At their February 29 (8th anniversary of Machina, dude!) show in Oslo, the Smashing Pumpkins attempted an encore performance of the Scorpions song “The Zoo”. Despite Jeff Schroeder’s considerable effort on the talkbox-augmented guitar, frontman Billy Corgan told the Norwegian audience that his band had just flopped:

Yeahhh. That was a song by the Scorpions. Do you feel all right, Jeff? …Honestly, that was the only song we were going to play, but that was so bad, we’re going to play another song. Well, actually, you don’t want to hear another song — thank you good night! …Now you want to hear another song. Would you like to hear a sensitive…sensitive song? Would you like to hear a ski-jumping song?!

Apparently there is a secret meaning to “Cherub Rock”, possibly to be revealed by Billy on the upcoming 15th anniversary of Siamese Dream…

Here’s freshly surfaced audio of the Pumpkins’ “Zoo”…

… and video of the Scorpions playing it on “Heavy Metal Day” of the 1983 US Festival (brought to us, truly, by that guy from Apple Computers).

On the Smashing Pumpkins’ just-concluded swing through Europe, Billy Corgan left some room in each night’s setlist for him to improvise some way-serious blues before playing “1979″.

Below:  Here’s an example from the final show, in Helsinki  (YouTube)