Smashing Pumpkins - Shepherds Bush Empire

A very entertaining show from the recently reformed Smashing Pumpkins at the Shepherds Bush Empire.

Firstly a bizarrely small choice of venue for their only UK show considering their popularity and they’ve been headlining at festivals in sports arena’s all across town.

The latest version of the band, which Billy Corgan described as Mk 4, is down to just singer/songwriter/freak Billy Corgan, original drummer Jimmy Chamberlin, plus new additions of bassist Ginger Reyes and guitarist Jeff Schroeder. In fact, with a female bass-player and an Asian looking guitarist – if you squint it almost looks like the traditional Pumpkins line-up circa 1995.

Anyway the show was a very early start, so Kimbo and I missed the first couple of new songs they opened with – but we did find a spot just as the band launched into “Today”, the first of many hits and memories they dug out for the almost 3 hour show.

At a lot of shows I go to it looks like the band just came on wearing whatever they happened to have had on that day – so it was good to see the Pumpkins make an effort with the band clad entirely in white, with the odd black slashes. Corgan looking like some kind of sci-fi priest with a long cape and robes, and even new guitarist Schroeder went with a little white cape.

As the night progressed, and I’m sure the robes got pretty steamy, layers were slowly removed until Corgan looked almost normal in white leather pants, a white T-shirt, with black & white longsleeve underneath.

Musically the band had a lot harder edge than I remember, bordering on an almost industrial metal sound that reminded me of Nine Inch Nails, especially on the newer material from forthcoming album ‘Zeitgeist’.

The production for the show was fantastic. Particularly the lighting effecting using large banks of horizontal strips that looked like long florescent tubes – but where in fact monitors so they could also be used to display video and other effects.

The set-list was a great mix of oldies and newer material. If anything a little heavy on the new songs considering the album isn’t released yet – but first single “Tarantula” sounded great mixing with favourites like “Bullet with Butterfly Wings”, “Zero”, “Disarm” and “1979”. Highlight was most certainly “Cherub Rock” in the second encore.

Full setlist:
United States
Bleeding The Orchid
Today
Stand Inside Your Love
Shame
Hummer
Bullet With Butterfly Wings
Glass And The Ghost Children
Lucky 13
Doomsday Clock
Silverfuck
For God And Country
Thirty Three
Rocket
Winterlong
To Sheila
Tonight Tonight
Tarantula
Starz
Zero
Disarm
Neverlost
That's The Way (My Love Is)
1979
Untitled
Gossamer
Cherub Rock
Muzzle

Billy Bragg – South Bank

Spent a great sunny Saturday afternoon down at South Bank with my buddy Ross. It was the grand opening of the Royal Festival Hall (which has been completely refurbished) and featured many activities and performers in and around the Hall all weekend.
Billy Bragg had organised something called The Big Busk-Off for the evening (with buskers encouraged to bring their guitars for a mass play along that had disaster written all over it). To get everyone in the mood – he also performed a 45 minute set of “buskers standards” which was incredibly enjoyable.
Playing mostly acoustic guitar, and accompanied by a second guitarist and banjo – they played some nice low-key versions of “Long Black Veil”, “Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright” “The Weight”, “I Can’t Help Falling In Love”, “Irene Goodnight”, and Bragg’s own “The Myth Of Trust”. He even got his mum up (much to her chagrin) for an impromptu dance during “Underneath The Arches”.
Highlight for me was the incredibly appropriate “Waterloo Sunset” – lying in the sun right next to the “dirty old river” and by the shadow of the “millions of people swarming like flies round waterloo underground”.

thanks to the dude from Flickr for the photo!