Smash the Pumpkins

A 6'6'' bald white frontman. Billy Corgan is one spindly dude. He has some freakin great songs. He also needs an editor.

I saw Smashing Pumpkins play here in Prague Wednesday night. The venue was the arena where the Sparta Praha hockey team plays. One of my students told me the place has a capacity of about 10,000. I put the crowd at less than 5000, maybe as little as 3000. The band opened with Porcelina, which if you're familiar with it, you know it's both powerful and soothing. Like the ocean! (The full title is Porcelina of the Vast Oceans.)

He needs an editor because the concert went over 2 hours, which usually isn't bad, but the last 45 minutes turned into a lot of garbled noise that was very mediocre. I was there stag, and had a few beers to help myself chill and forget my troubles. It's a sad fact, but I usually need something to be able to relax enough to let the music wash over me. Wound too tight I guess. But yeah, I was the guy there by himself, eyeing girls. When dudes noticed me they would pull their girlfriends a little closer to themselves, then throw another glance over their shoulder at the creepy guy behind them.

Nah, mostly I watched the band. Billy Corgan is a Cubs fan, so that makes him cool with me. During all that boring "jamming" towards the end of the show, there was a point when the band sort of came together and cut through that crap with a little bit of that kickass Boston instrumental. The song is called "Foreplay" and it leads into "Long Time." Wow. I went from spacing out (in a high school chemistry class kind of way) to alert attention. The band brought me to full rock status! But then he went into a cover of "For What It's Worth" by Buffalo Springfield (stop hey what's that sound) and it was back to lameness again. The moral: Boston fucking rocks arenas.

And the band did finish with Cherub Rock, which blew my hair back. Unfortunately, my beer buzz had worn off, so I wasn't as rocked as I wanted to be. And I had to urinate like a woman who's had three kids.

It is important to mention (even though you may already know) that this version of Pumpkins only counted Billy Corgan and drummer Jimmy Chamberlain from the original lineup. The Asian guitarist and gothy but hot bassist are not with the band. Don't know why. I get the feeling that Corgan is a nerd tyrant. Ironically, the drummer, Chamberlain, was thrown out of the band in the late 90's due to his heroin habit. The old bassist has been replaced by another female, and from my vantage point, she was hooooot, though I was of course far away and beered up. Way to go Corgan.

On a sidenote, I give peace and love to the band, since they are the only heavyweight of the grunge rock era not from Seattle, and even more importantly, from Chicago. Midwest represent.