I guess WesleyDodds was right…either that, or whoever typed up the back cover verbiage didn’t get the memo on use of the word reunion (and will be hearing from Billy soon?).

So, now that it’s been widely available for a day (sorry we didn’t post anything about its release yesterday!), I’ve finally seen If All Goes Wrong. A few initial thoughts:

• For about the first two-thirds of the film, I wasn’t particularly crazy about any of the lyrics that made it to onscreen text. Some better ones surfaced later…
• …such as a few lines from “The Rose March”, which I personally would pick as the best song (or “peak experience”?) to emerge from the residencies — the film implies this is Billy’s opinion as well, but please come to your own judgments.
• The most sizable bout of laughter from both myself and HU reader Stace was prompted by the immediate wake of the Super Melt-Down of “Jeff Shroeder” [sic]: as band members pull themselves together to troop back out on stage for an encore, of all moments Billy might choose to comically acknowledge the documentary camera…that one.

What observations or thoughts does everyone else have? There’s a lot to process in the film, but please jump right in.

In a rave review of last night’s “Guitar Hero”-launching performance by the Smashing Pumpkins, Los Angeles Times writer Charlie Amter gives his readers a full setlist, lyrics to the band’s brand-new song “As Rome Burns”, and this extended commendation:

The imposing guitarist played with vitriolic fury during the latter half of the set, as if to show wannabes what a real guitar hero looked like.

Corgan spat on the stage as he unleashed wall after wall of dissonant, driving riffs that sometimes devolved into extended feedback loops. He broke strings, played kettle drums, hissed and sang into “the heart of the sun,” as he droned in a mantra-like moment during their cover of the classic Pink Floyd song “Set The Controls For The Heart Of The sun.”

I was beginning to think I was at a Liars show, and damn if it wasn’t compelling for those willing to make the journey with Corgan. And while the Pumpkins have been doing this shtick on stage since at least 2000, something felt different Saturday…perhaps as a result of a new sound emerging from rehearsals (the band is getting ready for their 20th anniversary tour, beginning Friday in Columbus, Ohio and a new “concept” record).

It appears that the Pumpkins have retired their Heavy Metal Machine/White Rabbit > Iron Man > On the Road Again > I Love Rock ‘N’ Roll mashup (example: 2007/11/18 setlist) in favor of a Cash Car Star > Easy Livin’ > Foreplay > For What It’s Worth > Wasted Years combo (example: 2008/01/31 setlist).

Below:  Meet the middle three-fifths of the new metal medley (YouTube)

You can help HU’s own Jill transcribe lyrics from American Gothic over at BlamoNet.

Here’s (7MB mp3) some okay-quality audio of the ending to “Lucky 13″ as performed on night three in Cheesesteak City.  It’s tough to make out all the extra lyrics, but I hear the lines “I let you touch my memory” and “I stand for truth and love” in there.  Google searches (#1a, #1b, #2) on fragments of those phrases turn up nothing in the way of song lyrics, so I think we’re dealing with Billy-written material.

When Billy said “the world is a vampire”, he covered Radiohead’s entire emotional palette with one line. Discuss.

(What? Was I supposed to say something about how I wouldn’t pay five pence for In Rainbows? Come on, as a “cause of the month” it is probably worth a pound or two.)

Not me…I wasn’t there in Vancouver. But before last night (setlist from spfc.org), Sabrina hadn’t blogged since June.

UPDATE: Sadly, Vancouver radio station CKWX-AM is reporting that a fan died from injuries suffered in a fall during the concert.

UPDATE: The Vancouver Sun has additional details.

UPDATE (9/26): The story has been picked up across Canada and made its way to the UK tabloids, even drawing a typically tactless mention from Perez Hilton. With a more personal perspective on the crowd’s makeup at the show, LiveJournal user madkal posted a review.

UPDATE: A new user of Netphoria says he attended the show with the deceased and that the cause of his death was a seizure.

Of the 13 post-Zeitgeist songs the band has performed, “Question Mark” (”?”?) appeared first. Billy fought his way through a solo performance of the song at the initial gig in Asheville (3MB mp3 from archive.org), then pushed it along quickly in practice; the full band played the song to open the third Asheville concert (3MB mp3 from archive.org), and shortly thereafter some of its lyrics appeared in a newspaper advertisement thanking the city.

Since performing the number seven times in Asheville, the band has played it only twice, both during the residency in San Francisco.  Here is the most recent performance, closing out an acoustic set at the final Fillmore show.

Below:  It’s a song he titled with punctuation? (YouTube)

One of the more memorable (not “controversial”) quotes from Billy is this one (sourced from the Jim Stapleton interview disc), on his philosophy for titling songs:

Say you write a song about a chandelier, and the chandelier gives off light, and the light is the color red, and red reminds you of the color you’re not supposed to wear around a bull. So you name the song “Cow”.

This got me to thinking, “How would the Pumpkins’ discography read if instead of using this approach, Billy had given the most obvious title possible to each of his songs?”

I’m not intending to go through the whole thing — though it would be fun if someone would (and comments are open!) — but here’s one to get us started: an obvious-titles tracklisting for Machina. You could certainly pick a different “obvious” title for a couple, but these are at least defensible options:

1. You Know I’m Not Dead
2. Between the Raindrops
3. Who Wouldn’t Be the One You Love?
4. Radio
5. You’re All a Part of Me Now
6. Try to Hold On
7. Heavy Metal Machine
8. Crashing Down
9. Everywhere You Are
10. I Want to Live
11. If You Wait
12. My Whole Life
13. Taking Over
14. Blue Skies Bring Tears
15. Desolation Yes, Hesitation No

Jillysp’s reaction to this was “it’s like backstreet boyz!” True enough, and I especially find the idea of retitling “Glass and the Ghost Children” in this fashion to be…hilarious.