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.

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