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Smashing Pumpkins: Rock On!

Billy and the band go all out.
24 januari 2000, Vredenburg, Utrecht (NL)

Tekst: Ferry Leirissa

Publicatiedatum: 24 januari 2000

Finally they made their way to Utrecht. A few days earlier the band walked of stage in Brussel after two songs. Billie Corgan had a throat infection and wasn't able to sing anymore. So one of the two remaining U.K. dates was off and the continuation of Utrecht was very unsure. But he kept his voice and decided to do the last gig of the pre-release 'Machina - the machines of god' tour. (release February 28th). The venue was sold out in a minute and you could feel the tension when a crowd expects a lot.
The Pumpkins are beyond a semi mainstream status so when the doors opened, the crowd found his way very fast to the frontstage. There was no support-act and no warming up tunes so it took a long way till 8.30, but then the lights went off and the band got on stage. The crowd went crazy and the band seemed to enjoy the reaction.
They started with a slow Mogwai stylish instrumental called 'Pale Scales' which went fluently into the album opener and first single ' The Everlasting Gaze'. The situation was very clear at that moment: the crowd didn't have any clue of the new songs and they stood and stared while the band went nuts on their new material.
The new songs are so brilliant and reach the 'Siamese Dream' status, so after a while the moods were swinging. During the beginning of the show the sound was a bit sloppy and thin, very low tunes without clearness but later it worked out better. So the first six songs rocked on, 'Heavy Metal Machine' will be a future festival killer and after a long slow song which are 2 imaginary parts 'Glass + The Ghost Children' the roof was blown off with the first single 'I Am One'.
From that point everything went loose. 'Rock On' passed, a dirty non-album track and 'zero' blew the walls out..... Highlights were 'Cherub Rock' which was introduced as "This is Jimmy the only drummer in the world who can drum this song" and it was amazing.....this was the true heart of rock....(I almost lost my shoes; but a friend of my did...she found it in the back of the venue).
Billie loves it all....he was talking and joking a lot between the songs, and explained that James Iha ate some poisoned duck and throw up backstage while ex-Hole bass player Melissa Auf Der Maur was also pretty ill. So the ending of the short tour was a sort of sick day....when they finished and came back for an encore the crowd went mad again. The first encore started with a lovely acoustic version of 1979 with Jimmy Chamberlain (! a drumcomputer did the job) on guitar and everything was perfect. Followed by the sensitive 'Tale of Dusty and Pistol Pete'. But it was not over, they promised one last song 'Tonight, Tonight', and Billie fucked it up at the chorus, so they did it twice. It continued with a improvised non-album song 'Glass Theme' which went into 'Bullet with Butterfly Wings'. James couldn't play any longer and was begging to quit, but Billy wanted more and did a joking beaming cure thing. It was a sort of stand up comedian act and was overwhelming cause normally they just play their songs and disappear.
They finished with a third encore, 'X.Y.U.' and a jamrock anthem with the repeating lyrics ' we Love you'.... The microphone disappeared in the audience and a freaky girl screamed her lungs out...it was all unforgettable.

http://www.kindamuzik.net/live/smashing-pumpkins/smashing-pumpkins-rock-on/327/
Meer Smashing Pumpkins op KindaMuzik: http://www.kindamuzik.net/artiest/smashing-pumpkins