Billy Corgan 2021-12-22

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December 22, 2021 – Highland Park, IL, US
Live performance by Billy Corgan
ArtistBilly Corgan
DateDecember 22, 2021
VenueMadame ZuZu's
Coordinates42°11′11″N 87°48′2″W
LocationHighland Park, IL, US
Venue typeTeahouse
Capacity300
PersonnelBilly Corgan

On December 22, 2021, Billy Corgan did a live stream of Christmas songs on his private Instagram account. It was streamed from Madame ZuZu's but no one was in attendance.

Setlist

  1. "Do You Hear What I Hear?" [Harry Simeone(acoustic) (final performance)
  2. "O Come, All Ye Faithful" [John Francis Wade(acoustic) (final performance)
  3. "What Child Is This?" [William Chatterton Dix / traditional] (abandoned) (acoustic) (only performance)
  4. "What Child Is This?" [William Chatterton Dix / traditional] (acoustic) (only performance)
  5. "Evergreen(acoustic) 
  6. "Merry Christmas Waltz" [Gene Autry(acoustic) (only performance)
  7. "O Tannenbaum" [Ernst Anschütz(acoustic) (final performance)
  8. "Silver Bells" [Jay Livingston / Ray Evans(acoustic) 
  9. "The Magi and the Shiny Bright(acoustic) (final performance)
  10. "God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen" [traditional] (acoustic) 
  11. "I'll Be Home for Christmas" [Bing Crosby(abandoned) (acoustic) (final performance)
  12. "I'll Be Home for Christmas" [Bing Crosby(acoustic) (final performance)
  13. "Silent Night" [Franz Xaver Gruber / Joseph Mohr(acoustic) 

Banter

Welcome to the 2021 Corgan family Christmas spectacular! There's no Corgan family. They're all at home making dinner. Thank you very much for joining me on this live special. I think this is the first time I've ever done a live thing like this so thank you for inspiring it. I got to thinking after I did a few shows here at Madame ZuZu's that I wanted to share with you, no string attached. I wanted to share with you the spirit of Christmas. I'll talk about what's been going on with me lately, and a few songs or so. But what's most important is that you're here, and that we're here together. To share the spirit of Christmas I want to play some of my favorite Christmas songs, which for historical or biographical context, I started preparing a few years ago as we were working on Smashing Pumpkins Christmas album, which never really got off the ground, but we had sort of prepared these materials. And so I went back to those and found that I really liked what we were doing, and I'm still hopeful that at some point we can do something. I was actually talking to Jimmy Chamberlin the other day about how we would actually figure out how to record these at some point without it taking six months in the middle of the summer. Anyway, that's for another day. I hope you're warm, wherever you are. I hope you're getting ready for the Christmas season, the holiday season, everyone of every faith, every background, I hope this is a special time for you and that you're with your loved ones. One quick thing... I've added PAWS Chicago to a charitable function here. I see we've already raised a little bit of money with some donations. And I don't mean to say a little bit, I'm in awe of anybody donating. Thank you. Every dollar counts PAWS Chicago. If you don't know, for those of who you maybe are outside the States, PAWS Chicago is a no-kill shelter here in the Chicago area. I've worked with them for over ten years. It's our favorite charity. We're very close to the people who run the charity. My first cats that I got way back when, 20 years ago or so, were from PAWS when it was just a small little storefront, now it is this massive operation. And it's a no-kill shelter; whether the animal is at the end of their life, or if they've gone mad, unfortunately as it does happen sometimes, they'll do everything in their power to place these animals with a loving home. So thank you to everyone donating. Every penny counts, every dollar counts. For those of you who are having a hard time, I realize this is a really hard time for many people. There's lot of issues going on with the economy/inflation, so please, I want you here. Please don't feel any obligation to donate. This is my gift to you, and I hope you receive it as such. For those of you who donated, thank you, and for those who can't, just being here is part of that spirit. I know the PAWS family very well, and the fact that they know you're here in support of PAWS Chicago, even in spirit, means the world to them. So thank you to everybody for being here. Hope you have a wonderful time. I'll talk a little bit between songs but for the most part I'm just going to play some songs. And for those of you who are time-conscious, it's probably going to about an hour or so. Have a great time. The microphone which is not obviously connected to that [points at camera], is I figured I might as well record. So even though I'm here at ZuZu's, we've got a little bit of a recording setup to record. Hopefully one day it can be an archival release in the future for The Smashing Pumpkins archive. So anyway, merry Christmas and happy holidays to everyone, and please sit back and enjoy, and I'll talk to you this weekend.
Do You Hear What I Hear?
O Come, All Ye Faithful
Thank you. I'm saying thank you, there's no applause, it's in my mind [laughs]. Hope you're having a good time.
What Child Is This? (abandoned)
God dang it. I keep messing up this song.
What Child Is This?
I keep messing that song up.
So when I was playing here the other night at ZuZu's, I'll give you the same introduction that I gave then on this song. This is a song that I wrote for the Pumpkins Christmas album. It's called Evergreen and it's a few years old. I guess this will be the third time that I've played it in public. Hope you like it. Every time I play it I really feel the spirit, so I'm very grateful to have written this, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Evergreen
[adjusts mic] Had a mic attack. Hey Nick, the mic is falling. Pro show as we would say in the Pumpkins.
This next song is a song by the singer of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", Gene Autry, and I believe he wrote this song, I should know better. If someone wants to fact check me on that. [tunes guitar] Sorry. [Sighs] As I oftentimes say in the studio, I look forward to the day I never have to tune a guitar again.
We're here in Chicago obviously, if you haven't figured that one out yet. Pretty dry up here. To those of you in the southern hemisphere like my friends in Australia and New Zealand, [laughs] enjoy the summer.
Thanks so much to everybody that's donated so far to PAWS Chicago. It's an amazing charity, so I can't thank you enough.
Now when I introduced this next song here at ZuZu's for the Christmas Corgan show spectacular, I will repeat my introduction for you since you're all here. That is that: when I was a little kid, many many moons ago, I used to think this song was stupid. I just didn't get it. Who would write a song about a Christmas tree? And here I am, many many moons later, playing you this Christmas song. [laughs] I actually like it. The first night I explained the story, after I finished the song there was this kind of [slow clap] applause. Obviously you didn't like this song that much either. But the second night I told the same story, and at the end of the song got standing ovations. Wherever you are, may you stand for this one as well [laughs].
O Tannenbaum
Back to tuning. So this here song I used to sing when I was in choir in high school. I have a distinct memory of playing this, singing this song in the bleachers with a 60-voice choir. I guess it would have been at Glenbard North, Carol Stream, Illinois circa 1983 or 84. And this certainly is probably my favorite Christmas song. [tunes guitar] ...if we ever get to it.
Silver Bells
Thank you again to everybody donating to PAWS. Really appreciate it. To those of you who are hurting, and had a hard year, yeah, just praying for you. Hang in there. Just know that life is about the real things. Love and togetherness and family and good friends, good times. So I hope this is a good time for you.
So this song, when I was preparing for this show, found this song kind of in amongst my stuff. I kinda had forgotten that I had written this song. What's weird about it is there's a video of me playing the song, [laughs] I think even in the same shirt. I can't tell you when I wrote it. It could be three Christmas' ago, it could be four Christmas' ago, it could be two, I honestly don't remember. Because probably about December 24th I would have gotten inspired to write the song after the kids went to bed kind of thing, and woke up the next morning and just moved on. I really like this a lot. I hope you like it. It's called "The Magi and Shiny Bright."
The Magi and the Shiny Bright
Okay. For those of you who want to share this, obviously you have to follow me to see most of this. We're going to share a couple of these on Pumpkins' socials. But those of you who want to share this with friends you know that follow me, I'll leave this show up for about 24 hours. So please feel free, as I obviously want as many people to see it, even though I'm banned [laughs]. Anyway, no complaining here. [unintelligible]
God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen
Alright. We're almost at the end. I hope you had a good time. Kind of interesting playing without an audience. I mean you're here, but nobody else is here. In fact even the people running the camera and the audio have left. So it's just us.
So on a sad note, I'm sure most of you know, but everybody knows because I keep getting silly messages which tells me that they don't know, that my father passed away a few days ago at the age of 74. He was at home, and he collapsed and had a massive heart attack and was pronounced dead on the scene, and luckily he was revived and live a few more hours, but when he passed he was being transported to another hospital via helicopter, so I live the image of my father passing off to heaven already above here. To those of you who sent me messages, I've literally received probably a thousand messages from people like you, and people in the music industry, people in the wrestling industry, people who don't even know me, um, it's been pretty impressive. I feel very very loved and supported, so thank you very much if you have sent me a message. And if you didn't know, I understand, it's a crazy world. [laughs] It's funny, when you're in that mood, you know, you get these messages, you're obviously thinking a lot about your family and stuff like that. Then I'll open a message, and thinking you know, nicely it's another message "oh sorry to hear about your dad." And he'll be like "hey man, what solo, what pedal did you use on Soma?" [laughs] Gotta love it.
So just a couple more. To those of you who will be home for Christmas, I wish you the most happy and safe holiday. Please be careful. Cause you know, lots of people tend to imbibe, as we say, on the holidays, so please be careful if you're going to be on the roads. For those of you who can't make it home to your family, to our service members who are stationed overseas and stuff like that, I can only send you the best, and I hope that this little show brings you a little closer to home.
I'll Be Home for Christmas (abandoned)
Ugh, and here comes the train. [laughs]
I'll Be Home for Christmas
Okay, last song. Thanks again. We've raised $2,729.72 that's pretty amazing. Thank you. If you knew how many puppies and kitties that'll save, it'll blow your mind. Thank you so much. PAWS does cool stuff like they have a van that goes into different communities and helps spade and neuter cats which has really significantly driven down the stray population in Chicago, I think by something like 70%, which is a crazy number. They've really reduced the number of animals that are going to be euthanized in traditional shelters. Thank you again, it means a lot to my family. I know that Chloe, although she isn't here is watching, and criticizing me, just kidding [laughs]. I'll get home I'll be like "why does she keep stopping? why are you complaining?" [laughs]
Silent Night
Merry Christmas everyone. Thank you.