Smashing Pumpkins - Cleveland 11/1/08

Sooo, we took our first weekend trip away from the house and the puppies up to the Smashing Pumpkins 20th Anniversary Tour date in Cleveland. The Pumpkins are one of the formative bands from my youth--Siamese Dream, in my opinion, is one of the best albums to come out of the 90s. However, the Pumpkins have always had their greatest strength and weakness in one man--Billy Corgan. Very very talented, but HUGE ego. All of that was on display last night. 

Venue was awesome--maybe 2000 people, old-school theater. We had fantastic seats, maybe 40 rows back. 

Band came on, and the place went nuts. Billy emerged like this bald specter from the darkness, wearing a leather skirt and red tights. Didn't say anything, and proceeded to place three acoustic songs that nobody knew. And then one plugged-in song that nobody knew. He then said 'hi.' 

All told, they played some of their hits, which were great. They sounded awesome, really. They played Disarm, Mayonnaise, Today, Tonight Tonight... 

But then, for the rest of the concert, it was like some giant self-indulgent practice session, where they played the same riff over and over for like 15 minutes as Billy did a little dance around the stage with a tambourine. I guess I appreciate musical ability enough, and it was pretty cool to see them improvise, but for 15 minutes at a pop? And for 75% of the concert? Ugh. Maybe I'm not cool enough or something, but when we pay for tickets to one of our favorite bands, we want to hear songs! 

Anyway, despite that, it was lovely to get away for a little bit.