The Smashing Pumpkins 2023-09-17 (late show)

September 17, 2023 – Highland Park, IL, US
Live performance by The Smashing Pumpkins
Artist	The Smashing Pumpkins
Date	September 17, 2023
Venue	Madame ZuZu's
Coordinates	42°11′11″N 87°48′2″W
Location	Highland Park, IL, US
Venue type	Teahouse
Capacity	300
Personnel	Billy Corgan, James Iha, Jimmy Chamberlin, Jeff Schroeder, Jack Bates, Katie Cole
Order of bands	The Smashing Pumpkins
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Setlist

"Rocket" (acoustic)
"Cherub Rock" (acoustic)
"Today" (acoustic)
"Disarm" (acoustic)
"Spaceboy" (abandoned) (acoustic) (final performance)
"Spaceboy" (acoustic) (final performance)
"Spaced" (acoustic)
"Mayonaise" (acoustic)
"Hummer" (acoustic) (final performance)
"Luna" (acoustic) (final performance)
"Purr Snickety" (acoustic) (final performance)

Notes

"Purr Snickety" with Jimmy Chamberlin on guitar

Banter

BC: Welcome! Hi.
Rocket
BC: Thank you. Was anyone at the gig in ‘93? Anybody?
Girl in crowd: I was not alive then.
BC: He was not alive then, okay. Well, neither was I, okay, so...we are even in that. In the earlier show, there was a gentleman who was there and there was a gentleman who was there but couldn’t get in. He said that show that he couldn’t get into was better than the show he got into. ... What do you think there, James?
Iha: Sounds good. Thanks for comin’ out. We appreciate it.
Cherub Rock
BC: Alright. (tuning) I don’t know why these guitars are coming back like this. (more tuning)
Iha: What’s up, guys? I’m talkin’ –- I’m talkin’ while we’re tuning. Alright, tuning’s over.
BC: Let me see if this chord’s gonna do. (testing, then counts into next song)
Today
BC: Thank you very kindly. Like to give a little shoutout to the staff at Zuzu’s for putting this on. Thank you to Tower Records for making this possible, thank you so much, Tower Records. Amazing. And uh, of course, I’d like to thank my partner, now my wife, we got married yesterday. Hahahaha! Chloe -– Chloe Mendel Corgan. Thank you, Chloe Mendel Corgan, for making this possible. Just think about this: ‘bout three weeks ago I called Chloe and I said, “I know we’re getting married on Saturday but can we (laughing) do an acoustic gig with the band to celebrate Siamese Dream’s 30th anniversary on the Sunday afterwards?” She said no. The marriage was off and uh...no, but thank you, Chloe, amazing, thank you. And to, uh, put this all into context, uh, Chloe was one year old when I wrote this next song. That is true. Heh heh. Or as the, uh, the local mayor here, Nancy Rotering, our friend, a great mayor, um, did the vows yesterday, did the officiating yesterday and part of her remarks, she said to -– of course to our friends and family and of course the band was there –- she said, uh, “The first time I saw Billy and Chloe together, I thought she was his niece.” That was in the wedding ceremony, by the way. And the, uh, later in the evening, one of Chloe’s brothers, uh, in giving the, you know, the traditional speech, said, um, um, “I wanna thank Billy for being such a great father to Chloe.” Heh! Heh heh. Heh, heh. Heh heh heh heh. You havin’ a good time? (crowd cheers) Okay, you ready there? Here we go.
Disarm (abandoned immediately)
BC: Let’s start it again.
Disarm
BC: Thank you very much. So now wes -– uh, (coughs), excuse me –- as now as we, uh, requit, uh...I can’t talk. It’s the marriage. So as we now recreate the set from, uh, over 30 years ago -- hard to believe -- um, we chose not to play anything but the Siamese songs, um, which of course omits Siva somewhere in here. But also I Am One, but the reason we never finished that song was because people started jumping up and down on the second, uh, st-story of T-T-Tower and we felt the floor collapsing beneath us and I didn’t wanna die that night.
Guy in crowd: We can do it again.
BC: You just gotta build it, heh heh heh. Um, so we’re gonna play a song now that we did not play that evening. It’s a good ‘un. Hope you enjoy it.
Spaceboy (abandoned after 15 seconds)
BC: Goddamn this thing. The good thing is is this isn’t the live broadcast, that’s later, right?
Iha: (off mic) I saw that happen.
Jeff: (off mic + laughing) I know, I did too, I was like oh no.
Spaceboy
> Spaced
BC: So at the end of this song...for those in attendance and those watching at home, we have a very sess –- special surprise, which I gave away on the first show, but I wasn’t supposed to and I got yelled at by the Missus Corgan. (tuning) Make sure this shit doesn’t move. See? Any requests? (a few yells from the crowd) Yeah, way to -– way to throw out a Mellon Collie song, that was a good one right there. (more yelling) Forget I asked. (laughing) I’ll never learn. (more people talking) Well, we can play that unreleased B-side: “Shut the Fuck Up.” For those at home, to the millions and millions...uh, watching at home, um, at the end, we’ll announce our special surprise -– (to Iha) you still don’t know what the special surprise is, do you?
Iha: No. No, I don’t.
BC: Even though I kinda gave it away?
Iha: I forgot. But yeah...you can announce it if you want now.
BC: I think we should do it at the end. You wanna do it now?
Iha: Okay, well...whatever you –- whenever you wanna do it.
BC: Okay, we’ll do it now.
Iha: Maybe the end’s better though. Build up a little.
BC: Jimmy, what do you think?
Jimmy: (off mic) I mean, you know me, let’s wait.
BC: Okay.
Iha: Okay, I guess we’re gonna wait.
BC: Jimmy’s all about the big finish, I don’t know if you noticed. Heh heh heh heh, heh heh heh. This little song that, uh, James, uh, brought me a demo somewhere in Japan in 1992. Played me this song and I heard the melody immediately. And we put the song together and of course it’s one of our favorite songs. Everywhere we go in America now, there’s some guy screaming for this song. Holding up his –- his iPhone 14, you know? The best is when the iPhone spell checks the title. There’s a deep inside joke there for you. Alright, good?
Iha: Alright, yeah.
BC: Should I keep going or...?
Iha: Umm....
BC: Here, I’ll do this. (throwing a few guitar picks into the crowd) I wanna -– I want a fresh pick for this one.
Iha: (laughing) Okay, okay.
BC: Alright, here we go.
Mayonaise
BC: Yeah, man. Good times. Hashtag "where were you in ‘93". Heh heh heh heh heh, I was in a fuckin’ hole.
Jimmy: (off mic) In a dark hole.
BC: Heh heh heh hahaha, in a dark hole down by the river. Sorry. Oh!
Chloe: (off mic) Where’s the announcement?
BC: The announcement!
Chloe: (off mic) [unintelligible]!
BC: I’m comin’, (mumbles). (tuning) Goddammit. The special announcement.
Iha: I thought we were doing it at the end.
BC: No, we’ll do it here.
Iha: Oh, okay, (mumbles), alright.
BC: We’ve created -- to honor this beautiful event – a special commemorative edition of a Mayonaise maxi-single, like the old school 12-inch maxi-singles. I think it’s at 45 speed, which means it should sound pretty good. I think it’s better than actually 33 speed, did you know that?
Iha: No, I didn’t know that. Heh.
BC: And on the A-side is, uh, the Mayonaise, uh, version from Siamese Dream and on the B-side is the Mayonaise version from Vieuphoria...and so, uh....
Iha: Nice.
BC: And there is a back story. I’ma test your Pumpkins trivia here.
Iha: Alright.
BC: So...technically speaking, Mayonaise was never a son -– a single from Siamese Dream, did you know that?
Iha: No, I, um...
BC: But--
Iha: ...sure, sure.
BC: But, it shoulda been.
Iha: Yeah, er, sure.
BC: The radio stations had decided that they’d played too many of our singles off of Siamese Dream, so they wanted to kill the record, to be –- speak insidery. But the record label, because they were selling a lot of copies, wanted Mayonaise to be a single, so radly -– rather than release it officially and possibly have it fail because the headwinds of the radio stations were against it, without our knowledge, our label at the time, Virgin Records, created an edited version of the song...
Iha: A radio edit.
BC: ...a radio edit that we never, you and I certainly never heard it. I heard it in L.A. on KROQ and I was like, what am I listening to, ‘cause they cut out the whole beginning, which is quite beautiful. (to Iha) Thank you. And um...and –- and then chopped out, like, the solo, it was really weird.
Iha: Oh, okay.
BC: So this is our way to honor that it should have been a single...
Iha: Okay.
BC: ...so in, it’s like the posthumous, 30 year later single. And then my nieces, who are, you know, teenagers, they’re like, this song’s all the rage on TikTok, did you know that?
Iha: I did not know that...
BC: Yeah.
Iha: ...I didn’t -– I didn’t know any of, any of these things, but it’s very illuminating.
BC: I thought you were big on TikTok?
Iha: I -- (laughing) no, no. I’ve seen some funny videos on TikTok, but I -- I don’t....
BC: Alright, so um, that now is available. What? What?
Chloe: (off mic) [unintelligible].
BC: You’re giving me the stop finger, what does that mean?
Chloe: (off mic) [unintelligible].
BC: Wait, hold on, what? What now?
Chloe: (off mic) [unintelligible].
BC: Oh, it’s going live now, Madame Zuzu’s dot com. Um, and there’s some signed and, so if you wanna participate, please do. And we also hope to do kind of a different version of it with, uh, Tower Records, with them will -- being willing, but we certainly have to thank Universal Records, who made this possible in a very short amount of time, so we thank them. They inherited or bought what was the Virgin catalog, so the good news is that, um...no, I’m not gonna say that ‘cause I’m gonna get us in trouble, heh heh. I can’t help it but bury record labels, (laughing) it’s just in my DNA. And I don’t know if you saw, um -- did anybody see the video that aired before the telecast? If you get a chance, we talk a little bit about one day hoping to do a Siamese tour. The positive side is we are more than willing and have been willing to do that for quite some time. The negative side is a lot of people, not us on the stage, don’t believe that it would be a successful tour, so um -- (crowd disapproves) -- and I’m, I’m being dead serious, um, yes, um.... I won’t get into the reasons why, but, um, so let this moment mark hopefully the beginning of other chances to celebrate this record. We certainly love playing it acoustic -- it’s actually really fun ‘cause it takes us back to the writing and certainly the making, but um, that record is certainly best served by the full rock show. And let me say this, heh heh, before some hipster writer goes off on me with a beard: (dumb guy voice) “You said you’d never do a Siamese....” No, I always said if we were ever going to do a tour like this, we wanted to do it our way, so our way to do a Siamese tour would be -- imagine -- because there’s so many young people listening to the band now, it’d be awesome to do this: show them what the band played like in 1994, so do an idealized.... So obviously we would play, we’d play some Gish, you know, some deep cuts. But the old school version of the punch you in the face set. So, please be part of the drumbeat that tells the powers that be -- to use a wrestling phrase -- that, um, you do want to see that tour someday.
Iha: Catchin’ this, Bruce?
BC: I’m still not in tune, [unintelligible word]. Um, ‘cause I think we want to do it while we still can.
Guy in crowd: We do too.
BC: Well, I appreciate that. We’ll get James on TikTok, make it happen. Actually, you on TikTok would be really good. You are -- actually, is he not made for TikTok? (crowd cheers)
Iha: Let’s...
BC: Back to the hits.
Iha: ...let’s get to that next song.
Hummer
BC: Yeah, man.
Luna
BC: Thank you so much. It’s been a real pleasure to play for you this evening. Like to end with a...one little special thing. I wanted to, um, take a moment in appreciation -- first of all, thank you to everyone who’s supported us all these years. Thank you to those of you who love this record...and um, wanna hear these songs, it’s really awesome, I.... If you went back in a time machine and told us 30 plus years ago when we wrote the record that we’d be playing these songs and that people would still wanna hear them, it would absolutely blow our minds, so...you blew our mind, so thank you. And uh...I think -- I don’t know, I don’t wanna speak for you – I think this is the best time we’ve ever had in the band.
Jimmy: (off mic) For sure.
BC: Two thumbs up! And uh, thank you for making us look at ourselves and decide that we need to be this band again, so thank you for that. And uh...life, you know, it throws you its curveballs and uh...of course, not everybody should be here. Everybody -- not everybody is here that should be here, but that’s just the wife -- the way life goes, right? But we wanna honor the people who aren’t here with us, whether they contributed to the record, like a David Ragsdale or Eric Remschneider and of course D’arcy.
Jimmy: (off mic) Butch.
BC: Butch. And uh, the absolutely, just crackin’ mixes by Alan Moulder. What I’m trying to say is...there’s a time for everything, (clears throat) -- excuse me. And...so we wanna end on this song that was a B-side. I never played this song for the band, um, at the time. We eventually put it out on the Siamese Singles, so some of you might recognize it, but the real intention is to -- is to bring Jimmy up here so that, for just one moment, as best we can be, we can be that old band for you one more time. And uh, and hopefully a gig like this puts the conspiracy theories to rest that I can’t sing like I used to.
Jimmy: (off mic) Or that I can’t play guitar.
BC: Or that Jimmy can’t play guitar. That’ll start the conspiracies going. Maybe it’s you playing the leads on Jellybelly. No, it’s.... But seriously, um -- goddammit. Not trying to go back in time, right, but it’s not a bad thing to bring the past forward occasionally. When we went through a lotta hard times, both together and apart, there were a lot of people that told me that this was the only thing I’d ever done that had any value. And I resisted doing things like this in the past because why would I reinforce that opinion? Great people like you of course reinforce the fact that there’s more than the Smashing Pumpkins than just the Siamese zombies. And we love the Siamese zombies, we love everybody who loves this record, we worked really hard to make this record, this record changed our lives. And, but like when you go through anything intense, you can never look back, it’s always gonna be different from there on. It changed us, it changed our relationships, it certainly changed our relationship to the world. But, please know from us, that we love this record and we’re so honored to play these songs for you. And I think you can hear in the music there’s a lotta love there, we put a lotta love into this music. And even myself and of course James, we wrote some songs, but there were a lot of these songs...I’m shocked at the...the willingness to be vulnerable, the willingness to be innocent, the willingness to go against the grain, even of the times where everybody was grunging out. So thank you, thank you, I don’t think you realize -- particularly the long time fans -- what you’ve done for us, so we’re so grateful, and so this is just our little way of saying thank you, so please enjoy.
Purr Snickety (Billy/Iha/Jimmy only)
Iha: Thank you guys so much. Thank you. Thanks for coming out.
BC: Thank you to everyone watching at home, thank you everyone, see you soon. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Photos and memorabilia