Billy Corgan 2019-11-06

November 6, 2019 – Los Angeles, CA, US
Live performance by Billy Corgan
United States 2019 tour
Date	November 6, 2019
Venue	Lodge Room
Coordinates	34°6′33″N 118°11′40″W
Location	Los Angeles, CA, US
Personnel	Billy Corgan, Jeff Schroeder, Linda Strawberry, Meena Ysanne
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Setlist

Set one

1. "Anon" (piano) 
2. "Cotillions" (piano) 
3. "To Scatter One's Own" (acoustic) 
4. "Faithless Darlin'" (acoustic) 
5. "Hard Times" (acoustic) 
6. "Cri de Coeur" (acoustic) 
7. "Buffalo Boys" (acoustic) 
8. "Dancehall" (acoustic) 
9. "The Spaniards" (acoustic) 
10. "Archer" (acoustic) 
11. "Aeronaut" (acoustic) 
12. "Processional" (acoustic) 
13. "Zowie" (piano) 

Set two

14. "Whole Lotta Love" [Led Zeppelin] (tease) (acoustic) 
1. "Tonight, Tonight" (acoustic) 
15. "Ugly" (acoustic) 
16. "Luna" (acoustic) 
17. "The Empty Sea" (acoustic) 
18. "La Dolly Vita" (acoustic) 
19. "Thirty-Three" (acoustic) 
20. "Endless Summer" (piano) 
21. "Knights of Malta" (piano) 
22. "Hangin' On" [The Gosdin Brothers] (acoustic) 
23. "Will There Be Any Stars?" [Alison Krauss & The Cox Family] (acoustic) (live debut)
24. "Glass and the Ghost Children" (acoustic) (final performance)
25. "A Song for a Son" (acoustic) 
    1. "Stairway to Heaven" [Led Zeppelin] (tease) (acoustic) 

Encore

26. "Waiting for a Train That Never Comes" (acoustic) 
27. "Shame" (acoustic) 

Notes

• "Cotillions" (piano) and "Dancehall" (backing vocals) with Linda Strawberry
• "Buffalo Boys", "Dancehall", "The Spaniards", "Archer", "Aeronaut", "Knights of Malta", "Will There Be Any Stars?" and "Glass and the Ghost Children" with Meena Ysanne on violin
• "The Spaniards", "Archer", "Glass and the Ghost Children" and "A Song for a Son" with Jeff Schroeder on guitar
• First performance of "Luna" since 2015-06-16
• First performance of "La Dolly Vita" since 2017-11-10
• First performance of "Glass and the Ghost Children" since 2017-11-11
• "Silvery Sometimes (Ghosts)" was on the setlist but not performed

Banter

Anon (piano)
Cotillions (piano) (with Linda Strawberry)
BC: Thank you. My name is William. You can shut the fuck up now.
To Scatter One’s Own
Faithless Darlin’
BC: Thank you very much, thank you. How is everybody?
Hard Times
Cri de Coeur
Buffalo Boys (with Meena Ysanne)
Dancehall (with Linda Strawberry & Meena Ysanne)
The Spaniards (with Jeff Schroeder & Meena Ysanne)
Archer (with Jeff Schroeder & Meena Ysanne)
BC: Jeff Schroeder! Thank you very kindly, thank you.
Guy in crowd: Thank you.
BC: Thank you. Heh heh heh. Yeah. People always ask me what’s in the spray. I say cocaine.
Aeronaut (with Meena Ysanne)
Processional
BC: So...who was here before? Thank you. Who wasn’t? There’s people that were neither here nor there. Trying to figure that one out. So a quick thing. This is the last song of the first set. And then I’ll come back out, play some songs that you may know...or you ignored the first time you heard them. All classics, yes. Well, one thing I wanna say is a lot of these songs - actually, almost all of these songs, songs from Ogilala and songs from the new album, Cotillions - are really connected to one person, uh, talk about this one person. Many, many moons ago in a different life, I met Rick Rubin, the famed producer, the bearded one. The sage of Malibu. I used to go up to Rick’s house and he lived in some castle, like Bela Lugosi’s castle or something. Very L.A. You go into Rick’s living room and he’d go, “Ah, check this out” and he’d play Neil Young demos or you know, he’d always have something that no one had ever heard. And uh, at different times, Rick would weave in and out of my life, we were friends all those years. Rick produced a song on Adore that I in a pique of temper decided to take off the Adore album, ‘cause the record company decided that they were gonna make that the first single, not because it was the best song, but because it sounded like all the other songs we’d put out before. And um, then one day I got a call from Rick saying “Hey, I’m working with Johnny Cash on this album, he’s covering a bunch of songs, you got anything?” I didn’t really take it too seriously and I sent him one song, and here 20 years later, I still regret that I didn’t take that call more seriously.
Guy in crowd: Awwww shit.
BC: Yeah, man. And uh, around 2004, out of nowhere, Rick called me, said “What are you doing, man?” I said, “I’m working on this acoustic record, this band I had...a disaster.” I was writing the songs for what became Chicago Kid and uh, unreleased still. And uh, Rick said, “Aw, it sounds really cool, send ‘em to me.” I never sent him the songs. Do you see a pattern here? Hahahahahaha. Boom. Noooo. There’s my life in a nutshell, “Noooo.” And so, couple years back, in a very low point in my life, a very down period in my life, wasn’t really what I was doing. We’d released, uh, at least whatever iteration of the band - seven point oh - Jeff and I, released the Monuments album. Thank you. Thank you to all the eight people who bought it. And uh, I said privately, “I’m done, can’t do this anymore, (crowd starts groaning) I’m losing my mi -” Well, hey, we’re in the timeline, okay? Slow down. The movie’s not over, okay? Like (makes weird groaning noise). So Rick called me, said “What are you doing, man?” I said, “Well, I’m writing these songs, acoustic songs, but I don’t know, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.” Explained the situation. He said “Aw! That sounds really cool. Send ‘em to me.” And this time I sent them to him. And uh, this here was one of these songs and uh, didn’t hear from him for about a month and I thought “You know, whatever, he’s busy scouting the world.” But a month later, he calls me, “What are you doing, man?” I’m like.... (laughing) “Did you get the demos?” He said, “Oh man, they’re really good, they’re really good. I wanna do a record with you.” And I was like, I looked at the phone like, “Did he just say he wants to do a record with me doing acoustic songs?” He said, “Keep writing, keep writing.” And uh, so I went out to his studio in Malibu which thankfully survived the fires. Famous Shangri-La. And I remember a quick story. One of my favorite songs and a song that was very influential in the Pumpkins, Cortez the Killer by Neil Young, I was in the studio and - this famous studio that The Band worked in, Bob Dylan worked in - and I said to Rick, “Isn’t this where Neil recorded Cortez the Killer?” He goes, “No, man. We recorded down the road.” And he goes, “But he did write Cortez the Killer in that room.” So that’s the exact spot where I recorded these songs and Neil was working on the property, so I’d see Neil and uh...yeah. So what I’m trying to say in so many words is it’s amazing what a friend can do with a kind word and pull you up out of that murk.
Guy in crowd: We believe in you!
BC: And so - well, not always.
Same guy in crowd: I do!
Girl in crowd: We do!
Same guy in crowd: I always have.
BC: Heh heh heh heh. That doesn’t sound like Rick’s voice. So uh, so yeah, when I play these songs, Rick’s in my heart and I can’t thank him enough and thank you, thank you.
Zowie (piano)
[set break]
Whole Lotta Love (tease - 4 seconds of main riff)
> Tonight, Tonight
Ugly
Luna (abandoned after 4 notes because he starts in wrong key)
Luna
The Empty Sea
BC: This next song...is from the Smashing Pumpkins second official single. On Sub Pop. Yeah, remember Sub Pop? We drove - in order to secure this song - we drove forty hours from Chicago to Seattle. We played with Tad...and the Afghan Whigs and in hoping to land a record deal - all the other bands were doing it - and they offered us not an album but these two songs, which I appreciate. And then when we landed a big deal, they came back later and said “Now we want to sign you.” And we told them to fuck off. And the guy said “But why?” And I said, “‘Cause you don’t give a fuck about us. All you wanna do is sign us and flip us to a major label. Sorry.” And the west is histowee. So a little more data on this song....
Guy in crowd: Over here, Billy!
BC: No, it’s not that kind of party, as my friend would say. This song, along with its A-side, is uh, bears the distinction of the first time that we met Butch Vig. Los Angeles resident Butch Vig. Up there in Madison, Wisconsin. We loaded uh - we loaded in off the street and set up and I think in about a day, we recorded these two songs. Maybe it was two. No, it was a day and a half ‘cause we had to drive back to Chicago.
La Dolly Vita
Thirty-three
BC: Thank you so much.
Guy in crowd: Now you’re cookin’.
BC: See? It’s possible. Anything is possible. Actually, these days, everything is possible.
Girl in crowd: Maybe a little [unintelligible].
BC: Heh heh heh heh heh heh.
Endless Summer (piano)
BC: Thank you so much. Thank you, appreciate that. Are you having a good time? Heh heh heh heh heh. One would hope so, one would hope so. It’s my last night here, appreciate you, appreciate the [unintelligible word].
Guys in crowd: We appreciate you! Thank you for the music, Billy.
BC: Thank you.
Knights of Malta (piano) (with Meena Ysanne)
BC: Thank you very much. ... So many songs. [unintelligible word.] That was not a, a moment to enlist requests. Heh. Yep. If I were hittin’ repeat, that was not a moment to enlist requests. I have the show planned out, this is what I do for a living. And I’m not remotely unashamed. I’m a father of two, 52 fuckin’ years old and I do what the fuck I wanna do when I wanna do it how I wanna to do it. As I used to say to my sixth manager - heh heh heh - if I’m playing the Enormo Dome, they can tell me what to play. Outside of that, fuck it. Here’s a song I wanted to play for you.
Hangin’ On
BC: I’d like to play you one more song from my jukebox.
Guy in crowd: Cocaine! Cocaine!
BC: I assume they were on cocaine too when they recorded this one. It reminds me of my very first LSD trip. I was having a spiritual epiphany. I thought “Oh, I should write some lyrics.” So I jotted down one line. I thought “Wow, this sums up everything. It’s so deep.” And the next day when I was coming off the LSD, I looked at the line, which in a very Smashing Pumpkins jokey way ended up in the song Rhinoceros. And that line, the key, the gate opener to the universe was “Open your eyes to these mustard lies.” “Open your eyes to these mustard lies.” And I thought, (whispers) “Fuck it.” (normal) So of course, doing what we do, we put it in the song. So that takes us back to cocaine.
Guy in crowd: Yeah.
BC: Yes, trust me, heh heh. Heh heh, it’s easier to do drugs than to play this song.
Will There Be Any Stars? (with Meena Ysanne)
Glass and the Ghost Children (with Jeff Schroeder & Meena Ysanne)
BC: Thank you very much, thank you so much, thank you. So one more, one more song. I decided this morning, no more encores. This is it. I’m out, I’m out. I’m out, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.
Guy in crowd: Let Jeff play!
BC: Jeff’s welcome to play. The Night Dreamer’s in the house. What be the tracks?
A Song for a Son (with Jeff Schroeder)
> Stairway to Heaven (tease)
[encore break]
Waiting for a Train That Never Comes
BC: (tuning guitar) We used to do this on stage back in the day.
Guy in crowd: You still are!
BC: Same asshole as before, it’s pretty cool. He follows me everywhere, it’s amazing. So when we would do this tuning on stage like I am now, James would announce “We’re now doing the grunge tuning.” It’s the tuning of grunge. Anyone remember grunge? Our favorite back in the day was “What’s it like being a band from Seattle?” That was a big one. Or, or, “What’s it like having a girl in the band?” That was a big one or to her, “What’s it like being a girl in a band?”
Girl in crowd: [2 unintelligible words]
BC: Ha! It wasn’t that long ago, people.
Guy in crowd: We still miss her!
BC: Aw, fuck off. Fuck off with that bullshit. We put in 14 years, okay, it’s all there if you want it. There are videos, there are interviews, there are pictures. When someone drains all of the blood out of your body, you don’t go, “Hey, you got any more blood?” Heh heh. Gave you what we had, man, that was it. Yeah.
Shame

Photos and memorabilia

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