May 23rd, 2007
We’re Not the Same, We’re Different Tonight!
So the Smashing Pumpkins are making a comeback! They’re reuniting! Well, some of them are. No James or D’arcy or that other girl who replaced D’arcy. Billy and Jimmy are reuniting, though! Actually, Billy and Jimmy have been together the whole time, working on projects ever since the Pumpkins performed their “last ever show”…how long ago was it? Five, six years…? All right, what’s the big deal about this?
That was a rhetorical question, of course. Whenever “The Smashing Pumpkins” are involved, it’s a big deal. The Smashing Pumpkins were one of those unlikely bands that were able to get into the heads of many, many of their fans and turn their brains to mush. You’ve probably seen these fans in the past, their eyes glazed over, wandering around looking for someone else who has, at some point, listened to the music of the Smashing Pumpkins, so they can work themselves into a frenzy talking about them to that person. There was a gaggle of girls like this at my high school. Everyday they wore Chuck Taylors, torn-up jeans, and over-sized black t-shirts that had nonsensical illustrations and the word “Zero” or “Smile ”printed on them. I remember the day I got put into a group with all three of them to do an English project. “Oh God….” I remember thinking. The first thing the tallest, darkest-haired one (their leader, I assumed) asked me, in an almost accusatory tone, as we moved our desks together was: “Do you know who Billy Corgan is?” Despite the fact that I listened to nothing but Steve Miller and Tom Petty at the time, I did know who Billy Corgan was. I said “yes.” Then they all proceeded to tell me — getting louder and more giggly with each word — about how they went to a Smashing Pumpkins concert and somehow found out he was being taken to the airport when it was over and how they somehow figured out what car he was in and followed it all the way to RDU, trying to get his attention the entire time.
One of the first things I learned about my wife, when I first met her, was that she was an obsessive Smashing Pumpkins fan. “Oh God….” I remember thinking.
So, the Smashing Pumpkins are now going to do two “residencies” in one eastern and one western city, playing a long series of shows on the nights that they’re there. The city in the west they picked was San Francisco. The city in the east? Our own Asheville, North Carolina. And they won’t even be at the large Civic Center in Asheville, but instead at The Orange Peel, an intimate, 1,000-person-capacity club.
Tickets for these nine Asheville shows went on sale at 1pm last Sunday through “TicketWeb.” This “company’s” (which, knowing Asheville, is probably just some hippie with a PowerMac in his basement) servers proceeded to crash almost immediately under the weight of every crazed Pumpkins fan east of the Mississippi trying to snag one of the 9,000 slots. Ticket-selling duties were then handed over to the evil, but reliable TicketMaster, and they went on sale again at 7pm the next day. They sold out in under five minutes.
Obviously there are still a lot of the mush-brained fans out there. Still I don’t think Billy bringing “The Smashing Pumpkins” back was a good idea. “The Smashing Pumpkins” are…1995. Before they “called it quits for good” in 2000, they were already starting to seem dated and less relevant. By bringing this name back and doing a new tour, he’s taking his first steps toward Rolling Stones-dom — or worse, Allman Brothers-dom.
Billy is talented and prolific. Look at Zwan, they were good. Look at his solo stuff, it was…. Ok, look at Zwan. He could have formed a new band instead. If he wanted them to rock like the Pumpkins, fine. Great. Jimmy could — and should — be in the band. They could even play some of the Pumpkins songs. I don’t think anyone would run him out of town for that. Instead, though, he’s going to leverage that old name and that old body of work. Leverage 1995. He knows if he left the “Smashing Pumpkins” behind, he’d have to start over on many levels. It wouldn’t be this easy. Tickets for a limited number of “This new band Billy Corgan put together” shows wouldn’t have disappeared nearly as fast as the “Smashing Pumpkins” tickets did.
All that being said, I did try to get tickets for an Asheville show, ’cause, while Steph’s no longer reciting band trivia on a daily basis or trying to get me to shave my head, I know there’s still a yammering Pumpkins idiot in there somewhere, and I wanted to surprise it and make it happy. And, as you know if you’ve read this oldie, my susceptibility to mob-mentality where live music is concerned means I could really get into a Smashing Pumpkins show. Especially a “limited-edition” one like this. So, I was on ticketmaster.com right at 7pm on Monday, scrambling through every other date, with Kaiser on the phone, getting the ones I skipped, trying to get ahold of something. No dice.
They’re now going on eBay for upwards of $1,000 a pair, which is too steep for us, so my plan is dead in the water. I’m pretty bummed out about it. You might even say I’m depressed. On an almost melodramatic level. And a little angsty. I should put on some music. I feel like someone has created the perfect songs for this mood, but, for the life of me, I can’t think of who it is.
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