Dumbek's Random Stuff

I didn't plan on going. I didn't even bother trying to get tickets when they went on sale. But on Monday somebody pointed out to me that they released a bunch of tickets. click-click-click. 3 minutes later I had a pair. Excellent. I'm all for minimal-effort.

We timed everything pretty much perfectly. I took off work a little early, so we had time for dinner. Got in line at 8:00. Inside by 9:00. Got a decent spot and had just started beer #2 when they came on around 9:40.

The show was setup like a big political rally. I missed the hijinx before the show, but inside the club was covered in flags, red, white and blue bunting and balloons. Before the band came out a barbershop quartet came out for a few tunes.

The show was fantastic. A little bit of everything. All the hits, deeper cuts, new stuff, a mini-acoustic set, unreleased stuff and a surprising about of jamming. The rockers rocked hard. The dreamy and acoustic stuff was sweet.

I never realized that Billy is actually a good guitar player. Jimmy is a monster on drums. It's no secret that the rest of the band are pretty much hired-guns, but I don't care. I have no emotional attachment to the band. I just came to rock. Say what you want about Corgan and his ego-driven, power-hungry, money-grubbing ways - the man brought the rock in a big way on Tuesday.

29 songs in just over 3 hours. Yes - THREE hours. A bit too long, IMHO. Especially when you consider that 1 of the 3 encores was an unreleased 20+ minute psychedelic jam. People were leaving in droves by that point. I was actually digging that for a while (and it was great to have that extra space) but it went on at least 5 minutes too long. I know it seems lame to complain about getting too much music, but you want people to leave thinking "Wow! That was great!" - not thinking to themselves "Ugh - I've had enough. I'd rather be home in bed."

So the show was an unexpected treat. Dinger loved it. Me too. MUCH better than the fiasco of a show we saw the last time we saw them. Most crowded show ever and not a hit song to be seen. Ugh.

Here's the Post's review. This guy's an ass. It's pretty obvious he decided it was going to suck before he got there.

Decent video of "Today" and "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" here.