Smashing Pumpkins thank Manila fans via Twitter, vow to return soon

Band leader Billy Corgan’s tweet pretty much sums it up: “Manila fans, you’re the best. Thanks to everyone who made the show possible. Our prayers go out to everyone who has been affected.”

Even as they continued to show their concern for “the 800,000 left homeless by the recent Metro floods” as tweeted by Greenpeace, Corgan and the rest of the Smashing Pumpkins simply could not hide how overwhelmed they were with the reception to their rescheduled concert Wednesday night at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

“Manila! You guys killed, thanks for making this night so memorable. Rain can’t stop rock n’ roll!,” added drummer Mike Byrne in a separate tweet.

The postponement of the much-anticipated concert originally slated for last Tuesday turned out to be a blessing in disguise both for the band and for fans as it allowed both parties to constantly communicate with each other via Twitter, eventually affecting the conduct of the concert in a big way.

After announcing the one-day delay of their show with the tweet, “I’m happy to report thanks to our great crew and with the helpful assistance of Manila promoter we have rescheduled our show for tomorrow,” Corgan went on to spend much of the day at an almost deserted Shangri-La Plaza mall, a place he would describe as “zombie mall” in a subsequent tweet.

Lovely bass player Nicole Fiorentino sympathized with those affected by the incessant rains with her tweet, “my heart goes out to all of the families who are dealing with the floods in Manila right now.”

“Manila, I am thrilled that we get to play tomorrow night. My heart was breaking thinking we were leaving here without rocking out for you!,” she added.

As the weather gradually improved the following day, an elated Corgan tweeted Wednesday morning, “The show goes on! Skies clearing over Manila/our prayers go out to all the families affected by floods. God willing we’ll see u 2night!”

Still, the rains did not stop long enough for the floods to fully subside as the band continued to update fans with concert-related activities in their live tweets.

“Getting an education in The Grateful Dead backstage with the crew, cant wait to light it up for you Jerry style, Manila!,” Byrne posted before adding “Saw the “Thrilla in Manila” banner during soundcheck today, crazy!”

Fiorentino and Corgan went a step further by tweeting pictures of their soundcheck experience from their impressive equipment to their awestruck view of the Smart Araneta Coliseum’s interiors to backstage stuff.

In the case of Fiorentino, she even asked fans which of her two dresses they preferred her to wear, “Yellow or red tonight,” she tweeted around two hours before they took the stage.
“Manila! We are pushing back our start time a half hour to give people more time to get here. Start time 9:15,” she later tweeted in anticipation of the difficulty people will encounter (traffic, floods) in getting to the venue.

True enough, people were still arriving midway through the concert as the Pumpkins lived up to the “emotional and enthusiastic show” that Corgan promised during the press conference that took place Monday afternoon.

“#SPPH about to hit the stage. OCEANIA first, special surprises to follow…oh yeah Manila, special show bonus for you!,” the band’s charismatic leader tweeted before taking the stage.

And as announced, the band performed its latest album, “Oceania” in its entirety and further enhanced by a giant ball that projected the visual spectacle of Sean Evans, who helped in designing the newest staging of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall.”

But it was the second and extended half of the show that lasted until midnight that really kept the fans cheering for more and more as the band revisited its rich back catalogue of greatest hits and obscure favorites as requested by fans on Twitter.

“I was in tears when they played Luna and XYU. So much memories,” tweeted fan John Galsim (@jobeck).

“What a way to experience the new album for the first time. Then I turned into a 13 year old again with when the bells rang for Disarm,” posted Carlo Casas (@carlocasas).

But as much as the Pumpkins were very pleased with the more than respectable turnout, they were also very much aware that a good number of fans, many of whom had bought tickets in advance, were still not able to make it.

To them, Corgan specifically addressed this tweet: “For all the fans who CANNOT come tonight due to the weather we will come back again soon. We have been treated so well, and we thank you.”

article source: interaksyon.com

Billy Corgan promises ‘an emotional, enthusiastic Smashing Pumpkins show’

“We made a lot of people a lot of money just by being weird.”

That’s Billy Corgan pretty much summing up the success of the Smashing Pumpkins, the Grammy-winning alternative rock band that sold over 30 million albums worldwide.

Corgan and company will perform on Wednesday night at the Smart Araneta Coliseum. That’s one day later than originally scheduled, courtesy of the massive floods in Metro Manila on Tuesday.

In a press conference at the EDSA Shangri-La Hotel on Monday, the outspoken rocker and only remaining original member of the band that helped define alternative rock music in the ’90s gamely talked about a lot of things ranging from the band’s current line-up, their latest album, career outlook, his thoughts on the music industry, his musical heroes and yes, his enormous respect for Filipino family values.

“I grew up in the outskirts of Chicago and I have many Filipino friends,” he revealed. “They respect they give to their elders, their grandparents. For them, family means a lot, it’s real and I have great respect for that.”

And family is how Billy, now 45, prefers to treat his bandmates which currently consists of guitarist Jeff Schroeder, bassist Nicole Fiorentino and drummer Mike Byrne.

“We eat together, we travel together,” he continued. “These guys were fans of the band before they even met me. So there is musical respect. More important than that, there is also personal respect, something that was lacking in my earlier bands. For them, what we mean to people is more important than our commercial value.”

And for Corgan, commercial value is not the reason why he reformed the Pumpkins and continues to use the name after officially breaking up and holding a farewell concert back in 2000. Unlike many other bands who already broke up only to reform again, the Pumpkins did not come back only to make money off their back catalogue.

“We can’t be in the oldies business,” he said in justifying why he continues to make new music. “If I was still 25 years old, I’d be worried about impressing everybody in the room. But I talked to fans in places we have played and people want to value that experience of connecting to us on a new level.”

That Corgan said is what introducing new material is about—to stay relevant, to move audiences, both old and new.

“If we connect to a younger generation of fans, great. If we don’t, then we don’t. But without the young fans, there is no future for the Smashing Pumpkins.”

This also explains why the band had planned to play the 13-track “Oceania” in its entirety for the first half of the concert.

“Because you need it,” he quipped in response to a question. “The basic storyline in that album is reclaiming your innocence without losing your wisdom. The live experiences displays the depth of the work we’ve done on the album. If people connect to it, then I’m doing a good job and that’s all I care about.”

Billy said he expects an “emotional, enthusiastic show” here. “I’m going to make you people cry because that’s part of what I do,” he vowed.

Corgan does not find it ironic that the Pumpkins also continue to cover classic tunes in just about every show. In one of their shows for the ongoing tour, the set list included David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.”

“I like covers. I consider it one of the key moments of each show,” he admitted. “When we play the classic tunes of people like David Bowie, Bob Dylan and John Lennon, for me it’s like playing Picasso or Monet. I feel the best way to honor them is to play their songs in the Smashing Pumpkins tradition.”

Although he only listens to Bach and Beethoven nowadays, Corgan talked about many other diverse musical influences over the course of the press conference, including Iggy Pop, Black Sabbath, Queen, Scorpions, Wire, the Velvet Underground and yes, even the Carpenters.

“I was sitting in the pool in the morning and I noticed you play a lot of the Carpenters here in Manila. Is she (Karen Carpenter) like the queen bee here or something?,” he asked smiling. Not that he really minds, of course. “To me, ‘Superstar’ is one of the greatest songs ever written.”

source: interaksyon.com

Smashing Pumpkins concert moved to Wednesday, August 8

The Smashing Pumpkins concert originally slated for Tuesday evening at the Smart Araneta Coliseum has been postponed by a day, moved in consideration of rains and floods affecting Metro Manila.

Billy Corgan, lead singer of the band tweeted the announcement on Tuesday afternoon, as Metro Manila continued to contend with unceasing rains that have flooded more than half of the capital's streets.

"I'm happy to report thanks to our great crew and with the helpful assistance of Manila promoter we have rescheduled our show for tomorrow," Corgan said on Twitter.

He added: "The safety of our fans is ALWAYS a huge priority. With 24 long hours delay our 1st Manila show will be at same arena, same time tomorrow!!"

Then: "SP has the best fans in the world and we didn't want anyone taking any chances. Manila you are worth the wait to USB Lots of love/be safe."

article source: interaksyon.com

Smashing Pumpkins rock again with ‘Oceania’

LOS ANGELES – Alternative rockers The Smashing Pumpkins have had huge hits – ”Siamese Dream” and “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness” – as well as well-publicized in-fighting and drug use that led to the Chicago band’s break-up in 2000.

But after some false starts, lead singer Billy Corgan recently reformed the Pumpkins with new musicians and embarked on an ambitious 44-song project titled “Teargarden by Kaleidyscope.”

Their new album, “Oceania,” which entered the Billboard 200 charts this week at No. 4, is part of that project and the always-outspoken Corgan talked to Reuters about the new music.

What sort of album did you set out to make?

(Laughs) We thought we’d better make a really great album or we’d have to blow this business up. The necessity of an album has pretty much gone by the wayside. It doesn’t seem to have the cultural impact anymore, and people aren’t waiting around for the next ‘Sgt. Pepper’ or ‘Pet Sounds.’

In our case, we saw where my musical legacy and the band’s abilities were being marginalized by a culture that celebrates a lot of stuff that has nothing to do with bands. So you can sit and whine, but if you believe you can make strong band music, then it trumps all other arguments – even sales. So either get out of the business or do something.

As for ‘Oceania,’ I don’t even know where the title came from. It just felt right.

You weren’t seriously thinking of quitting, were you?

No, but I felt, you have to morph the intention. OK, so the album’s dead – what does it morph into? Maybe 3D projects, like a movie you do the soundtrack for, which you also self-finance.

You say the album’s dead, yet you’re working on this massive ‘Teargarden’ multi-album project.

(Laughs) Yeah, well I ran my mouth and said I was doing this 44-song project, and the reason is, I picked a big enough number that’d force me to start and end somewhere, and give it an arc. So we began by just releasing a song at a time, and then an EP, and that was almost like an album. But I wasn’t trying to do that – I was just trying to make interesting music.

Is it true you worked in total secrecy?

Yeah. Nobody heard the music – no manager, agent, publicist. Total isolation. You definitely want and long for the validation of others hearing it, but I just felt we needed to keep everyone out of the room. We had to build our own internal confidence.

Sometimes, even people I’ve known for 20 years with the best intentions will walk in and say the wrong thing – ‘Oh, it sounds like The Beach Boys.’ I love the Beach Boys, but that might be the wrong thing to say at that moment. Or the manager comes in and says, ‘I don’t know if we can get that played on the radio,’ and you’re not even thinking that way. So we had to just trust each other.”

What comes first for you – music or lyrics?

I’m a total song-whore (laughs). I’ll do it whatever way works. Sometimes I write lyrics, sometimes I’ll have a title, or steal something from myself, warp it and change it. I don’t care.

You initially streamed ‘Oceania’ free on iTunes. Why?

There was a general perception – even among our fans – that I was no longer able to make high level, credible music. It was the watered-down version of what I used to do. This is the first time in a long time where I intended the expectation they were expecting.

The Stones in particular are a band I admire because they just roll it out whenever they feel like it, and when they don’t, they don’t. That’s rock ‘n’ roll.

I could be in the Bahamas right now, sipping a margarita … But I get up every day wanting to pursue an artistic agenda, and I’ve had moments where it’s worked spectacularly and I’m a genius, and then had it miss, and I’m an idiot. I’ve lived it all – the good and the bad, and you just have to keep going forward.”

source: interaksyon.com