Leuven:
Its pretty nice. The university started in 1425, so it’s a very old little city, and the students mean that it’s quite lively. The conference is in a castle, although it looks more like a very old country house, complete with moat and Gardens. Leuven centre is full of little higgledy piggledy red brick buildings. It all feels very old. Tonight I get a walking tour round the centre so, maybe I’ll learn more and have more to tell. My only fact at he moment, is that The KUL(Katholieke Universitiet Leuven) had a bit of a revolt when they got fed up with their lectures being in French and not in Flemish. They threw a wobbly and the upshot was that the new Leuven University was created as the French part. The anecdotal fact is that they split the library between the two universities, A-M in on and N-Z in the other – Genius, collaboration for eternity.
But I’m in gent now. I’ve been to Gent once before, in 2002. Its really beautiful, very old historical, and manages to make its canals look so pretty and appealing. Just looking at these ramshackle ancient buildings leaning into a winding canal makes you want to drink a good Belgian beer. But I’ve seen Gent, I have the photos, I’ve had the tour:
I’m here tonight to see one of the musicians I most respect in my music collection.
Billy Corgan was the singer, guitarist and writer of the Smashing Pumpkins. I consider Gish, Siamese Dream and MellonCollie and the infinite sadness to be one of the greatest runs of albums I’ve ever heard. All three are complete classics. To grab a cliché, “They Rawk!!!”. Theres lots that rocks, though. The reason for these albums staying “up there” in my often played albums is that there is a good bit of intelligence in the Rawk. The composition of the music is genius, I consider Billy Corgan to be as adept as most classical composers. I have often used examples as an argument of my music being as intelligent as music I have studied.
After that there were several more Smashing Pumpkins albums. They were damn good albums, but as follow up to the first three they seemed lackluster. I listen to them less often, but when I do listen to them I enjoy them. Maybe I was that little bit older when I first heard them. Maybe there are less memories of youth and teenage years engrained on the vinyl tracks (Sometimes literally) of the first three albums. Ironically, I probably enjoyed Machina II the most, which wasn’t an official album, but disseminated through the internet and allowed life. Genius again, and I’m sure it took some of the shine(read sales), off the inevitable post break up greatest hits album.
After Smashing Pumpkins, there was Zwan. This was a light side project sounding band, album and tour. It never felt that great for me. I couldn’t see much to like in it apart from Billy Corgan’s voice. I listen to it every know and then, and given the sorry state of music, it is growing on me, but you have to try hard to get the good pumpkins stuff out your mind.
I saw the Pumpkins on their last tour. Bearing in mind, there had been 2 albums which I didn’t like that much, I thought that Billy Corgan had lost his edge, his intelligence, his drive etc. Nothing could be further from the truth. They started, dressed in pink, playing acoustic renderings of some of there songs for about 45 minutes. It was interesting, but not “The Pumpkins”. It was in quite a large venue, so it kind of rattled around and had no punch, no power. Many people left early. The smashing Pumpkins left the stage, and a lot more people went home. Then the drummer came back on. Jimmy Chamberlain, had been a heroin addict and had been kicked out of the band to clean up. This was his first tour since kicking the habit and replacing it with what I can only assume was a rigid routine of weight lifiting. This skinny junky had been replaced by this hunk of muscle. He came back on stage and a spot light hit a new kit which was on the stage.(Previously he had a cymbal and a snare drum). He start playing under a spot light on a kit that would make Kiss look subtle. This was RAWK. The the previously pink dress clad corgan came out in a ankle length leather dress thing. Black eyliner and they launched into classic pumpkins. They then played for what seemed like hours(Bearing in mind this was the encore to a 45 minute gig), there was soloing in unison between James and Billy iron maiden styleee, the scream in bullet with butterfly wings had so much reverb and delay and overdrive that it nearly took the roof off. Oh and Mellisa Auf der Mar(Bass), was a sexy bass playing red head, who over played her role just enough to be cheeky, which was just the cherry on top of the cream
All in all it was one of the best gigs I’ve been to(I’ve probably been to 150-200)
So it is with this in mind that I was wandering through the winding streets of Gent wondering which of the many buildings which said vooruit on them the vooruit concertzaal(Concert hall). I eventually found a little stair which went down to the canal where there were a suitable number of Black clad teens to suggest that one of the greatest genius’ of 90’s rock was about to play. I wandered down and went in. It was quite a strange venue. The hall is just a standard theatre, but there are windows at the back, so in the European summer evening, there was daylight.:
A strange thing for a concert. As usual I had arrived far too early. I’m always guilty of doing this. It’s the 14 year old kid in me who’s scared to miss some wonderful moment by arriving late. As a result, and especially in the case of coming alone, I had a lot of sitting around to do watching the crowd and the goings on.
It was a very mixed crowd. A lot of older people, mixed with younger people. A lot of couples. The smashing pumpkins are really good, but they also have that goth following so it’s a strange audience.
The first band on were called Gliss. They were interesting I think Billy Corgan(If he chose them), had decided to give us some old school pumpkins style acid fuelled psych rock. Three piece who started with a drum machine. Girl on Bass, and two guys. The girl on bass, did a kind of “I’m on acid, look at the pretty flowers” dance while she played. At first(There supporting billy corgan – I’m insanely jealous), I thought it was pathetically fake. Then I wandered if she actually was on acid. They had a great light show. Very simple, but spot lights at there feet and a black back sheet. So they had these long silhouettes of themselves at the back. Quite simple, but quite effective. There sound was quite heavy, reverby loud guitar, layers etc. Quite pumpkinsy, but with a more modern British influence(I don’t yet know if thyey are US or Uk – or something else – from the accents I think they are US – wifi is down – I’ll google later. After the first(maybe second) song the singer/guitarist moved to the drums. I used to play in a three piece with a singing drummer, so I found this quite interesting. It worked quite well. It completely changes the dynamic of what you are watching, which is interesting. The other Guitarist then swapped with the drummer/guitarist. This is a little too simple to be interesting, but it does give me something to watch, which is different from usual with a support band. They are pretty good – I’ll listen to there CD later and see what I really think. Eventually they had moved around in just about every combination. The strangest combination was that the girl settled on the drums for a while. I’m not being sexist, but this is a very strange event. I’m not saying women can’t play the drums, just that not many do. Although she hits with her arms(As opposed to her wrists), and holds the drumsticks tight in the middle, she did a damn good job, and proved once and for all, that the acid bass playing was due to watching D’Arcy(Pumpkins Bass player) in too many videos and not to a dodgy Mushroom pizza before the concert. I don’t know how long I could cope with the swapping about if I saw them again, it kind of challenges your idea of how to rate a band, when nothing appears to be their core instrument. But certainly one of the more interesting support bands I’ve seen.
So then there was the inevitable wait while they set up the various equipment for Billy Corgan. I took this time to sit around and listen to the Flemish accents in an attempt to further my Dutch.(I didn’t get very far.)
I went back into the auditorium, and low and behold, it wasn’t the normal roadies. A normal roadie requires a faded guns n’ roses or iron maiden T-Shirt or a Beer belly. Most of the roadie activity was in setting up a 20” iMac on the stage. The iMac was actually part of the stage furniture.
So after a long wait. A curtain gets taken down at the back of the stage which reveals what looks like a concave tiled toilet wall. This is then turned on, and starts a kind of gridded 8-bit colour light show. On comes Billy, wearing a cap that looks like a gendarmes, and a black jacket. He plays the first song hidden under this cap.
The light show is quite impressive, and the sound is a very dense electronic sound, thicker than the pre release single and the examples on billy corgan’s mysapce. It makes for quite a heavy electronica. I originally didn’t like what I hear of his upcoming album, I couldn’t hear much guitar. But having seen him live, there is some pretty rocking guitar, which I’ll listen out for. Its just in a slightly different context.
There was a guy who near me almost immediately started to heckle. He was shouting that it was a boring. But from the first chord. That’s a real passion. Paying money because you know its not the pumpkins and you want to go and complain. That’s how good those early albums are. People are so pissed off that there wasn’t more. Maybe a 4 album run of supreme genius would be possible, but how long could it go for. You eventually have to move in a direction that some people don’t like.
Anyway. The band was comprised of billy on guitar and vocals. Two keyboard/synth players. One who also worked the loops and sounds coming from the iMac, and one a woman who also handled backing vocals and dancing around a little. And to the right was a man playing electronic drums. It took me a little while to get used to some one playing drums standing up.(I didn't go to many concerts in the 80's)
I had to drive back to Leuven, so all the way through was about ready to leave. But I stayed, not because I never leave concerts early, but because it was genuinely quite enthralling and good. At one point, Billy Corgan did an acappela song(well acappella to a simple loop.), I think he felt people were getting restless so apologized for not playing loud music anymore. So the heckler, asked for his money back. The Dutch and I presume Flemish have a word for this; “eikel”. It means heckler or something like that. Billy’s response was that if you want loud rock music you should go off and make it yourself, which I thought was a great response. He’s on his particular musical trip at the moment, if it doesn’t fit with yours, find something which does.
After this, as if on cue, the music seemed to get angrier, the visuals depicted fire, and Billy was getting pissed off with the microphone.(Or taking out his pissed off ness at the heckler) The irony was that, while not the 120 Decibels of a video I’ve seen of the pumpkins, it was a very loud dense sound. What I think the nay sayers wanted was fast. The sound is dense slow dirges.(But not that depressing) There was a lot of guitar. Billy Corgan proved he could still noodle with the best of them.
I can’t comment on all the songs, cos I don’t know the names of them. They were a little samey. But I would say the same about Siamese dream or gish if listening to it for the first time. Its an interesting sound, It also includes a Bee Gees cover, which is beautiful and sad.(It’s a very different representation!!!). I’ve always wondered how much of what Billy Corgan does is tongue and cheek. There are many songs he could cover, but for some reason he found(Or I think injected), beauty into this Bee Gees song. I wonder if Barry, Brian, Bernard, Maurice(I have no idea how many there are what they are called) will ever appreciate what an honour this is.
So all in all. Some very well crafted music, with dense slow progressions. Its rock but not as we know it, and I think its pushed the envelope too far for most people.
Photos to follow – if they turn out – I forgot the battery for my digital camera, so had to use one of those disposable cameras.
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