The Smashing Pumpkins
Oct. 1st, 1996 07:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kevins_concertsDerek and I went to the Bradley Center to see The Smashing Pumpkins. Mike was also going, and I was surprised to see him further up the row, in the next section over.
My notes from several years ago say that Grant Lee Buffalo opened, and the internet supports that.
Smashing Pumpkins were decent. It was at this show that I first realized the Pumpkins were an art rock band. I wasn't familiar with Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, released a year earlier, just with their many hit songs from it, and their previous album, Siamese Dream. Mellon Collie was a double album, that Corgan once referred to as The Wall of Generation X. That's just pretentious, but I could see that it was an art rock album, as much as The Wall was.
The band would invite fans onstage to dance, during "1979". At this show, The Frogs's Jimmy Flemion walked around the arena choosing the lucky fans. He took forever at it. It was kinda strange seeing them dance to that song - it's really the only danceable song they ever put out. The Frogs were this bizarre underground alternative band, that all the big grunge bands of the time were fans of. They had a bigger following with those kinds of people than they did with the public in Milwaukee.
I didn't know the history of the band, at the time. Now, I see that this tour was just after keyboardist Jonathan Melvoin died of a heroin overdose, and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin was kicked out of the band for the same incident. Dennis Flemion of The Frogs was the Pumpkins keyboardist for the tour, and Matt Walker on drums.
My notes from several years ago say that Grant Lee Buffalo opened, and the internet supports that.
Smashing Pumpkins were decent. It was at this show that I first realized the Pumpkins were an art rock band. I wasn't familiar with Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, released a year earlier, just with their many hit songs from it, and their previous album, Siamese Dream. Mellon Collie was a double album, that Corgan once referred to as The Wall of Generation X. That's just pretentious, but I could see that it was an art rock album, as much as The Wall was.
The band would invite fans onstage to dance, during "1979". At this show, The Frogs's Jimmy Flemion walked around the arena choosing the lucky fans. He took forever at it. It was kinda strange seeing them dance to that song - it's really the only danceable song they ever put out. The Frogs were this bizarre underground alternative band, that all the big grunge bands of the time were fans of. They had a bigger following with those kinds of people than they did with the public in Milwaukee.
I didn't know the history of the band, at the time. Now, I see that this tour was just after keyboardist Jonathan Melvoin died of a heroin overdose, and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin was kicked out of the band for the same incident. Dennis Flemion of The Frogs was the Pumpkins keyboardist for the tour, and Matt Walker on drums.