The Smashing Pumpkins 1998-07-17

July 17, 1998 – Minneapolis, MN, US
Live performance by The Smashing Pumpkins
Adore tour
Date	July 17, 1998
Venue	Hennepin Avenue (Block E)
Coordinates	44°58′43″N 93°16′29″W
Location	Minneapolis, MN, US
Attendance	125,000
Personnel	Billy Corgan, James Iha, D'arcy Wretzky, Kenny Aronoff, Mike Garson, Dan Morris, Stephen Hodges
Order of bands	Cracker, Furslide, The Smashing Pumpkins
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The July 17, 1998 performance was a free show in downtown Minneapolis. As many as 125,000 people were in attendance, while Billy Corgan has said the estimate was closer to 220,000. During the encore, Minneapolis mayor Sharon Sayles Belton declared July 17th as "Smashing Pumpkins Day".

According to media reports, a convicted murderer escaped from a minimum security facility to attend the show and was arrested at the concert.

Full performance

Setlist

1. "To Sheila" 
2. "Behold! the Night Mare" 
3. "Pug" 
4. "Tear" [8:34] 
5. "Once Upon a Time" 
6. "Ava Adore" 
7. "Daphne Descends" 
8. "Thru the Eyes of Ruby" [10:11] 
9. "Perfect" (acoustic) 
10. "Sweet Leaf" [Black Sabbath] (tease) (acoustic) 
11. "Tonight, Tonight" (acoustic) 
12. (percussion solo)
    1. "Iron Man" [Black Sabbath] (tease) 
    2. "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" [9:51] 
13. "Shame" [7:59] 
14. "For Martha" [7:59] 

Encore

15. "1979" 
16. "Transmission" [Joy Division] [22:33] 
    1. "Twilight Zone Theme" [Marius Constant] (tease) 
    2. "Let's Dance" [David Bowie] (tease) 

Banter

To Sheila
> Behold! The Night Mare
> Pug
BC: Thank you. How all you people doin’, you alright? God bless you, thank you for coming, we hope you have a good night. We’re the Smashing Pumpkins, nice to see you all. (Mike's piano intro to Tear begins) This is a song from our new album called Adore. Adore, Adore, Adore. This is called Tear.
Tear
Once Upon a Time
> Ava Adore
Daphne Descends
Thru the Eyes of Ruby
> Perfect (acoustic)
BC: Alright, what’s up, Minneapolis?
D’arcy: Minneapolis, I - for real, the only city who would allow us to do a free show. Thank you.
BC: Yes, thank you. Just to contrast that, I think we did - we probably did about eight or nine free concerts in Europe and then our own home country of America and including our own home city of Chicago, they will not let us do something like this for free.
D’arcy: Especially not downtown in the city center.
BC: So we’d like to say a thank you to all of you, including you crazy people up on the roofs there, how you doin’?
D’arcy: People hanging from the windows, don’t - don’t jump, please.
BC: The Smashing Pumpkins do not endorse dangerous activity at any time, thank you. By the way, my idols Black Sabbath are playing tomorrow at Ozzfest.
Sweet Leaf (acoustic) (tease - Billy plays 5 or 6 notes of the riff)
BC: Yes. The Sabbath rules. So we dedicate this song to Black Sabbath and to all of you for making this a great night for us, a wonderful night. Yes, James, we will always remember tonight.
Tonight, Tonight (acoustic)
> drum/percussion solo
> Iron Man (tease)
> Bullet with Butterfly Wings
> Shame
For Martha
BC: God bless you, Minneapolis, god bless you, thank you, goodnight.
[encore break]
Iha: Thank you very much, you guys have been really great. You haven’t paid a dime but that’s cool, you’re rockin’ with us. Is everybody okay? Cool. We would like to bring out, I guess, heh heh. Well, we had a guest planned but maybe it’s just an imaginary guest.
D’arcy: She’s hardly a guest.
Iha: She’s hardly a guest to you people. Take 20 guesses who we could bring out. None of ‘em could be right because we don’t see the guest.
BC: Dave Pirner, is that your special guest?
Iha: Well, we have no special guest, heh heh. So let’s keep rolling right along with the rock and roll portion of our show.
BC: Yeah, what was supposed to happen was uh, the mayor of your beautiful city was supposed to tell you that it’s Smashing Pumpkins Day in Minneapolis.
Iha: And [unintelligible].
BC: ‘Course you don’t know what that really means, Smashing Pumpkins Day, it means that we collect all your taxes for this particular day and we get keys to all your houses and we can revoke your driving privileges at any time.
Iha: Cool.
D’arcy: And you thought the concert was for free.
Iha: And now we’d like to play one of our hit songs.
BC: No, wait, I wanna tell a story first. When did we first come to Minneapolis? 1988?
Iha: (high pitched) 1988!
BC: We first came in Minneapolis 10 years ago, we used to play over here at the 7th Street Entry. We never dreamed that, you know, we would be playing here today with you all and so it’s a fantastic night for us and we hope it’s a fantastic night for you, thank you again, (blows kiss), god bless you.
Iha: And now, a hit song.
1979
BC: We’d like to present you with your mayor.
Mayor Sharon Sayles Belton: Wow, I wanna ask a big question: Are you enjoying the Smashing Pumpkins? Yeah! Tonight is the biggest night in downtown Minneapolis and we’re absolutely pleased to share a very special message with the Smashing Pumpkins. Now we’ve been planning to have you in our town for a looong long time. And we know, and we know that cities across the United States didn’t want the Smashing Pumpkins to offer a free concert in their city! Booooooo! But what did we decide in Minneapolis? The Smashing Pumpkins are here! Now, in honor of the wise decisions of the Minneapolis city council and the mayor and the downtown council and Rock 100.3...I am proud to share with you that today, we have decided that we are going to declare tonight, all day today, Smashing Pumpkin Day in the city of Minneapolis and may they long live! This is the official proclamation and all the best to all of you. Thank you very much! D’arcy, you gotta give me some. Take care, baby.
BC: I have to say you have a pretty cool mayor. She’s pretty cool.
D’arcy: We’ve been doing charity shows all across the United States and in every other city, they send a representative from the mayor’s office. This is the only city where the actual mayor has bothered to come and say thank you.
BC: Okay, now we’re in trouble again, heh heh.
D’arcy: We appreciate it though
BC: We appreciate it, so.... (Transmission intro begins with Mike playing Twilight Zone Theme underneath) Now, now, we’re going to call upon the UFOs to come down and join us in a celebration of life. James, with your wicked slide, call upon the UFOs to come down and visit us. We believe very firmly in our hearts that aliens will respond to blues music and blues music only. And that’s why we turn to James at this moment to call down the UFOs. I’m serious. Hahahahaha. Alright, you crazy people, are you ready to rock?
Transmission / Twilight Zone Theme / Let's Dance
(BC at 16:53: Well, although we were unable to muster any aliens tonight, we still believe they’re coming to take over the world. We figure you got about, uh, 17 months left to enjoy the planet, so um, have a good time, heh. Once again, we hope you make us your band for the apocalypse. ... That’s the end of the concert, you all can go home now. Be safe, thank you, have a good night.)

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