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Old 06-17-2019, 12:09 AM   #1
Ram27
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Default Who is tapedatashow from archive.org?

please tell me this guy is writing a book on SP touring history

review of 1993/07/23

Quote:
This was the Pumpkins' first proper electric set since the 3/15/93 Atlanta show, with that show having been played immediately after wrapping up recording of Siamese Dream. The recording is a good listen, but has a slight emphasis on the midrange, so lacks a bit of low and high end.

The band had done a handful of acoustic shows in Europe in June and July, and would follow up this gig in Milwaukee on 7/23 with an acoustic gig at Tower Records in Chicago on 7/26 to commemorate the release of Siamese Dream, followed by a "secret" show at the Metro billed as the Turnips on 7/28.

This gig at the Unicorn was a return to the venue a year after the band had played two consecutive nights there in June 1992. Those two gigs rank high in the live catalog of Pumpkins performances, as they featured the debut of several of the songs that would show up on both Siamese Dream as well as Pisces Iscariot. But, whereas the shows from 1992 featured the band enthusiastically trying out new songs that they hoped to feature on their next album, this performance in 1993 is more of a laid-back rehearsal showcase of the songs that they had already recorded, played at a venue which they had by this point clearly outgrown.

Without knowing the background of this gig from 1993, one could assume that the band returned to the Unicorn just before the release of the new album as both a return to a "safe" and familiar venue where they enjoyed playing (case in point, the band all make a point of saying thank you to the venue's owner, Gus, at the end of the show), as well as to take advantage of an out of the way spot where they could get the kinks out of their live set before their upcoming hometown shows in Chicago. With that in mind, the performance here is good overall, but it isn't particularly tight. Not having played a proper electric set of the new songs in over 4 months definitely shows. Billy messes up occasional lyrics, the guitar solos aren't quite nailed down, and many of the loud/quiet transitions in the new songs are not as slick as they soon would be.

In addition to this, there is also a little bit of resistance from the crowd, which is perhaps understandable, given that the band were playing a set mostly full of songs that nobody in the small crowd had ever heard before. Just before Mayonaise, one heckler can be heard asking for the band to "play something good", to which Billy responds with "Say something intelligent you fuck". Billy continues to go into a back and forth of comments with a few different people in the audience, while James starts playing the Mayo intro over and over, alternating the original melody with a dissonant variation, until Billy has finished his sparring with the crowd and they finally start the number. After the song, Billy criticizes the crowd by saying "You must be really bored", presumably because they were not showing that they were enjoying the new songs enough. A funny moment happens during the mellow outro segment to Hummer, as the crowd begins to engage in a back and forth chant of "Whoo!" in sync with the tempo of the song. James takes the cue and starts imitating the "Whoo-Whoo!" sound from the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil" before jokingly chastizing the audience with "You motherfuckers!".

The setlist lacks songs like Disarm and Silverfuck, which would both feature at virtually every SD show after this one. On the flipside, this show features a rare electric performance of Thin Lizzy's "Dancing in the Moonlight" (acoustic versions had been played in June and July), as well as the "blues version" of "Window Paine", neither of which would receive many airings in the future (as far as we know). The show itself is a slightly shorter gig, as Billy mentions that they were almost out of time before they end with "Siva". That song features a brief quote from the Beatles "I'm So Tired" just before the "sprinkle all my kisses" line, and ends with an extended jam, which has Billy playing the Star Spangled Banner as well as a repetitive "grunge" riff which features a melody bearing resemblance to the Doors' "Waiting for the Sun". As the jam closes, Billy's message to the audience is "I hope grunge dies and falls off the face of the earth. Down with grunge." What's slightly eery about the comments is that even though Billy had said things like this before (such as mocking the drop-d "grunge" tuning, or making jokes about the movie Singles or the band being from Seattle), it was actually on this very same night that the reigning kings of grunge, Nirvana, were headlining their official "return" concert at the Roseland Ballroom in New York. Nirvana's gig that night has since become particularly infamous due to the fact that just minutes before the gig, Kurt Cobain overdosed on heroin, and Courtney Love had to revive him in time for the show. So, while the Pumpkins were preparing for their rise to stardom by playing new material to a small room of impatient fans in Milwaukee, Nirvana was in New York with MTV Cameras on hand to witness the beginning of Cobain's downward spiral, one which would ultimately take grunge with him. Fast forward a year, and Cobain would be dead, the Pumpkins would take Nirvana's vacant headlining spot at Lollapalooza 1994, and Billy would not only be seeing Courtney again, but he'd even show up to the rehearsals of the MTV Movie Awards wearing one of Kurt's old jackets. And what song did the band end up performing that night, to cap off their highly-successful year? An almost completely unrecognizable, angst-ridden, distortion-filled version of Disarm, complete with screamed vocals, broken strings, a guitar tossed to the ground, and Billy storming off the stage at the end. So much for "down with grunge".
review of 1996/05/02

Quote:
The story about this show being the band's "best ever" stems from fan interpretations of a response that Billy Corgan gave in an interview to Q101 radio at the United Center in Chicago on 11/29/00. The interview is available online via clips on youtube, as well as on archive as a bonus track to the 11/29/00 show.

In the context of the interview, the question was "Was there one night in particular, one show, that you think, that was just...that can never be re-created, that was magical?" Corgan responded with two gigs, with this show in Lisbon being one of them. The other performance he mentioned was a Chicago show from 1990 (7/26/90) where the band played in front of a room full of label reps. Regarding that Chicago show, Corgan mentioned that it was significant because the band knew that if they didn't put on a great show that it would be their last chance to get signed. A recording for that gig doesn't circulate, but I'm sure that if we heard it, it would indeed be a good one. Although, I do wonder whether that sort of thing lends itself more to what Corgan considered to be "milestone" gigs in the band's history, as opposed to what one might otherwise think of as the band's "best" performances.

Listen to the recording of the Lisbon show here (which really isn't that bad for an audience recording; certainly not the worst I've ever heard), and yes it's a well-played show with the band in good spirits. That being said, given the caliber of shows that that band had been playing going back to January, I really don't think this show is anywhere near the band's "best ever" (a phrase, by the way, that neither the interviewer nor Billy ever used in the interview to describe this gig). Honestly, it's not even the best of the MCIS tour. Sure, it is great to hear the audience sing along to all of the songs, and the fact that it was played in a bullring during a rainstorm in a country that they'd never been to makes for an interesting mental picture, but the performance itself is a pretty straightforward run-through of the standard MCIS set. No real surprises in the main set or the encores, save for maybe Muzzle, which is a particularly good version. Also, the show certainly isn't without its hiccups. At one point, Corgan admits that his voice was "totally shot", while D'Arcy has to leave the stage momentarily to use the bathroom due to a stomach bug. Then there is the setlist itself, which lacks any songs from Gish (although, apart from early shows, most MCIS gigs lacked songs from the first album), and features the inconsistently performed mellow rework of Mayonaise, and the "is this song going to keep going on forever?" obligatorily stretched out version of Silverfuck (although to be fair, when this new version worked out well, it was fantastic. Here it's okay, just not the best version they did - do look for the reference to the Velvet Underground's Sweet Jane during the "I put her in a box" section). Maybe it's personal preference, but when I think of the "best" shows, I think of shows where the band played particularly powerful versions of certain songs, were at the peak of their technical powers, and where the performance maybe even featured encores or rarities which hadn't been done before.

It's also telling that if you listen to the interview, Corgan gives this show high marks for pretty much everything BUT the band's actual performance. He mentions the circumstances regarding how they had almost canceled the show a week before due to poor ticket sales (only 700 sold out of 12,000), but that they went on the faith of their manager that the ticket sales would improve (which they did), and that on the day of the show it was raining and yet the audience were still enthusiastic, standing in the rain and singing along to every song. He makes special mention that the Portuguese are the best audiences that he's ever played to and that they sing along to every song, no matter how obscure. It makes for a great backstory, no doubt, but when taken as a review of the show, I think it sounds more like "it was a good day at the office", as opposed to "that was the best performance we ever gave".

Had Billy never given the interview pointing this show out, I honestly doubt that anyone would've paid attention to it anymore than any other show from this leg of the tour. Listened to on its own, Billy's end-of-show comments that "of all the concerts we've played so far, this is the best one we've had" stick out as kind of awkward. Sure, it's a good performance, but it wasn't THAT good. Moreover, I think that the context of the quote makes it clear that what Billy was really saying is that he thought that the Lisbon show was the best of the shows that the band had played so far on that European tour, which of course isn't the same thing at all as saying that he thought that it was the best show that the band had ever given.

Anyway, have a listen and decide for yourself. For this era, I would still take the January-February Club Tour as being the best of the era. For the European tour, I would go with the French shows from 4/27 and 4/28 as being more interesting (and better sounding) gigs.

For some additional context, it is worth noting that it was right after this show in Lisbon that Jimmy Chamberlin and Jonathan Melvoin had their second overdose incident, with both of them being taken to a local hospital for adrenaline shots to the heart. Billy had already warned Melvoin after the first overdose in Thailand in February that he would be fired if there was another incident. Per Billy's interviews after Jonathan's death, it was after the Lisbon overdose that Corgan officially fired Melvoin, but agreed to let him finish the European tour. After the Euro tour ended, Corgan let Melvoin stay in the band after all, figuring that he had learned his lesson. As history would show, unfortunately he hadn't. So, in that regard, this show in Lisbon does have an added, albeit tragic, significance to it.

 
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