Billy Corgan concert - Palais Theatre, Melbourne, Tuesday 26 July 2005

Last night I saw Billy Corgan perform live in concert. It'd been 7 years since he last came to Australia. I saw him with the Smashing Pumpkins way back in 1998 at Rod Laver Arena.
While I'm sure there were a large percentage of people in the audience who thought they were going to/wanted to see Billy perform songs from the Smashing Pumpkins, last night's performance was all his own, solo material.

The support act, Faker, were quite good. I told my brother that I thought they suffered from the skinny-legs-tight-black-jeans aka the Strokes phenomenon. They were quite entertaining. The only song I knew of theirs was Teenage Werewolf and even then only shakily. The singer was really getting into it, as he should. I really liked his dancing and also the randomness in the destination he chose while both walking around the stage and dancing. Imagine Thom Yorke from Radiohead's crazy dancing. It was like that. I thought he reached his dancing climax while facing the drums when he was pretending, faking - it you pardon the pun - to be hit by the drums as the drummer aggressively played his instument. It got a good laugh out of me.

I quite enjoyed watching the roadies set-up Billy's equipment. That was a real treat. The keyboards, synths and electronic (?) drums were all decorated with elaborate silver trappings, which at once looked mechanical and organic.

A wall of lights stood immediately behind the band, very similar to the light display in Coldplay's Speed of Sound filmclip if you have seen that.

I have been trying to track down a setlist of last night's show. If I find one, I will put it up here for all to see.

The music and light combination was just unreal. I remember A100 (which I believe was the 2nd song of the night) being a predominantly red song in that the majority of lights that were used were red. I also really liked Billy's open arms to the lyric "you are LOVE"; a salute to the crowd, symbolically thanking the audience for embracing his new music and also attending this, his first solo concert in Melbourne. I should point out that tickets went on sale for this concert prior to the release in Australia of his first solo CD, TheFutureEmbrace. Some faith was required to buy the tickets before you had heard songs from the CD, however knowing the calibre of his artistry and music, it was not a difficult decision for me.

In one song (again, I'm pretty sure it was not an album track), Billy played a riff from a very famous SP track, Today. As I walked up to the Palais to meet my brother and his friend, a very goth looking individual was walking up to the gathering crowd, fiddling with his mobile phone. Several seconds later he triumphantly holds up his mobile to the sky with the ring tone playing Today in all its polyphonic glory.

Some highlights of the concert for me were:
- A100. This song just rocked. It had such energy and the crowd got right into it;
- the cover of It's A Long Way To The Top. There were these awesome flames programmed into the lightshow for this song. It gave the song great hardcore rock 'n roll feel;
- the grungy, stiletto-wearin' keyboardist. She was ROCK. Billy sure does like his rock chicks in his bands;
- Billy's chattiness. He thanked everyone for their support, especially with all of the petitions to get the Pumpkins play out here before they disbanded.

Good night all.