See here for important disclaimer.

The Smashing Pumpkins’ U.S. tour, October 31 to December 8, 2008, by the numbers: (more…)

I’m sure by now we’re all well aware of the claims that this last tour was, at least according to the popular press, made up almost entirely of Zeitgeist material, with a dearth of older fan-friendly hits. I recall at least one mention in one of the latest podcasts about wondering how the breakdown compared to other tours, so I decided to run a quick query.

The results below are broken down as follows: each album-era tour is split into date ranges according to when the tour either obviously started (i.e. the Double Door shows for MCIS, Arising! for Machina, or a 7-year gap for Zeitgeist), or from the first show at which a significant perecentage of songs played were from that era’s album (note that most, if not all, of these eras precede the actual albums’ release dates). For a song to be counted as part of that era, it must be a released track from that album, or one of its b-sides, as noted below. Also, no soundchecks (not that there’s that much data to throw it off), and only full performances are counted (no teases/abandons).

Gish: Gish and Lull
SD: Siamese Dream and Pisces Iscariot (may include some Gish-era b-sides, but it was easier to count this way)
MCIS: Mellon Collie and The Aeroplane Flies High box set
Adore: Adore and TEITBITE (the Adore-era b-sides were only played once or twice each, if at all, and aren’t counted)
Machina: Machina and Machina II (this means LMGTWTY counts as Machina-era in the scores below)
Zeitgeist: Zeitgeist, American Gothic and G.L.O.W

All other unreleased tracks and covers are listed under ‘Unreleased/Other’. So, how did each tour stack up?

Looks like the average range was about 60-70% new album material for each era up through Adore, and then dropped sharply down to 43% for the Machina-era tour. This last tour was less than 25% (released) Zeitgeist material. Even if we count the ‘Unreleased/Other’ category as all brand-new songs (which they’re not, since there were a few covers thrown in, plus I Am One part II), that’s still only about 44% “Zeitgeist-era” material - exactly the same ratio as there was during the Machina tour. The only thing different about this tour is the sheer number of unique unreleased songs, but this is largely because there haven’t been many b-sides released for Zeitgeist. If we excluded Machina II, we might see similar numbers for the Machina era.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t recall the press claiming back then that the Machina tour was “entirely new material” with a dearth of older hits. If any tour qualifies for that, I would have to say it’s the Adore tour, with over 90% of the tour made up entirely of Adore and Mellon Collie tracks, less than 1% Siamese Dream songs, and not a single Gish song performance.

I could probably come up with slightly more accurate numbers by matching each individual song, rather than matching album tracks, and the Gish data is obviously far less complete than tours since MCIS, but I don’t think the results would vary by more than a few percent. Bottom line? The media frequently have no idea what they’re talking about. But then again, I suppose - at least around here - we already knew that.

I was going to stick this in a comment (#151! o_O;) in the 11/4 thread, but then I thought “Hey, Jill’s been bugging me to do an actual entry- this can be it!” So yeah, now that I’m back on a real computer, let’s try this thing out…

First TSP-2.0 performances from 11/4:

• Cupid de Locke - first performance since 1996
• Soma - first since 1999
• Bodies - first since 1997
• Crestfallen - first since 1998
• I of the Mourning - first since the 2000 “final show”
• Landslide - first full performance since 1996 (couple teases in ‘97)
• MCIS - first real “live” (non-PA) performance ever
• Galapogos - first since 1996 (teased in ‘98)
• Age of Innocence - first since the 2000 “final show”
• I Am One Part II - first known live performance ever

11/3 also gave us the first performances of Roctopus and Everybody Come Clap Your Hands. So, a dozen first performances (2.0 or otherwise) over 2 nights (which weren’t the start of a new-album/material tour)- not bad! Although I will have to take Billy’s challenge to show him “a band- without beards- who can play 48 songs in 2 days”, as I attended a 5-day run of shows in Tokyo last year (each night themed around a different album) which contained 55 unique songs (not including 2 “album intro” pseudo-songs played over the PA, or the drum solo- which I perhaps should include, considering Roctopus is counted in the 48…) ObSP: the pre-show music each night was Zeitgeist. :)

CODE UPDATE [by Jason]:  Photo credit to Flickr user Evdawg; more pictures here.

See here for important disclaimer, and click here to see our (much more interesting) setlist data from previous tours.

Pumpkins’ tour of the Midwest and Southeast, August 8 to 22, 2008, by the numbers: (more…)

See here for important disclaimer.

Pumpkins’ tour of the world, January 30 to April 19, 2008, by the numbers: (more…)

See here for important disclaimer.

Pumpkins’ American fall tour, September 13 to November 18, 2007, by the numbers:
(more…)

See here for lengthy disclaimer and Asheville residency stats.

Pumpkins at the Fillmore, San Francisco, July 15 to August 1, 2007, by the numbers:
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I do believe it is wise, when engaging in Pumpkin fandom, not to get too caught up in the consumption or analysis of factoids or data, e.g., lists of songs they have played, or the list of current band members. (Okay, that second one is a joke…sort of.) But generally speaking, I think one is better off as a fan to concentrate on the emotions that one experiences from the music, as well as on the conceptual or cultural meanings with which the band imbues its work. I used to find myself not enjoying concerts because I was too busy thinking about the setlist or some other factoid, or on waiting or hoping for the band to play a particular song; once I stopped doing that, my Pumpkinheadedness became a lot more rewarding: I was better able to take in what the band was doing or what they were trying to do, to wonder (not to suffer) why they were trying to do those things, and to just enjoy watching them go about their work. From this standpoint, I try not to put much emphasis on the consumption of such goods as a database of the band’s setlists; you can miss a great show, and generally distort the experience of consuming performance art, by getting all hung up on what’s essentially data analysis…which is something you should get paid to do while sitting in a cubicle.

All right! With those important disclaimers in mind and thus safely out of the way…the Pumpkins begin their residency at the Fillmore (or is it now “the Fillmore Fillmore”?) in San Francisco tonight, making this a good time to look back at the recently concluded residency at the Orange Peel in Asheville. In that spirit, and running completely counter to the spirit of the first paragraph of this entry, I present…

Pumpkins at the Orange Peel, Asheville, June 23 to July 5, 2007, by the numbers:
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