Billy Corgan 2019-11-18

November 18, 2019 – New York, NY, US
Live performance by Billy Corgan
United States 2019 tour
Date	November 18, 2019
Venue	Gramercy Theatre
Coordinates	40°44′23″N 73°59′6″W
Location	New York, NY, US
Venue type	Theater
Capacity	650
Personnel	Billy Corgan, Meena Ysanne, Chloe Mendel Corgan
Prev. show archive.org Recordings Next show

Setlist

Set one

1. "Hard Times" (acoustic) 
2. "To Scatter One's Own" (acoustic) 
3. "Fragile, The Spark" (acoustic) 
4. "Apologia" (acoustic) (final performance)
5. "Cri de Coeur" (acoustic) 
6. "Buffalo Boys" (acoustic) 
7. "Dancehall" (acoustic) 
8. "Cotillions" (piano) 
9. "The Spaniards" (acoustic) 
10. "Archer" (acoustic) 
11. "Half-Life of an Autodidact" (acoustic) 
12. "Aeronaut" (acoustic) 
13. "Little Maggie" [traditional] (acoustic) (final performance)

Set two

14. "Tonight, Tonight" (acoustic) 
15. "Ugly" (acoustic) 
16. "Spaceboy" (acoustic) 
17. "Luna" (acoustic) 
18. "Violet Rays" (acoustic) 
19. "Knights of Malta" (acoustic) (final performance)
20. "Will There Be Any Stars?" [Alison Krauss & The Cox Family] (piano) (final performance)
21. "Hangin' On" [The Gosdin Brothers] (acoustic) 
22. "Cherry" (acoustic) (final performance)
23. "Perfect" (acoustic) 
24. "Disarm" (piano) 

Encore

25. "Black Lung" (acoustic) 
26. "Nights in White Satin" [The Moody Blues] (acoustic) (final performance)
27. "Silvery Sometimes (Ghosts)" (acoustic) 

Notes

• "Buffalo Boys", "Dancehall", "Cotillions", "The Spaniards", "Archer", "Knights of Malta" and "Will There Be Any Stars?" with Meena Ysanne on violin
• "Silvery Sometimes (Ghosts)" with Chloe Mendel on backing vocals
• Last performance of "Luna" until 2023-09-17
• Last performance of "The Spaniards" until 2024-10-23

Banter

(Due to no known complete source existing for this show, some banter is likely missing)

Hard Times
To Scatter One’s Own
Fragile, The Spark
BC: Alright.
Apologia
Cri de Coeur
Buffalo Boys (with Meena Ysanne)
Dancehall (with Meena Ysanne)
Guy in crowd: NWA!
Girl in crowd: WPC!
BC: It’s a world full of letters. Which one are you?
Cotillions (piano) (with Meena Ysanne)
The Spaniards (with Meena Ysanne)
Guy in crowd: Good job, Billy!
(Billy does a fist pump and the crowd laughs)
Archer (with Meena Ysanne)
Half-Life of an Autodidact
BC: So this uh (coughs), excuse me, this next here song I wrote about my son Augustus. He was a wee, a wee boy. He’s now four years old, he just turned four a couple days ago. Of course, now I have a daughter, but written after this song, Philomena Clementine.
Guy in crowd: Yeah! You’re a great father, Billy!
(Billy is silent but smirks a little and the crowd laughs)
BC: If you’re telling me that I’m Daddy to you, I understand, but besides that, I don’t [2-3 unintelligible words]. All that rigamarole said, I’d like to dedicate this song to the parents in the audience. Children claimed and unclaimed. I waited ‘til I was 48 before I gave the (gives a thumbs up) go ahead to have children. It’s a wonderful experience and I love it, but as you know, it’s an interesting journey, heh heh heh. Uh, heh heh heh, there’s so many things to say, but better said in song, so um, hope you enjoy this and....
Aeronaut
BC: [tape cuts in] Take a short 20 minute break, imbibe what you’re gonna imbibe, text who you’re gonna text. I’ll come back out and play some songs that you might, might know. If you don’t (he shrugs).... Yeah, well....
Girl in crowd: You’re the greatest!
BC: Thank you.
Guy in crowd: The first set was great.
BC: Thank you. Let’s just have a little review now, shall we? It’s very meta, right, we’re all commenting and absorbing at the same time. You know uh, when people shout that they love me, I always think, “Yeah, well, my mother loved me too and she left me when I was four and my father loved me too and he left when I was 10,” so...heh heh, not sure what love means in that context. Hey, enjoy the pain, it’s worked out fine. You know, flash back to circa somewhere in the ‘90s, you’re in an airport, (stoner voice) “Dude, don’t be so sad.” (normal voice) And my response, which became standard over time was, “Sadness has worked out quite well for me, thank you very much.” Might even call it the family business.
Little Maggie
[set break]
Tonight, Tonight
Ugly
Spaceboy
Luna
BC: I’ve had so many lives, I forget sometimes I wrote (laughing) these songs. Recently, we uh, we got rid of everything that was in the attic furniture-wise and it was like, “Oh yeah, that was from that marriage and that was from that.” It’s like the detritus of my life, you know? So hopefully you don’t feel that listening to these songs. You havin’ a good time?
Violet Rays
Guy in crowd: You’re doing the work.
BC: Heh heh heh heh. You’d be surprised, buddy. Okay. Here’s a song from the last Smashing Pumpkins LP. A song which we recently played on the Colbert show, which was quite nice. At the uh, Ed Sullivan Theater, of course where the Beatles and so many great artists played back in the day. Where I met David Letterman four times, each time for seven seconds. I was actually thinking of David Letterman today, I’m so grateful, ‘cause he was always very supportive and he always had us back on, so.... And now he’s got the weird Jebediah beard and...heh heh heh, I don’t know what’s happened. It’s hard to judge a man in seven seconds but I tried.
Knights of Malta (with Meena Ysanne)
BC: [banter missing]
Guy in crowd: I already took them!
BC: Bless you. So a quick thing, in my kitchen back in Chicago, we have a jukebox. (a few cheers)
Same guy in crowd: Yeah!
BC: Woo. Anybody remember jukeboxes? Heh heh. It’s a 1953 AMI jukebox mono and uh...
Same guy in crowd: Holy shit!
BC: ...our jukebox at home is full of country and western and bluegrass...
Same guy in crowd: Yeah!!
BC: ...all original vinyl, okay? Hahahahahahahahaha! I love this guy, he’s like my living id.
Same guy in crowd: I apologize!
BC: No, it’s okay, I want you to have a good time. Nothing offensive has happened, trust me, you would know if it had. So, perfect example is with these great songs that are filled with my jukebox - filled in my jukebox - my children, you know that’s what we listen to in the morning when we’re eating our gluten-free vegan gruel, whatever we eat.
Same guy in crowd: Yeah, you are!
BC: Heh heh heh. Heh heh. I’m watching my daughter figure out, “Oh, if I drop the food, the animals come,” all sorts of stuff like that. And uh, so it’s great because my son now loves some of the songs and he asks, like his favorite song is Freight Train Boogie by the Delmore Brothers, which is probably about 1953-‘54, a band that was very influential on the Everly Brothers and other artists and so, you know, you have this direct line from the Delmores to the Everlys to the Beatles. And so it’s fantastic to get to show my children this music before they hear all the bad shit that’s out (laughing) there. Maybe they’ll have some rooted idea of a song before they get assaulted by whatever the fuck all that is. Or as a friend sent me a meme the other day, it was like um, it was like a fake headline, like an Onion type headline and it was like, “Band in search of that Apple commercial sound,” heh heh, heh heh heh. Which is fantastic, it’s like we’re all in search of the Apple commercial sound. So here’s a song I’d like to play for you from that jukebox, it was originally cr - well, it’s an old gospel standard, but the version I have in my jukebox is by the Maddox Brothers and Rose and it’s probably from about 1950-something. And uh, it’s called Will There Be Any Stars in My Crown?
Will There Be Any Stars? (piano) (with Meena Ysanne)
Hangin’ On
Cherry
BC: Thank you very much, thank you.
Girl in crowd: Mayonaise!
BC: Although I like to talk about my jukebox, I am not a jukebox. I apologize, young lady, I cannot play the song that you lost your chastity to tonight. Don’t let the acoustic guitar fool you. I’ll tell you a quick funny story. At the height of the insanity that was the Smashing Pumpkins circa the 1990s, we were playing too loud and people would complain and of course, we just turned up louder ‘cause that seemed to be the thing to do. And so we’d go over to Europe sometimes and of course they have these municipalities that have these decibel limits. And there’d be some guy in the back like (gesturing)...turning dials and shaking fists and.... So we were onstage and we’re soundchecking, you know, somewhere in Belgium or god knows where and uh, somebody comes marching up and says (hands on hips, then points) “Must turn down.” And I said, “Well, turn down the fucking PA, I don’t know what to tell you” and he goes, “The PA isn’t on,” heh. And I said, “What’s the decibel limit?” and he said “95 decibels,” which is - well, it’s like if you’ve ever been to like an outside venue, that’s kinda like the standard: 90, you can still talk over whoever you’re drinking your wine and eating cheese to out there on the lawn. Obviously, not a rock and roll level. And I said, “Okay, well, then how loud are we from the stage?” ‘cause he was in the back. And he said, “Well, you’re 120 decibels from the stage without the PA on.” Heh heh heh. Which if you know your decibel limits, that’s the equivalent of a jet airliner at full thrust. So that’s what I mean, don’t let the acoustic guitar fool you. One thing I can tell you when you play extremely loud, um...this may be too much information, but the volume actually rattles your teeth in your jaw, so I would find myself getting teeth pain from the buckin’. Heh, again TMI, but um, I don’t know where I’m going with all this. Heh heh heh. I meant to talk about Los Angeles for a second, not that you love Los Angeles here.
Guy in crowd: What happened in L.A.?
BC: Well, this young lady lost her chastity there, [unintelligible 2-3 words]. Um, actually, the album that this song comes from: Adore, actually some of the words.... (stops for crowd cheering) I’m glad that you like it now. I shoulda stuck with the volume, right, isn’t that - is that the connecting tissue, I shoulda stayed playing loud. No, I had to make a introspective album about death, always big on the pop charts, you know, an introspective album about death. But actually some of the work for Adore was done in New York, so there you go. I was scrambling for a New York connection and I realized there was some work done, so it was tri-coastal as we say: New York, Chicago and L.A. So before I play this song for you because it was written in Los Angeles, picture a band blowing, you know, thousands of dollars on heated pools and I was driving a Ferrari and I had a silver poodle and...I looked like an anime character and...had the long black coat. A slight divergence, here’s a memory - sense memories come to me at a thousand miles an hour - I’m standing onstage, we’re playing the HORDE Festival, if anyone remembers the HORDE Festival. I was friendly with John Popper of the band Blues Traveler, great gentleman and a great musician. John had invited us to play on that tour and so we accepted a couple dates and I said, you know, put us wherever you want us on the bill, so I think we were somewhere between the Canadian band that had that really weird...song? I don’t remember. Do you know what I’m talking about? No, it wasn’t Chumbawamba, it was an...Barenaked Ladies, yes! I think we followed Barenaked Ladies. Uh, heh. And uh, so we - so I’m trying to give you a sense memory here, I’m in - I’m, you know, shaved head, long black coat, I’m playing some song from Adore and a hippie in the middle of the show stands up, dreadlocks and all, and he’s like (weird voice) “Why are you here? Why are you here?!” (normal voice) And I thought, “Fuck yeah, why am I here?” So back in time to Los Angeles.... Imagine the drugs, the fast women, Marilyn Manson snorting whatever he was snorting...my band disintegrating. (“awww” and groans from crowd) Well, this is hardly new information, heh heh heh. Heh, I mean, heh heh heh, I’m not gonna get down to the details but I think they’re in this song. So um, this song was written on that mountaintop overlooking, you know, the glimmering lights, the promise that is Los Angeles and I hope you enjoy it.
Perfect
Disarm (piano)
BC: Thank you, you’ve been a great audience, thank you.
[encore break]
Black Lung
Nights in White Satin
Silvery Sometimes (with Chloe Mendel)
BC: Thank you New York, thank you so much! Thank you to Chloe. Thank you ‘til the end. Thank you, a [unintelligible word] night, thank you so much.