Artist	Song
The Smashing Pumpkins	"Good evening" [4.10.99 St. Andrew's Hall, Detroit, MI]
The Smashing Pumpkins	Rocket [8.14.93 The Metro, Chicago, IL]
The Smashing Pumpkins	Zero [6.27.97 Glastonbury Festival, Glastonbury, UK]
The Smashing Pumpkins	Death Don't Have No Mercy [Grateful Dead cover] [2.17.97 Carnegie Hall, NYC, NY]
The Smashing Pumpkins	For Martha [6.19.98 International Shipping Harbor at Circular Quay, Sydney, AU]
The Smashing Pumpkins	With Every Light [8-24-00 Hammerstein Ballroom, NYC, NY; VH-1 Storytellers]
The Smashing Pumpkins	Tear [7-31-98 Orpheum Theater, Boston, MA]
The Smashing Pumpkins	Blue Skies Bring Tears [4.16.00 Aragon Ballroom, Chicago, IL]
The Smashing Pumpkins	Bullet With Butterfly Wings + Once in a Lifetime [Talking Heads cover][10.27.00 Valby Hallen, Copenhagen, DK]
The Smashing Pumpkins	Silverfuck ad-lib "Lousy Lay" [6.15.96 Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA]
The Smashing Pumpkins	Silverfuck medley [2-24-94 The Astoria, London, UK]
The Smashing Pumpkins	Farewell and Goodnight [5-15-96 Brixton Academy, London, UK]

Comment:

This is a companion piece to the previous volume, which highlights why The Smashing Pumpkins were so compelling live.

The Greatest Band of the '90s, Vol. V: For Just One More Show


"Good evening" [4.10.99 St. Andrew's Hall, Detroit, MI]

The Pumpkins welcomed Jimmy Chamberlin back to band at this show, which was the first date on the Arising Tour.


"Rocket" [8.14.93 The Metro, Chicago, IL]

After this especially anthemic version of "Rocket," Billy Corgan yells, "Are you ready?!?!" and the crowd roars back. To which he replies, "Yeah, but are you ready to rock?" This sort of baiting is what Pumpkins shows were all about.


"Zero" [6.27.97 Glastonbury Festival, Glastonbury, UK]

"Zero" has always been one of the more intense songs in the Pumpkins catalog, and this performance is pure adrenaline right up to the sharp ring-out.


"Death Don't Have No Mercy" [Grateful Dead cover] [2.17.97 Carnegie Hall, NYC, NY]

Martha Corgan was diagnosed with terminal cancer in the summer of 1996, shortly after the Pumpkins kicked Chamberlin out of the band. Billy Corgan has said she was "totally healthy one day, dead five months later."

The lyrics to this performance of "Death Don't Have No Mercy" include these lines:

He'll come to your house and he won't stay long

You'll look in the bed and your mother'll be gone

Death don't take a vacation in this land

"For Martha" [6.19.98 International Shipping Harbor at Circular Quay, Sydney, AU]

Corgan's tribute to his mother.


"With Every Light" [8-24-00 Hammerstein Ballroom, NYC, NY; VH-1 Storytellers]


At this session for VH-1, Corgan describes the story behind "With Every Light": "For a while, me and James, and D'arcy at the time, were working out with a friend of ours, a trainer in Chicago. We were building up our muscles to once again tour the world with rock and roll.

"... I was having a conversation with our friend, and she was talking about how her mother passed away at roughly the same time as my mother. And she said, 'I have a friend who's a psychic,' although the friend doesn't like the use of that word so we'll call her an intuitive. 'She's an intuitive, and she can possibly communicate with your mother.' So I became intrigued with the idea that maybe I would talk with my mother somewhere on the other side, as they say.

"... My mother did actually try to contact somebody and left messages through this other sort of intuitive woman, so it wasn't ... of out of my frame of reference that my mother would be able to communicate from the dead, so to speak.

"... I went to see this person, who's become a very close friend of mine, and really in that particular afternoon so many things about life and the thing that I believed in were ... confirmed for me in general way. And I became ... really content with the world, and the first thing I did when I got home was I picked up a guitar and I wrote this song."

To read the rest of the liner notes for Volume Five, please follow this link to the miscellaneous forum.

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