This is introspection, a personal experience of a show, laden with a dual context going back many years that cannot be provided here. It would take a book to provide it. If you accept the understanding that there is background here you just don’t know that can’t be readily explained, it may still be enjoyable with its speculations and salacious inferences, which seem obvious enough. There is an intro that will explain enough of the context to understand my view of this performance. If you want an explanation, go here. After it got upwards of two pages I decided to separate it. If you just want an in depth look at the show and don’t care if my interior monologue to it makes any sense (there won’t be much of it, don’t worry), just read on.
On with the show. Or should I say the pre-show? Or should I go into the day it took to be at the pre-show, all the people I met, and how this was an utterly different experience for someone who normally comes alone and leaves alone, never speaking to anyone? It was actually possible that friends were made. If they so choose, make contact…
(and here I go shifting out of first person, such a no-no)
Billy begins his introduction by saying this is 'Quasar' and it is the first time it has been played publicly, other than as an instrumental. While it certainly is a privilege the words were utterly drowned out and it was one time she wishes asking for lyric sheets afterward might have produced them. (not! –pointless to try.) Introducing the song he says it is called 'Quasar' first, but that he has another name for it he appears to like better, ‘Stella Polaris’, which he is hesitant to use since he already has so many ‘S’ titles in his cannon. Reply, “It’s OK if you’re thematic.” The song is truly everything the SP ever is and was simultaneously. It takes you backward and forward at the same time. It is right in the space, something Billy acknowledges at the end by tagging it with the psychedelic moniker when he gauges the strong crowd reaction. It has the rolling quality of Astral Planes and that great drive, but with a lot more complexity. It brings you right back in a good way, and makes you think they’re back. Right. In. The. Present.
After this ‘My Love Is Winter’ could only come across as anti-climactic, by following such a rocker. Nor could any dimension be added from the lyrics, which were indiscernible. It might have totally changed given the lyrics, that low key sensibility. “Make It Happen” is one she really enjoys from a personal standpoint, it was from the moment of immersion when she felt certain about what he was writing about, a moment that had taken a very long time to arrive. And given when it was first performed, literally the moment before it all came crashing down and that sense of connection was utterly shattered.
Make It Happen
I have no patience
For the sweetest things
Take their sweet time
I’m counting blessings
Stepping backwards
Along your many fault lines
So make it happen
Just make it so
I won’t know
That I’ve been taken
By your green eye
I thought to remind you
At the ends of your day
Happy and a solitary brain
But here I go now
Admitting some reality
You can fathom to decode
So make it happen
Just make it so
I won’t know
You’re building castles
And drowning the witch
Ain’t life a bitch
[Strictly stating]
You are impossible
But it’s possible we could get along
Filling tide pools
With your moon tide
Love is shuttered with alarm
So make it happen
Just make it so
I don’t know
That you’re my rainbow
You’re my pot of gold
I’ll call my own
When she first heard it, it was the first step into the future. The following day it did not exist. It is a little more melodic than some of the new songs in the same vein because of the transition for the chorus and perky in a way she likes with the SP pounding drive. She knew what the green eye was about, drowning the witch, the rainbow’s end, his admission of a reality that she’d decoded for him, and how many fault lines that took, the complexity, why the moon fills the water. The lyrics are simple when the context is invisible; to her it’s not; hearing the song gave her great satisfaction. It is rolled through at a clip here and breezes past quickly. 'Tristessa' is next, from a time before she never heard of the Pumpkins; it’s being here means that all eras of the Pumpkins are basically covered with this concert, something to appreciate. She is never been strongly drawn to it but appreciates getting to hear the past especially since it’s a part of the catalogue she rarely if ever accessed. Given a choice she’d have probably sooner heard 'Tom Tom', just for the sake of the Present, because she appreciates what was in it so much. Happy either way. ‘Lonely Is the Name’ came across better than she might have expected, having been tightened and strengthened for a rocking set/performance. Practice and development. ‘Blessed Mother’ was something of a revelation. Something she would have wished anything to hear what was said for it appeared to be a lot. It was a lyric based song, melodic and seemed to have something ‘My Love Is Winter’ lacked, which in part was ascribed to mood and intent. MLIW is about, has a mood of destitution, sadness, that is the SP vein unending. While the Blessed still seems to have those elements, its sense seems to possess that intentional shift Billy has made into the light. But with honesty. And that honesty is its refinement and definition, the truth being the truth with all it imperfections is how it finds and knows itself. Such is 'Blessed Mother'. At least that is what she suspects without being able to hear. Instrumentally it is a beautiful, laden melancholic song married to beauty and light and seems to capture the SP and Billy’s beauty as a songster in a microcosm once more. By being Present.
Billy answers one fan question after nearly dodging any prospect, he tried to abort that as quickly as possible but when she blurts he takes her question, which is "What inspires you at present?”
Aside, “He’s not going to tell you that."
But in a roundabout way he does, so articulately and satisfyingly well and with such breadth and honesty she can only applaud. Of course it’s mystifying that he says it has to do with the shattering of a Star and a singular focus that was unhealthy and that if you aren’t embracing multivariate forms of input and integrating with what is around you and integrating with others anything else is unhealthy at this point. He worked in that this was about a transition in common consciousness and how we all relate to one another as beings. Fine. Went with the day. Closure meant she no longer felt bound to keep secrets, amusement about actually being able to talk about your past with a given band with like minded people and just not worrying or caring anymore.
She's delighted by the opening of Astral Planes like gate crashing right thru the beginning of a show, psychedelic symphonic thru a wall with unstopping momentum done in elation. From there Ava Adore is rolling thundercrunch played with new verve and crushing intensity. The opening couldn’t be better, and settles into...the comfort of one of the big ones. She tends to have an impulse to want to ‘check out’ with the big hit standards in the cannon that were played to death and still are but finds satisfaction in hearing it performed live, mainly because it's fresh because she avoided those things that were overplayed back then. She is happy to hear 'Hummer' in the same way as 'Tristessa' and prefers the song by a fair margin. Delight with the speed/metal/thunder of ‘As Rome Burns’. So happy there's someone with the cojones it would take to premier this to Best Buy execs, the truth of the pending economic crash at the precise moment they were vulnerable to takeover. Hot D***! The fact that this band will blast your socks off. And that Billy was willing to say something about the state of Amerika starting with Zeitgeist and ‘United States’ gave him that final facet that commanded her greatest respect among the artists she most respects. The same goes for ‘Freak’, and the genius to put that forward radio friendly and upbeat.
‘The Song for A Son’ throws the first curve at her where both this and ‘Eye’ make her cry, for reasons she will not explain. Except that ‘Eye’ is now a permanent frieze rather than past tense where she would have left it, and feels like an edict, conceptual prison, or nothing at all. Except for the changes the song has undergone from no longer being a simple electronic dirge, which is all the more appreciable. Rock On, the dedication it takes for change. Oh how it soars upwards in the melancholic outro. 'Bullet With Butterfly Wings' is the frieze of that popular moment he can never escape and will always immortalize, and despite being able to jump up and down to it, to her it is one of the sleeper tracks that doesn’t gain her full attention because it doesn’t quite merit it; she never gave it in the first place. She recorded the double disk to CD when she bought it and this was the first song she dropped. It is the polarity she is no part of, but finally understood as the key. She enjoys it in the moment regardless; it’s a moment to shift the mind elsewhere; she finds herself throbbing up and down with the crowd with the same enthusiasm. She doesn’t actually see his fall, though has a queer sense it serves him right for continuing to blow this same ‘lil trumpet. Never gives it up. Aspect of humour. She has far more respect and jubilation when it comes to 'United States'; even if JC is not longer playing, it generates awe. Hearing audio from the tour prior was totally different from being there. 'Bleeding the Orchid' she felt as did others did not suit the set, though the meaning could not have been better placed. ‘Perfect’ will be beyond hard to hear in the moment, which to her no longer has the potential to exist. With all these songs she finds a curious liberation happening where they achieve their timelessness in the act of being played, so they are for everyone and every moment. She feels a distinct agenda in the zealousness with which they are played and the attitude Billy presents in playing them. He is fierce in his liberation of the music. He really is shattering the star and integrating in the moment with every participant. He is exactly where he said. He spends the majority of his performance when he isn’t singing playing ‘to’ her, as in front of her or turned to her, while completely avoiding eye contact. The only moment she felt his glance where he checked her was when he asked how everyone was doing at the pre-show, and she would not grant him her eyes nor feeling, neither pain, sadness, or joy. No point in any. She stared only at the back wall in a frieze of ice. The rejoinder in his sensibility was 'that good huh', practically unspoken and on went the show.
That he played so much in front of her can be dismissed out of hand by where she stood by anyone who wasn't there and unnoticed by anyone who was. The sense she derived from all this is that their only connect, the only connect he offers is the music itself, that 75% of his life, what it has taken. It will never spill past and may never stop.
On with the Rock ‘n’ Roll and the first SP song she ever heard. Grand and throbbing and impartial in its elements, timeless in its merit. The strength of that first impression still stands with every playing of 'Cherub Rock', lifelong. ‘That’s the Way’ she can hardly bear to hear. It is as bereft as the first time she heard it when with all her will she crushed a solitary tear because it simply isn’t real. Never there, never will be, except...and it feels like the echoes of a paradox she left behind so many years ago. Still present. 'Owata' transports as a timeless song of joy beyond any context but the present, which was unlikely to have spawned it. Grateful for the electrocution. Well done, though the treatment might have served 'Eye' even better. At the addition of ‘Oh California, look what you have done to me’, and the opening timbre of SIYL and everything it meant, she can only say, “this is what California took from you”. Only to watch it become a song. ‘Tarantula’ has lost its sense of address, the loaded context that came from its being a response, but positively rips along. ‘Tonight Tonight' achieves that sense of the eternal that only a song can possess. As we invoke this in our collective wish to be here now hearing it, we are wishing and believing upon every word in the Now, what the song was made for. She is surprised to witness its achievement and the force of the band’s execution, which is based so much in Spirit and dedication.
‘Freak’ pounds its way thru the door into the finale as truth put jovial. She is happier than she expected to hear it. Gossamer, the return of the End, the signifier once more, is a revelation, a musical transport. The cruelty in it is gone with the omission of the lyrics. It prospects beyond the shattering, to be able once more to fly beyond this hurt above all hurts that is finalized by just being present and ignored. The repeated shout of ‘we’re not going anywhere’ achieves the sensibility of the entire performance, that in this end of all ends, we are all still present and participating and not going away. Musically it lets her soar, movement of her interior that has been so lost in the distant past. She can’t help but begin to dance and she is utterly alone in that, the only one with spirals beginning thru her hands that course in symmetry throughout her limbs. She can’t even help herself. It has been so long since she felt moved like that and abandoned herself in the face of all others. It is his one moment of abandonment where he doesn’t play, doesn’t orchestrate and is simply lost and compelled by the drums. Movement in the rhythm captures them both, total immersion in the music that is mutually exclusive where neither can even see nor is conscious of the other. Billy tentatively dances and he is lost. What a delight it was to dance to the drums. The end had a mystic transport and power where the rest were watching and still.
And that was the end.
Billy made his farewell overtures to stage left and stage right in complete avoidance of the center. And that was the End.
She was happy that it ended this way and that he came here to end it.
The accompanying pictures are here. It goes without saying the lights are well synchronized whatever the particular scope of the budget. The one point of banter about being given the [middle] finger by a woman and how that's "oh yeah" was funny as hell.
SETLIST
1. Astral Planes
2. Ava Adore
3. Today
4. Hummer
5. As Rome Burns
6. A Song for a Son
7. Eye
8. Bullet With Butterfly Wings
9. United States
10. Bleeding the Orchid
11. Perfect
12. Cherub Rock
13. That’s the Way (My Love Is)
14. Owata
15. Stand Inside Your Love
16. Tarantula
17. Tonight, Tonight
ENCORE
18. Freak
19. Gossamer
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment