🎵 How Good Are They Really 🎵 The Smashing Pumpkins

I saw them headline Reading in 1995, which fell between Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie. It was incredible. A perfect balance of new songs and those that we already knew, and an engaging performance that the band seemed invested in.

Saw them a couple of years later at Wembley Arena (maybe on the Machina tour?). Hands down the worst gig that I’ve ever been to.

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More bad than good now thanks to Corgo’s relentless pursuit of destroying the band’s legacy, but Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie are total belters so a 3/5 from me

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Dunno if you’re aware, but that Reading set was broadcast on the radio, so there are so very good quality bootlegs floating around

Edit ah good old YouTube

I had some mp3s way back when, listened to it so many times. Killer versions.

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Yep, I’ve got one from archive.org that I posted a link to on here the last time that we discussed that performance.

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Hahaha. I have no memory at all.

My bad!

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Today is the greatest HGATR day i’ve ever known.

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enjoy billy corgan at reading

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Objectively a 3 but subjectively they’re a 5 for me, for the same reasons I gave Weezer a 5. When a band releases a handful of records that connect with me like Gish–>Machina did, they’re 5/5 lifers in my eyes.

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Luckily when I saw them, reading 2007, they did a greatest hits set and were on fire. I guess the need follow NIN ,who were amazing, really lit a fire up Billy’s ass. Has the crowd in the palm of his hand… until he remarked on a girl taking her top off on the big screen, then everyone hated them again, colossal bell end.

The comment was something like ‘check out that whore’ or something like that

This is all killer. Listened to it so many times. His voice sounds great.

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I saw them at Leeds that year and they were rubbish. Damn it. Glad I missed misogynist Billy though I guess.

Yeah I heard they played lots of zeitgiest and were really off that night. We only got Tarantua and That’s The Way I think and a whole lot of hits

I can’t think of a band I less want to talk about anymore, whether positively or negatively, and it’s all thanks to these boards.

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Siamese dream is their best but adore is way more interesting even though it regularly fails at doing the music

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Fucks sake. Yeah it was very Zeitgeist heavy. Including all 10 minutes of United fucking States. The fans weren’t happy, as you’d expect, which meant Billy was in full, “you ungrateful swine, bow before my majesty!” mode. Massive disappointment.

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I have only heard two albums but they make me feel young when I listen to them which is a nice feeling!

Think the heavy songs on melon collie are a bit aimless and drag the whole thing down though. Also dunno if it’s because there’s too many layers of guitars but the production is such that everything sounds thin and quiet, like when air pressure changes and your ears pop.

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Have you heard the remastered version? It’s a bit less muddy, sounds great.

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Rhinoceros is their best song

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Ooh I didn’t know there was one! I’ll have to check that out, see if it’s as great as 16 year old CH swore it would be if you could only hear the damn thing.

Actually not at all dissimilar. Either way we both subjected to USA and Heavy Metal Fucking Machine!!! Maybe opening with a 10min version of USA would sour anyone on what followed and ended on Heavy Metal Machine vs Cherub Rock yikes

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