Stage banter (mp3) from the Raleigh show:

We’re happy to be here with you tonight. Of course, we’re missing the badminton final…Michael Phelps going for his 900th medal…and by the way, I fucking hate Bob Costas, okay? Fuck Bob Costas. [cheering] Why do I have to deal with Bob Costas’s Olympic vision? That’s what I want to know. I just want to watch the fuckin’ Olympics. Bob Costas…plus, he’s from St. Louis, that pretty much seals it right there…the Cardinals…anyway, I’d like to introduce the band. On the geetar…

Here are four tracks from an outstanding audience recording (thanks to taper Robbie Dunn!) of the Smashing Pumpkins’ Sunday night concert at Memorial Auditorium in Raleigh, North Carolina:

“G.L.O.W.”:

“Speed Kills”:

“The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning”:

“Heavy Metal Machine”/”White Rabbit” into…is that the riff from Maiden’s “Ides of March”? and a bit of the Nuge there, “Stranglehold”? and it’s definitely a few lines from “Wild Thing”…into “Glass’ Theme”:

If you’re smooth with BitTorrent tech, you can find the entire show at etree.org.

In the new edition of Portico Publications’ weekly C-ville, Brendan Fitzgerald riffs on the two media-established themes surrounding the Smashing Pumpkins latest tour: (1) It’s really good and (2) it features songs from Zeitgeist. [Editor’s note: Uh, only two of the 21 songs on the tour setlist come from Zeitgeist.]

It feels a bit overboard to praise the Pumpkins so enthusiastically long after their biggest commercial successes, but the band never stopped making great songs; Corgan simply put out a lot of half-baked grunge that obscured the finer material. During the evening’s two-hour set—heavy on material from 2007’s Zeitgeist and a few recent singles—the Pumpkins called up tunes from at least half of their catalogue of albums…

The last line is sure correct, though — the band played at least one song off every one of their albums, which certainly is “at least half”.

Am I being too hard on these reviewers? Maybe I’m wrong about this, but I just can’t remember ever reading a review or preview of a Wilco show or a Neil Young show or (dare I say) a Radiohead show where the critic felt empowered to reinvent the band’s setlist to his or her own satisfaction, and yet with the Smashing Pumpkins it seems to happen frequently (see: here, here, here, here…). The Pumpkins’ setlist in Charlottesville had as many songs off Siamese Dream as off Zeitgeist and more songs from Mellon Collie than from either of those records. What journalist would go to a Radiohead show and claim the setlist was “heavy on material from In Rainbows” if it wasn’t? This would never happen, right?

Any Floridians planning on heading to tonight’s Smashing Pumpkins show at the Mizner Park Ampitheater in Boca Raton, be forewarned. Due to the presence of Tropical Storm Fay, the concert has been rescheduled for Thursday at 8 p.m.

Hilary Langford, writing for Landmark Communications’ Style Weekly of Richmond, Va., lauds the Smashing Pumpkins for delivering “an impeccable set of blistering rock” on Saturday night in nearby Charlottesville:

Seemingly intoxicated on his own music, Corgan wavered back and forth as he weaved a psychedelic “Star Spangled Banner” into “United States.” With roundhouse, Townsend-styled guitar strums, the frontman kept the searing energy going with “Heavy Metal Machine” and asked the audience “Are you ready to die for rock and roll?” What he should have asked was, “Are you ready to see the strangest show closer in Smashing Pumpkins history?”

Meanwhile, Pitchfork, Stereogum, Idolator, et al, were unable to comment as today they hit a rough patch in their relationships with the Hold Steady, whose frontman guitarist just now told them — after like two years together! — that he doesn’t like Radiohead. My favorite part is Stereogum’s lament:

Ugh. Look it’s Rock Interviews 101: a band slags another, and like a moth to the Flame, the internet will post it. Because it is inflammatory, and the Internet and Inflammatory are BFFs. So congrats Tad Kubler, you clearly wanted to be blogged, and now you are. The Hold Steady guitarist told BBC6 (via NME): …

Above: In Raleigh last night, as this video (and photographic evidence) testifies, the Smashing Pumpkins’ ka-zoo-razy encore of “We Only Come Out at Night” and “In the Summertime” got that much crazier. Don’t these people know we’re at war?! (YouTube)

This morning I was walking to work from the subway, minding my own business when “Lucky 13″  entered the rotation on my iPod in shuffle mode.  After the jungle drums entered and the second guitar riff subsided, I thought my ears deceived me, so I immediately hit the back button to have a second listen.

Sure enough, I warped straight back to memories of high school band:  that distinctive “bzzzzwahhhh” so cheekily colors the song’s intro.

After trying to hunt down what the heck that instrument is called (don’t even try to get me to repeat the sounds I made to my coworkers), Wikipedia informs me that it is called a “vibraslap.”  It consists “of a piece of stiff wire (bent in a handle-like shape) connecting a wood ball to a block of wood with metal ‘teeth’ inside.”

I remember laughing every time anyone played that stupid vibraslap in high school, so naturally I just couldn’t believe my ears that the Smashing Pumpkins included it on their studio work and I’d missed it all these years.

Thanks for the laugh, Jimmy.

Here’s a couple thousand words, courtesy of Netphoria readers Davin and Lapis.
More here.

Tom Daly of the cvilleMUSE blog has them, along with his sometimes-inaccurate commentary on the show:

SP’s new tunes, the majority from their latest album Zeitgeist, seemed fairly similar to the classic Pumpkins style.

There were only two songs from Zeitgeist, with another four being post-Zeitgeist songs…and really, if you don’t already know whether the band’s “new tunes” are similar to the old, why would you think you knew which ones were on the album?

Contrast that approach to journalism with that of the very self-aware Hank Altogether, who attended the Louisville show and knows what he doesn’t know:

Not only did I have a difficult time knowing what songs they were playing, it was hard to tell when songs began or ended. I was struck with the impression that I did not know this band, my ur-band, I had no idea who these people were. What songs these were. Which isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy them. I did. I think. The crowd was way more into it than I was, perhaps they had purchased the other 3 albums — Machina, Machina II, and most recently Zeitgeist. I felt bad. Cory and Nick asked me to review this band. What the hell was I doing here? What did I know about the Smashing Pumpkins? I mean, I have the t-shirt, but beyond that…?

Courtney Devores of the Charlotte Observer writes of the Smashing Pumpkins’ gig in that city on Friday night:

The group doled out a few more ’90s hits in “Today” and “Bullet With Butterfly Wings.” But the second half of the show consisted of heavier material, notably “Heavy Metal Machine” and more sprawling psychedelia, some of which seemed lost on some concertgoers. Some were lost to their seats or cellphones during an extended finale, which ended in a surge of feedback and Corgan pummeling tympanis at stage front, prompting one woman to say, “This is more out there than the Grateful Dead.”

The last bit matches with part of my experience in Charlottesville last night: as Billy went to the kettledrums during Pink Floyd’s “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun”, a woman behind me whooped, “Look what I can do!”

Below: In Virginia’s Charlottesville Pavilion, the waiting was the hardest part…

The Smashing Pumpkins went on tonight about 8:20pm, eighty minutes after the announced start time. For a show starting that late, the crowd didn’t get overly antsy, which I’ll attribute to the absolutely perfect weather and beautiful setting in downtown Charlottesville.

I have to say that very few people appeared to know the opening song, “Tarantula”. “G.L.O.W.” didn’t seem to do much for anyone until the end where the instruments drop, the singers let out a “glooooowwww” and then the band re-enters, that got some cheers. Some good response when the riff to “Siva” hit, but not nearly as much as in Hammond a week ago. “Eye” went over about as well. As usual there was a pretty big response to “Mayonaise”, which was by-the-numbers until Billy challenged himself to produce something spontaneous on the outro guitar lead. “Tonight, Tonight” was sweet in this venue, some neat light patterns were being shone all around:

The crowd quieted, but was attentive on the heels of the previous two songs, as “Speed Kills” started. Billy’s guitar work was fiery and inspired and really grabbed people’s attention even though there was little sign anyone knew the song. The band had a blast performing “Transformer” like they usually do, and I think about as many people knew this one as had known “Tarantula”. Superchrist” has had work done in a couple spots over the last week, I thought - I think one of the jamming sections picked up another four or eight bars. This song was a big crowd pleaser. “United States”, not so much on this evening, but…it sure was loud.

The acoustic set…I wasn’t really feeling it tonight and I didn’t get the sense many people were. While the quiet melodies were absolutely needed following “United States”, a hit song or two here would have worked. After the acoustic set but before “Today”, Billy talked about how sometimes the crowds are older and those crowds tend to want the older material (keep in mind that I’m paraphrasing from memory here!), but that this crowd was younger and more into the newer stuff. Billy pointed out a guy flipping him off (in response to his half-diss of the over-30 crowd), filling his quasi-confrontation quota for the evening.

The end of “Heavy Metal Machine” was far more developed than when I saw them in Hammond. There was a lengthy bout of playing a classic metal riff — it was pretty familiar sounding but I couldn’t come up with the ID. :( Toward the end Billy sang a few lines, something about “I think I love you, but I’m not sure” — was that a Partridge Family reference?! I’m not sure. Whatever it all was, it was exciting; “Glass’ Theme” felt anticlimactic.

So then…wtf. Midway through “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun”, Billy puts down the guitar and walks over to start playing the timpani — no, I’m not kidding — there were two of them, set up at stage front, a little to Ginger’s side. Simultaneously, Jeff started playing some sort of electro-theremin or something, basically waving his hands in front of this box and getting all sorts of weird sounds. This went on for 2-3 minutes, and it actually sounded good, and of course it was hilariously awesome as a visual. Then Jeff and Billy held these little birdcalling devices up to their mics - maybe Lisa did too, it was a little tough to follow everything, haha - there was maybe 30 seconds or so of chirping and such…at this point, I pretty much thought they were going to start doing magic tricks. Of course at that moment they went back to their guitars to finish up. It was quite fun and the crowd definitely was roused, a great adjustment by the band from previous shows where “Set the Controls” was losing people.

After that, there was a huge response to the encore of “We Only Come Out at Night” and “In the Summertime”, lots of smiles and clapping and singing. I wish I had gotten a picture so everyone could see how very many arms were up in the air, and that after the long pre-show wait and a long show; if Billy didn’t feel the love tonight (he did, don’t worry…), he never will. I thought last year when I saw them in Asheville that they had come a long way in being able to entertain a crowd that didn’t know the material all that well, and this was another three or four steps down the path beyond that. The material performed was just so eclectic, being punctuated with the wild ending to “Heavy Metal Machine” into the timpani, theremin and birdcalls of “Set the Controls” into the feel-good piano and kazoos on “In the Summertime”, it was almost like Billy Corgan had turned into Prince or Michael Jackson, just in terms of the feeling you were watching a borderline-insane pop genius. All the shifts in tone kept people on their toes and interested throughout, moreso than at any Pumpkins show I’ve been to. And for a setlist that low on hits to produce, in the end, that much palpable joy and appreciation for the band in the venue when they walked off…it had to be so gratifying for them.

In nary a few hours, the Smashing Pumpkins will perform in Charlottesville, Virginia (with the “e,” people) at the Charlottesville Pavilion (pictured above). The venue is a 3,500-seat outdoor amphitheatre located near historic downtown among buildings dating back to the city’s inception in 1762. Home to Mr. Jefferson’s University, Charlottesville counts the nearby Monticello estate and Shenandoah National Park among its charms. It’s also located a short day-trip away from Washington, D.C. so HU’s own JJB will be taking the road trip with a few friends for yet another Pumpkins liveblog.

Meanwhile, I’ll be in NYC attending German electronica titan Paul Van Dyk’s concert on historic Pier 54 (pictured below), facilitating the liveblog. Pier 54 is where the RMS Carpathia dropped off the Titanic’s survivors in 1912. Three years later, the RMS Lusitania left the pier and was torpedoed — spawning US involvement in World War I. So this is like a meta-liveblog-entrenched-in-history or something.

Hopefully this goes off without a hitch - and cross your fingers that my mobile battery doesn’t die and I don’t dance my legs off tonight (I’ll keep the liveblog going until one of those things happens). Feel free to use the comments to add notes or links if you or those you know convey information about the Pumpkins show! Cheers!

7:30pm EST - No word from Jason yet but the Paul Van Dyk show has been in full effect for over two hours now. Patiently awaiting first word from Virginia…

8:15pm EST: JJB reports they are now in the venue but still waiting. Meanwhile PVD plays his song “New York City” as the last orange rays of the sunset reflect off the Empire State Building.

8:23pm EST - Tarantula!

8:30pm EST - GLOW and Siva next.

8:42pm EST - Eye now and I am informed that BC is wearing his Saturn shirt tonight.

8:52pm EST - Next up — Mayonaise and Tonight Tonight. PVD is spinning Underworld and the White Stripes. Now Speed Kills.

9:02pm EST - One, two, three… hit it. Transformer.

9:10pm EST - Superchrist.

9:20pm EST - United States. Jefferson’d be proud.

9:35pm EST - Once Upon a Time. And my boyfriend spotted a Zero shirt in the crowd here. Heaven help us. Was Adore a gateway drug into electronica?

9:41pm EST - Again Again Again.

9:47pm EST - The Rose March.

10:03pm EST - Today and Bullet. Quel surprise.

10:20pm EST - The Beginning is the End is the Beginning into Heavy Metal Machine.

10:30pm EST - Glass’ Theme into Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun. And now Paul Van Dyk is done for the evening and we are rehydrating… ahhhh.

10:55pm EST - The show is now over but Jason reports that BC played timpani on Set the Controls before the whole band picked up bird calling instruments. That ended the set before the band returned for We Only Come Out At Night and In the Summertime. C’est fini!

Below is the third and final segment of the Smashing Pumpkins’ interview (part one, part two) last Monday on the syndicated radio program “Mancow’s Morning Madhouse”.

Mancow Muller: Hey, fellas, let me ask you something. I mean, ’80s music, the stuff that we grew up with, is so huge again. And when we were kids, it was ’60s music, right?

Billy Corgan: Mhm, Sha Na Na.

MM: At some point this stuff will go full cycle and the ’90s music will hit again. Do you guys envision yourself, you know, at 50 years old, 60 years old, singing “Today”?

BC: That’s a bridge you cross when you get there.

MM: Billy, when you go see these bands that you like and that I like, do you think, “Ah, it’s just nostalgia?” Should they quit, or do you admire them for keeping it going?

BC: It depends on the artist. I think if the artist is still creative…like, look at Neil Diamond: he’s still releasing new songs, he’s a great songwriter, you know? Somebody like that, then I think it’s about the present and the past. Neil Young, the present and the past. With us, it’s about the present and the past. When it turns into just a past thing, that’s where you lose me.

MM: I saw Neil [Diamond] two Saturdays ago.

BC: Was it good?

MM: Yeah. I mean, sure. He did “Sweet Caroline” three times.

BC: That’s weird.

MM: Three times.

BC: Wow.

MM: And what is it about that song that white people have to sing along?

Jimmy Chamberlin: [laughs]

MM: [singing] So good, so good, so good! …Billy, he did do the song I want played at my funeral.

BC: Which is?

MM: “Hell Yeah”.

BC: I don’t know that one.

MM: Well, buddy, you better have someone download it for you.

BC: Okay.

MM: Because it’s his masterpiece.

BC: All right.

MM: “Hell Yeah”, him and Rick Rubin, you’ve got to hear it.

BC: [laughs]

MM: I mean, you guys could have done it better, I hope I haven’t gone into dangerous territory here. But he does pretty well.

BC: God bless. …Are you out of controversial subjects? There must be another one, right?

MM: No! No, I’m just having a conversation with my buddies. So the Smashing Pumpkins continue. The last CD was a smash.

BC: Yeah, we did good.

MM: The concerts are selling.

BC: Yeah.

MM: You guys are all getting along.

BC: Yeah.

MM: Jimmy, you’re off the drugs.

JC: I’m completely clean and sober now for over four years.

BC: It might have something to do with the drumming.

JC: [laughs] Yeah, right.

MM: What do you mean?

BC: Well, that’s why he’s playing so great, I mean…can you imagine, he played…he was out of his mind all those years, with how good he played, and he plays even better when he’s clean and sober.

MM: Jimmy, is there any aspect of that guy that you miss?

JC: Um, no. No, because I gotta say that all those things were filling up empty holes, and those holes have been subsequently filled by my family and my music. I’ve been completely lucky to have kind of lived by fire and kind of survived. And now I’m living by love and water and surviving even better. So, I’m completely happy where I’m at, I’ve never been happier. I have two beautiful kids, a beautiful wife, you know, a beautiful partner, I mean, things are great.

MM: I have two daughters now. My life has changed. I don’t really want to fight Billy as much as I used to want to fight him.

BC: [laughs]

MM: Billy, I’m sure Jimmy’s told you, I told you in Toronto: Kids? When? When are you gonna do it?

BC: I’m…believe me, I’m waiting. It just hasn’t worked out. I really must be miserable to be around, because…

MM: Do you want to have kids?

BC: I do. I’ve wanted to have kids since my late twenties. It’s really probably one of the great tragedies of my life that I don’t have kids.

MM: Is it possible that, just, you don’t have any swimmers?

BC: Uhm… [laughs]

MM: Billy, I would run into you occasionally, and Chris Farley lived in my building where we broadcast, and we would run into you, you know, with your floppy hat, and you’re a very shy guy and everything, but we would see each other every once in a while. When you’re clicking through cable and you see a Farley movie, does that…I still feel kind of sick to my stomach when I see him.

BC: What a great tragedy. He was so talented, and he was such a sweetheart, such a sweetheart. He really was.

MM: Do you feel anything?

BC: In terms of?

MM: Yeah, if just, if “Tommy Boy” is on TV, do you go, “Ohh, man”, because you ran into him a lot.

BC: He — and I think Jimmy can vouch for this — when you talk to him behind the scenes, you realize what a sweetheart he was. And he had that great gift like Belushi, where he could just make you laugh just by the way he moved his body, which is such an amazing talent. He was such a great, gifted person.

MM: All right. Well, guys. Thank you very much.

BC: Thank you!

JC: Thank you.

MM: And, uh…you’re going to be in the area. Are you actually going to come in sometime and see my, uh, my new empire?

BC: We will.

JC: Yeah, of course.

MM: Jimmy, anything else you want to say?

JC: No. All good, man. Good to talk to you.

MM: Thanks guys. Billy, thank you.

BC: Thank you, Mancow, nice to talk to you.

The photographer tells SmashingPumpkins.com:

I’m really, really proud of this Pumpkins documentary coming out in September, “If All Goes Wrong.” I’ve been working on it with Coming Home Studio over the past year. I went on tour for 3 months and documented Billy writing, rehearsing, and playing new songs at small residency shows. This movie will be really interesting for the Pumpkins fans, and even non-fans will be compelled because it’s such a great portrait of a band at work. The director, Jack Gulick, did a great job, and really allowed me to do my thing. He wasn’t worried about my technical abilities, and really let me have a free rein with trying to capture moments instead of having to worry about things being technically perfect. In the film, we used different juxtapositions of black and white and color, raw and refined, and created a beautiful layered collage, while maintaining the integrity of the story. Because of the split screen effect that runs throughout the film, I had to shoot extra material. This increased the demands on me and I tried everyday to shoot as many stills and as much video as I could. Billy could go days without an idea, and then get hit with a flood of ideas, so it was important for me to just shoot everything. The biggest thing I learned from this project is that you have to stand in the rain to appreciate the sunshine!

What follows is part two (part one here) of the Smashing Pumpkins’ radio interview with Mancow Muller last Monday. There is some irreverence in this section, so more than usual it is a good idea to listen to the audio for inflection, tone, et cetera.

Mancow Muller: Where are you at now spiritually, Billy?

Billy Corgan: I’m in a really good place, I’m really happy. I know that’s shocking.

MM: Can you write when you’re happy?

BC: Oh yeah! Oh, I write more.

MM: And fame does weird things, doesn’t it? It did weird things to…I know you guys didn’t change, but boy, everybody around you just turned to *bleep*, huh?

BC: Yeah, it’s been shocking. [laughs] It’s been shocking. You know, it changed me to the extent I had to figure out who I was and go back to who I used to be, for sure.

MM: The suicide talk you gave, about…do you want to talk about that? It got a lot of attention.

BC: Sure!

MM: It’s hard for people to relate to. You’re on the top of the world, you’re writing some of the great songs, timeless songs, and yet you were suicidal. How is that possible, Billy?

BC: Well, I think there’s… Like everybody, I’m a human being. I didn’t face certain things. I think fame gave me a free pass on dealing with my problems. Like anybody else, you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, you’re thinking, “You know what, I got all this money, I got all these cars, I got a hot woman, and I’m ready to throw myself off a roof because it just doesn’t matter.” And you know, of course, one of the great artists of our generation, Kurt, you know, took himself out. And I think, there’s this weird thing in America where fame is the new immortality. And look how many of those people are completely miserable. Like the kid who was in the Indiana Jones movie, he [Shia LaBeouf] flipped his car.

MM: Yeah, he’s miserable.

BC: How old is he, 22 years old? You just want to grab the kid and say, “You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into.” But, I’m sure he’s surrounded with a bunch of people who are making excuses for him already. I just know how that works. Trust me, Mancow: when we were flying, they couldn’t take us out to enough dinners, they couldn’t pat us on the back, they couldn’t tell us how great we were — and the minute it stopped selling like it did, they were gone. And that’s a weird feeling too, because you start thinking, like, “Well, is everybody a liar in my world?” Including bandmates. I’ll give you a perfect example: Our old bandmates, James and D’arcy, constantly complained to the press that I was this crazy dictator and I wouldn’t let them record their music. And they’ve been out of the band for seven, eight years and they haven’t released one song. So am I still suppressing them from a distance? I mean…

Jimmy Chamberlin: [laughs]

MM: Well, you know, the little Asian girl was nice. She was always nice to me. And D’arcy was always asleep, so…

BC: [laughs]

MM: So I can’t really say anything, but I did see you guys in the studio numerous times, and I really wasn’t sure what they did. In fact, early on, I thought they were maybe with the caterers.

BC: Well, they looked good.

MM: They did look good in the videos!

BC: No, I have to say, they did make serious contributions, and it’s not fair to try to go out and denigrate their contributions.

MM: Yeah, but do you enjoy when I do it?

BC: Uhh… [laughs] I can’t argue against you, you know? It’s hard, though, but put it this way: we were all together there for a while and it worked. And God knows why it worked, because behind the scenes it was really impossible. But it did work, and you find yourself thinking there was something to it. But they’ve turned into such thorns in our sides, you know…

MM: Well, they were in the paper yesterday complaining that you haven’t given them money for your ringtones.

BC: Yeah, but see, that’s nice to say in the press, but that’s not really what’s happened. If you notice, they’re not suing me, you know what I mean? And there’s a reason they’re not suing me, because I haven’t done anything wrong.

Now, I know that many of you cringe when I say I’ve found a new mashup.  Yes, it’s true that I have a love for the homegrown remix and yes, it’s true that I indulge my love for it at HU.

However, I ran across this morning’s post from antimac.org announcing a new mashup — this time, a code mashup between GoogleMaps and several tour history databases.  It seems that the programmer in question has tapped into the SPFC tour database as it covers “A Perfect Circle, Brad, Fuck Buttons, James Iha, Jimmy Chamberlin Complex, Mogwai, Nine Inch Nails, Pearl Jam, Radiohead, The Mars Volta, The Smashing Pumpkins, Tool, and Zwan.”

Though future plans include wikifying the info windows for each entry, perhaps they should join forces with the SPLRA or another well-established group because this is a pretty cool project!  Check it out here:  BandMaps.org