Smashing Pumpkins on Tuesday, September 14th at the Knitting Factory
I had high hopes for tonight. I wanted to hear at least a few of my Pumpkins jams, you know the hits; “Tonight, Tonight,” “1979,” “Drown,” “Disarm,” “Rhinoceros,” and so on! But, Jason was right we didn’t get to hear them. Billy did decide to play “Today,” “Eye,” and “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” which are three great songs which also sounded great. That is right, even without James Iha and D’arcy Wretzky the new band lineup sounded pretty damn good. I know the full house loved it too.
My other issue with tonight… was the room temp. I think I would have had a lot more fun last night if the Knitting Factory’s Air Conditioning was on. Yep, you read it right. It was about 100 people shy of being Sold Out and there was no air conditioning, Hot Mama! Not to gross anyone out but I was sweating so much my hair was wet, my jeans were sticking to my legs like glue and my makeup was complete off.
However their stage set-up was pretty damn cool! It had these two huge fans that had broken glass on them so they were super sparkly. I wish the fans were on super fast though, that would of be awesome if they worked as real fans. The stage set up is one of the coolest set-ups I have seen at the Spokane Knitting Factory. Most bands just have a back drop and lights, this looked way cooler! Oh and Billy had a mustache!?
Even though it was boiling in the room, the band was still having fun. When Billy introduced his new lady bass player and other guitar player, he motioned how his guitar player is the nephew of KISS. So of course they had to play the riff of “Detroit Rock City.”
Billy asked the crowd how many of them were old pumpkins fans and a little more than half of the room raised their hands. Then he asked how many of them were new pumpkins fans and the rest of the room raised their hands. Billy’s response was… well that must mean the old pumpkin fans are having sex with the new pumpkin fans. Before we know it there will be even more new younger pumpkin fans!
Billy Corgan asked us if we knew how hot it was. The room responded with a how hot!? He responded with as hot as taking a gondola ride over the Spokane Falls. Then went to talk about how odd it is to put people in a plastic cube directly in the sun light with no windows. I totally knew what he meant. That can be very hot! It was funny to hear him make fun of that and also pretty cool to hear he went and took a tour!
The Smashing Pumpkins are currently releasing new tracks, slowly over a period of time on their website and for just a few hours you can download them for free off their website! Just so happens that today one of the new songs were released and it is called “Spangle,” which they played for us. I thought that was a pretty cool treat for the setlist.
Overall, it was hot. They sounded good and yes they weren’t playing “the hits” but I probably would have stayed all night if the AC was on. Hopefully that whole AC thing won’t happen again! Download the new Pumpkins track “Spangle” below!
