Rock"), but also deep album tracks (the anthemic "Muzzle," the roaring return of "Heavy Metal Machine" and the rapacious surprise that is the punishing "Dross"), new cover songs (including Depeche Mode's "Never Let Me Down Again") and a full half of the band's new album "Shiny And Oh So Bright, Vol. 1/LP: No Past. No Future. No Sun." (released November 16, 2018) including the high flying gospel of "Knights Of Malta," the pensive inner journey of "Travels," which for me grew in its mesmerizing poignancy seeing it performed live, and the shimmering power pop of "Silvery Sometimes (Ghosts)" complete with a foreboding spectral figure looming with ominous patience behind the band.
Also unlike this summer's tour, which ran a mammoth three hours and fifteen minutes, this new tour is a TIGHT two hours, including two encores. I guess that if I could utilize a cinematic analogy, I would say that if The Smashing Pumpkins' summer tour was more akin to a classic David Lean or Francis Ford Coppola epic, an experience that stretched out luxuriously and provided the requisite peaks and valleys to tell the impressionistic story of the band 's history, then this current tour is more like a classic Steven Spielberg blockbuster, furiously paced, relentless in its energy yet equal to the summer tour's overwhelming quality in its cumulative effect.
Eschewed are many of the band's ballads and more elongated, languid soundscapes in favor of selections that are designed to deliver the goods harder and faster, making the night feel like an audio/visual speedball. But, even so, I wish to believe that even they knew that they could not venture through the evening without playing their greatest epic, the underwater masterpiece that is the still astonishing "Porcelina Of The Vast Oceans," which stretched to possibly 12 minutes starring Corgan's masterful guitar soloing and gorgeously surrounded by Creative Director Linda Strawberry's elegant, sophisticated, dazzling and again, cinematic, visual interpretations.
Before I turn my attention towards the band and the music itself, I feel compelled to keep singing my praises towards the staggering visual aesthetics Linda Strawberry has created for this production. Psychedelic, dreamlike and abstract and beautifully filled with the grandest color schemes, and even when the colors are solely black and white, Strawberry magically devised of ways to adorn each musical selection with its own idiosyncratic visual palate.
The likes of "Heavy Metal Machine," "Muzzle" and "Cherub Rock" all contained black and white abstractionisms while "Dross" contained the almost grotesque shape shiftings of a beautiful woman's face into more monstrous and sinister creatures. "Ava Adore" contained artwork that found the creepy space between Art Deco and Edward Gorey. And when the visual exploded into colors, as during the aforementioned "Porcelina Of The Vast Oceans," in which our illustrated Zero figure continuously descends into his turquoise underwater dreamworld, or the landscapes of blues during "Never Let Me Down Again" and even lush display of reds, oranges and yellows during "Today" and "Travels," my eyes soaked in everything while also feeling a perfect synergy between image and song.
And even then, Strawberry's work never felt to be grand just for the sake of being grand. It felt that she always instinctively knew when the simplest image would be most effective, like the "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness" inspired moon child in "Tonight Tonight" or best of all, the fragile illustration of the child Billy Corgan holding a butterfly during "Disarm."
Resplendent and magical, Linda Strawberry's vision perfectly extended the music into the visual realm, only deepening the power contained within the music itself.
And what music it was and how superbly performed.
As TIGHT as the pacing of the show was, the full performance between all five band members was even TIGHTER, again displaying to me, just as it did during the summer tour I witnessed upon the Twitter simulcast, that these individuals are quite possibly playing these songs even better now than when they first wrote them, which made for an astoundingly thrilling exhibition.
Jimmy Chamberlin proved once again that he is unquestionably the finest rock drummer of his generation as his foundation in jazz allows his to possess a lightness that accentuates and increases his walloping yet precise percussive force. For as flourishing as his drumming always is, he is exactly what any band would wish to have as the Ringo Starr inside of him allows him to always listen to the song itself and perform only and exactly what the song needs to live, breathe and thrive.
Touring bassist Jack Bates, son of the legendary Peter Hook (formerly of Joy Division and New Order and currently of Peter Hook and the Light), has performed the Herculean task of not only cementing a rhythmic foundation with Chamberlin but also internalizing the entire bass work of The Smashing Pumpkins' oeuvre with a quiet confidence that is so strong, you may almost be fooled into thinking that he has been a part of this musical unit for the entirety of their 30 years.
Even moreso is Jeff Schroeder, member of the band for the past 12 years and one who has tremendously earned his Pumpkins stripes by weathering all manner of personnel changes and emerging as the one and only musician to stand shoulder to shoulder with William Patrick Corgan during a musically rich and turbulent period. It just feels terribly right that he remains in the band as an equal player with the OG Pumpkins, and from my front row vantage point, it was again proven to me that his interplay with Corgan and James Iha was a masterstroke as he deepens and stretches the guitar possibilities and soundscapes while also unleashing many white lightning solos to boot.
If The Smashing Pumpkins' summer tour essentially told the impressionistic story of the band as a whole, then this new mini-tour seemed to focus a bit deeper as throughout the night, I really felt that I was seeing the impressionistic story of the relationship of William Patrick Corgan and James Iha, two men whom for many years I absolutely, positively was certain would never, ever, EVER share a stage together again. And by certain accounts during interviews, it felt that way for the two men involved themselves.
By these same interviews, all members of the band have stressed what a positive time this period happens to be as interpersonal relationships between the band family members have never been stronger, or more respectful towards each other. To me, those positive feelings truly extended themselves from the stage into the audience as all of the members looked as if they all wanted to be there and to be there with each other. Jeff Schoreder and James Iha would often share smiles and quick laughs back and forth across the stage. Iha would just as quickly make a visit to Jimmy Chamberlin. Corgan and Schroeder would clearly show affection towards each other and so on.
But with Corgan and Iha, the sight of seeing them together, the two figures who originated what would become this 30 year and counting musical legacy, in complete harmony was poignant indeed. Corgan would affectionately drape an arm around Iha in an embrace as they performed. The two would face each other, guitars in hand, locked in musical synergy. Iha applauded Corgan after his scorching solo during the concert ending "Siva." And for some brief stage banter, the two would laugh and joke with each other about the nature of rock and roll concert encores, remembered and forgotten Rush lyrics, now ancient Wisconsin debauchery and even some Green Bay Packers sports talk for the football fans in the audience.
For as dramatic and ferocious as the songs could be, it was a supremely warm evening as the admiration and affection between themselves translated into genuine affection between the band and the audience, something that was not quite the band's course of action during the more combative 1990's.
And the signposts all felt to be right in our sights. The new song "Travels" contains lyrics in which Corgan repeatedly sings "It's where I belong." Iha, the former Chicagoan who now resides in Los Angeles, when recounting his displeasure of having to scrape the mounting ice from his rental car, ended his tale by expressing that even with the cold and snow, right here upon the stage with his bandmates was where he rightfully belonged. And furthermore, when Corgan sang the now iconic "Tonight Tonight" lyrics "Believe in me as I believe in you..." while pointing to himself and the audience, I spontaneously felt a few tears leap from my eyes for the emotional connection was more palpable than I had anticipated.
William Patrick Corgan, while not terribly talkative with the audience this evening, indeed delivered his finest as his singing voice held as strongly as his guitar heroics all the while decked out in all manner of elaborate costumes, from his Zero circa 2018 black and silver garb to his alt-rock P.T. Barnum outfit plus combat boots, which made his already 6 ft plus frame even more imposing.
Regardless of the long standing narratives concerning Corgan's persona, which truly need no repetition within this post whatsoever, I would be hard pressed to find anyone who attended this concert to find anything at fault with his level of charisma and commitment to the music that has now become his life's work.
In doing so, the evening was a continued testament to the fact that William Patrick Corgan is indeed one of the finest songwriters of his generation, supremely gifted with his sense of melodicism and poetry and is unquestionably a conceptualist cut from the very same cloths as the likes of Brian Wilson and Pete Townshend. Certainly he is our number 1 alt-rock anti-superhero but he is a songwriter and musician who has crafted a collection of songs that have brilliantly withstood the test of time to become timeless rock and roll standards.
To bear witness and so up close and personal was a gift to say the least.
And now, I turn my focus to James Iha, the prodigal Pumpkin who has embraced his return to the fold in grand style and substance. Dressed in a smart black jacket that glistened with sparkles, Iha performed the role of co-frontman with his signature dry, droll wit with a warmth that instantly won over the entire audience and served as a counterpoint to Corgan's more dramatic, intimidating presence.
Again, any doubters of Iha's musical abilities should be permanently silenced as he proved over and again the breadth of his prowess. People, even with Corgan and Jeff Schroeder already in the band, James Iha is a BEAST of a guitarist, playing and singing more confidently and stronger than I ever remember from him via all of the concert footage I have seen over the last 25 years. Taking on a series of rainbow colored angular solos which stretched from the atmospheric to the crystalline to the blistering sonic fireworks he ignited during "Heavy Metal Machine," I was thrilled to literally be standing right at his feet, being able to watch him in action.
And honestly, when James Iha led the band with a joyous cover of The Cure's "Friday I'm In Love," he had the whole of The Sylvee in the palm of his hands!
What a spectacular night! One that I had hoped and wished to see for over two decades and it finally happened at last, leaving me fully satiated and hungry to go back to Pumpkinland. In many ways, I have this feeling that perhaps what occurred, and has been occurring throughout this year, is how William Patrick Corgan, if not actually enjoys but creatively thrives.
In more athletic terms and through the filter of his love of wrestling, The Smashing Pumpkins have always existed as a band that has been out of step, even within the genre they have continuously been lumped into. They are a band that sounds like no one else other than themselves, and it is via their singular aesthetic that has attracted and maintained generations of listeners throughout the years while also provoking a legion of detractors as well. It always seems that when people are ready to count the band out for good, they rise again even more powerful than the last time.
This time around, The Smashing Pumpkins came out swinging and never let up for a moment, deftly showcasing their hefty vitality and artistic relevance in an ever shifting 21st century musical landscape. Here's hoping that Corgan, Iha, Chamberlin and Schroeder can keep their good vibes flowing for I only wish to see them reach their 40th anniversary even stronger than ever.
A very special thank you to Hilary for allowing me to share your company and for not getting mad when I pounded your arm at the first notes of "Porcelina Of The Vast Oceans."
all text and photos copyright 2018 Scott Collins
SAVAGE RADIO EPISODE #153
SAVAGE RADIO EPISODE #154
