The Smashing Pumpkins 1996-11-23

November 23, 1996 – Oklahoma City, OK, US
Live performance by The Smashing Pumpkins
Infinite Sadness tour
Date	November 23, 1996
Venue	Myriad Arena
Coordinates	35°27′55″N 97°30′52″W
Location	Oklahoma City, OK, US
Venue type	Arena
Capacity	15,291
Personnel	Billy Corgan, James Iha, D'arcy Wretzky, Matt Walker, Dennis Flemion, Jimmy Flemion
Order of bands	Garbage, The Smashing Pumpkins
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Rescheduled from July 23, 1996 due to the death of Jonathan Melvoin.

Setlist

1. "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness" (prerecorded) 
2. "Where Boys Fear to Tread" 
3. "Zero" 
4. "Fuck You" 
5. "By Starlight" 
6. "Tonight, Tonight" 
7. "Alive" [Pearl Jam] (tease) 
8. "Today" 
9. "Cherub Rock" 
10. "Thru the Eyes of Ruby" 
11. "Galapogos" (acoustic) 
12. "Thirty-Three" (acoustic) 
13. "Disarm" (acoustic) 
14. "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" 
15. "Muzzle" 
16. "Porcelina of the Vast Oceans" 
    1. "Rocket" (tease) 

Encore one

17. "Siva" [5:40] 
18. "Drown" [5:31] 
    1. "Hummer" (tease) 

Encore two

19. "1979" 
20. "X.Y.U." 

Encore three

21. "The Aeroplane Flies High (Turns Left, Looks Right)" 
22. "Silverfuck" [27:06] 
    1. "Dose" [Filter] (tease) 
    2. "Hummer" (tease) 

Notes

• "1979" with Jimmy Flemion
• During "Silverfuck", Billy Corgan invites fans to visit him and James Iha at their hotel after the show; at the December 13th, 2001 Zwan late show, Corgan says that 1,000 people showed up

Banter

Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness Intro
> Where Boys Fear to Tread
> Zero
Fuck You
By Starlight
“Thank you for participating” tape
> Tonight, Tonight
BC: Thank you, thank you, bye.
Iha: Thank you very much, thank you for coming.
BC: Welcome to the Infinite Sadness tour ‘96. Thanks a lot for coming to the concert. Care to insert joke here?
Iha: Yes, uh, is everything okay in Oklahoma? Yes. Everybody feeling reasonably good with, ready for more alternative rock? Alright.
Alive (tease - Billy plays a short doodle that sounds like the riff)
Iha: Yeah. We’re still alive.
Today
Cherub Rock
Planet of the Apes clip
> Thru the Eyes of Ruby
Iha: Thank you very much.
BC: Now we’re going to play some acoustic songs for those of you who are already tired.
Galapogos (acoustic)
Thirty-three (acoustic)
BC: Thank you.
Iha: [unintelligible]. ... Woo!
Disarm (acoustic)
Circus tape
> Bullet with Butterfly Wings
BC: Well, alright.
Iha: You’re--you’re back with us now.
BC: We’re gonna do three more mellow songs, so...you can go ahead and relax a little.
Iha: All inspired by the [unintelligible 2 words].
BC: My favorite are the people who sit down during the songs they don’t like and stand up during the ones they do. Those are my favorite people.
Iha: Well, they just have to sit down.
BC: Go ahead and sit down ‘cause you’re not gonna like this one, so....
Iha: If you’re bored already, I would just--I would just go, you already heard most of the hits, so.... We’ll, we’ll come try more.
Muzzle
Porcelina of the Vast Oceans
> Rocket (tease)
[encore break]
Iha: Did anybody see us...? We played here a long time ago in 1991 when we were young.
BC: No, wait.
Iha: 1992.
BC: '92, we opened for Guns N' Roses, now who was here?
Iha: Who booed us and threw quarters at us? Well, anyway, this is a much better reception so thank you very much. That guitar don’t sound too, uh...it must be [unintelligible] newfangled guitars. So is everybody having a reasonably good time, yes? I was fuckin’ feelin’ mighty lascivious myself but then I thought better about the didactic quality of tone. So we will play more rock. This is where we enter the phase of our set called the classics so we go back to our early albums, we hope you like it.
Siva
Drown
> Hummer (tease - about 40 seconds instrumental)
BC: Thanks, god bless you.
[encore break]
Iha: Alright, thank you very much again. And now, we’ve come to the entertainment portion of our set where we bow down to every arena rock cliche known to man and we bring out a special guest. All the way from Las Vegas, everybody, it’s Jimmy Frog!
Jimmy Frog: Hey.
Iha: Jimmy Frog! I know you don’t know why he’s here but soon you will know. Okay. And his brother, all the way from Las Vegas, part of the tag team wrestling match, Dennis! Yes, Dennis is the man behind the keyboards. He was taught by Billy Preston and he’s toured with the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and also the Eagles. Now he must wear a seatbelt when he plays drive by with us. And now that you’re so excited that I’ve - we got to the introduction of our new drummer, Matt “Cosmo” Walker! Matt is glad to drum for us, he’s a practicing Mormon and he loves Oklahoma.
BC: Yes, welcome...to the most shocking part of the show.
Iha: It’s audience overtime!
BC: Participation time.
Iha: I know what you’re thinking, “Oh my god, what are they gonna do next?”
BC: “They’ve lost their minds.” Now normally, normally when we get to this part of the show, I’ve been sayin’ I’m not really sure whether, you know, the audience on a particular night deserves to dance because...usually they suck. But you, you have earned the right to dance! Jimmy, choose the dancers!
(Matt starts a beat and Dennis joins in)
Iha: Aw yeah, come on, you me, get on up here, that’s right, and fuckin’ rap with the whole city like you’ve never done before.
BC: Fuck yeah!
(Billy and Iha talking simultaneously for next entries under their names, a lot of it is semi-unintelligible)
Iha: Put those hands in the air, come on people. All the way to the back. Put ‘em up, put ‘em up! ‘Til you just don’t care, keep it real, keep it real rockin’ people! Show ‘em off, show ‘em off, show ‘em what you got, tell me they’re not this dumb musical, come on Oklahoma.
BC: Put your hands in the air! Wave ‘em around like you just don’t caaare! Look at that! We’re kicking it live fuckin’ Fugee! Yes! Fuck ‘em.
Iha: Jimmy Frog, dingleberries choose(?) the end, uh oh.
BC: That’s his shoes.
Iha: Here we go, who shall dance?
BC: Who shall dance?
Iha: Who shall dance?
BC: Who shall dance?
Iha: Yeah, come on. Whoooo..hey hey, go on down, we get down, go down. Just like Ray J. Get that butt out! Come on! Alright, Jimmy, [unintelligible]. (Matt stops)
BC: Only the green angel can choose the dancers, I’m sorry.
Iha: Alright, I think we have our dancers.
BC: Occasionally, we do make exceptions but....
Iha: The only exceptions remain--
BC: I have to say the [unintelligible] has been rockin’ the whole show.
Iha: Come on over and dance, young lady.
BC: Aw, you’ve broken the rules now! One more, green angel, one more.
Jimmy Frog: He said it’s one more, not frighten me.
BC: Please. Green angel, use caution.
Jimmy Frog: Don’t shout at me.
Iha: Be careful, green angel. Okay.
BC: Okay, let’s take a moment to get to know...
Iha: Our dancers.
BC: ...tonight’s Oklahoma City dancers! Young lady, where are you from and what’s your name?
Girl #1: California and my name is Christina Orrin. (crowd boos)
BC: California?! That’s the state that’s gonna fall in the motherfuckin’ sea one day. (crowd cheers wildly)
Iha: Alright.
BC: Let it go, I’ll try to get it back. Where you from and what’s your name?
Girl #2: I’m from Tulsa and I’m [unintelligible as crowd cheers].
Iha: Alright.
BC: Young man, what’s your name and where ya from?
Guy #1: I’m from Borosville fucking Oklahoma and my name is fucking Richard Vine! Fuckin’ yeah!
Iha: Alright, alright.
Guy #1: Yeah!
Iha: Calm down, calm down, my friend. Calm down.
BC: You’re not--you’re not in that Michigan militia or anything, are you? You--you scared me there.
Iha: Mark a Michigan.
BC: What’s your name and where are you from?
Girl #3: Jo Kenny from Oklahoma City.
Iha: Oklahoma. Oklahoma, okay.
Girl #4: Christy Olson from Norman, Oklahoma.
Iha: Norman, Oklahoma, home of the Chainsaw Kittens.
Guy #2: I’m Ron Black, I’m from Betsy, Oklahoma!!!
Iha: Alright, well, you get a psychopath on stage and that’s what happens.
BC: Alright, dancers...and you are dancers, don’t disappoint me or I will hurt you. James will now read you....
Iha: Your rights.
BC: Your rights and a small disclaimer ensuring the Smashing Pumpkins get time or entry should anyone fall.
Iha: Okay, uh...two rules for our dancers, dancers listen up, dancers--DANCERS, listen up. Okay, so do not touch us and do not touch our shit, okay. Now we can move on with the boredom and we can dance and all have fun. To all of those who cannot dance with us on stage, I encourage you to dance with us on stage but do it in your mind. Yes, many of you have taken college courses, you’ve all been talking loud.
1979 (with Jimmy Flemion)
Iha: Well, that was quite shocking, I must admit. Let’s uh, let’s have a round of applause for our fine dancers that [unintelligible] them awesome, there you go. Okay, [unintelligible]. And now that we’ve had our fine dance, we will continue on rocking. I’d like to introduce this next song in a very hushed...
BC: Wait.
Iha: ...tone, what, what?
BC: Can I say one thing?
Iha: Alright.
BC: Now I wanna say one thing for a change.
Iha: That’s it, alright, alright, go ahead, I’m sorry. That’s it but what do you wanna say?
BC: I’d like to say...that you guys have been totally amazing awesome and thank you very much. We thank you very much. Now, back to the James show.
Iha: Okay, so this next song is called (whispered) X...Y...U.
X.Y.U.
[encore break]
BC: Thank you.
The Aeroplane Flies High
> Silverfuck / Dose / Hummer
(BC at 17:55: So the final farewell. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. We appreciate everyone stickin’ around to the bitter, bitter end. Drive home safe and uh, oh yeah, we’re staying at the hotel across the street if you wanna visit us. James is in room 1505 and I’m in 1507, so if you wanna stop by, say hello to us. So we hope you had a good time. We are ze Smashing Pumpkins!)

Photos and memorabilia

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