Smashing Pumpkins Is Still a Heavy Metal Machine

I hope Virgin decides to keep its Festival in Pimilico for the next several years. It will be a welcome replacement for the HFStival and a good place to hear new bands. And this year's show was replete with excellent performances by some of the best bands around. It was a hard choice at first when deciding between this and Lollapalooza in Chicago. I love Chicago, and I love My Morning Jacket. But the Pumpkins weren't playing there this year, and all the other Lollapalooza bands I wanted to see were at Virgin Festival. (oh, and I liked the jokey riding guitar pick logo - very cool post-modern allusion to Preakness.

The atmosphere was free and fun, and as the Washington Post alluded to, there was plently of pot to go around if you're into that. I have always adhered to the South Park philosophy: "There's a time and a place for everyting, and it's called college."

One not-so-new-band that continued to Rock the House was Smashing Pumpkins with a tour de force performance of their new material interspersed with classics from their past CDs. They even hit "Heavy Metal Machine" from their ill-fated Machina/Machines of God concept double albumn. Of the six performances I've seen beginning with the inaugural date on the Siamese Dream tour (more out of luck, than rock knowledge), this was by far the best. The performances were outstanding, and the giant screens focused a lot on Billy's chord-play and Jimmy's stick banging. The fact that it dien't really focus on the bassist or other guitarist reminded me of rumors that D'Arcy and James Iha have not rejoined the band. However, Jimmy is back in despite almost dying of a heroin overdose.

While I got a teasing taste of The Police at Live Earth, their full-on concert rocked from beginning to end, demonstrating why theirs has been one of the most anticipated reunion tours in years. Evey song was played perfectly, and they thrived off the crowd's energy with one of the best performances I've ever scene. And Sting was gracious enough to reintroduce Stuart Copeland and Andy Sommers after their 20 year eclipse by Sting's solo act.

The Beasties of course rocked the house as well, setting up the crowd for the afore mentioned performance. Like the Pumpkins, they performed a variety of classics from each albumn. Unfortunately, they did not perform the always crowd pleasing"Paul Revere". Either that or I was overserved at that time.

Panic At the Disco won thousands of new fans with their performance. Reports of their eleclectic sound are not to be dismissed, and a major reason why you should see them at the next opportunity.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs put on a solid performance, that slowly built the crowd into a frenzy as Karen O crooned all our favorites.

Interpol was good. They may be a good studio band, but they need more festival experience. Not that they didn't rock, but they just didn't seem to connect with the crowd as much as they could have.

Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals put on another first rate show and converted me to full on fan. Their music is complex, mellow, funky, and radically fun. Anyone who hasn't checked them out, should definitely do so.

Incubus put on the first great performance I witnessed at the show. Though I got there late due to working on Saturday.

Live Earth: Snap Reviews

The concert yesterday rocked! Of course it would - the lineup was amazing, but the performances uneven (like me). The only real problem was that the artists only played 4-6 songs each.


The Police - Started off with a strong performance of Roxanne, and then seemed to play the order of their set list from the their 1980s best of albumn. Their solid performance definitely earns them a strong recommendation that you see them at Pimlico for the Virgin Festival on August 4th.

Roger Waters - First time I've seen him perform, and it was excellent. His superb performance of Us and Them seemed to be especially attuned to the current zeitgeist. For the less intelligent in the crowd, he beat them over the head by mixing the final juxtaposiiton of the song and war images with that of President Bush in a flight suit and the Mission Accomplished banner in the background.

Smashing Pumpkins - Gave a strong performance out of the gate with a lot of guitar gnashing before going into a new song from their next albumn (Zeigeist, out on Tuesday). Great performances of crowd pleasers Bullet with Butterfly Wings and Today. Based on this performance, I highly recommend you buy tix to their Tuesday show at the 930 Club, and see their August 5th performance at Pimlico during The Virgin Festival, on August 5th.

Bon Jovi - Obviously, the hometown favorite, after all the Meadowlands is actually in New Jersey. Added thousands of new faces that he's rocked at the concert. Ok, he spent his alotted time mostly playing from Slippery When Wet, and seriously rocked the stadium with Dead or Alive , which was one of the highlights of the night. The rumors of a surprise Bruce Springsteen appearance to paly with Bon Jovi proved unfounded. Unfortunately.

Kelly Clarkson - Put on a solid perfomance and really moved the crowd with Since You've Been Gone. Her newer music didn't sound as good.

Akon - Definitely won new fans with his great performance.

Dave Mattews Band - Not as strong as other performances I've seen. Mostly focused on early favorites that seemed to especially please the folks who came up from Virginiga. a surprisingly high number of the much younger fans could sing along to the early favorites too.

Missed John Mayer and Alicia Keys, both to my chagrin. Also missed Melissa Ethridge - a good artist, i just felt like eating instead.