Smashing Pumpkins: Stepping into the bubble
Kevin Bronson on
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Chapter 1 (New York): First of all I’d like to thank Buzz Bands for giving me the opportunity to write this tour diary for the next four weeks or so.” As a genre, the tour diary seems to me to be a very loose and unstructured style of writing — more picaresque than developmental in terms of narrative content.” This makes tons of sense since to tour is to travel, and as
However, traveling with a big rock band is much different than driving cross-country with your friends. As a roadie/stage manager once told my friend in Explosions in the Sky who tried to tune his guitar onstage, the world of professional rock and roll is a “controlled environment” — meaning, in that case, that he needed to have his guitar in-tune before he walked onstage.” But in a more general sense, the idea of the “controlled environment” extends into almost all aspects of day-to-day life on even a medium-sized rock tour, like the one I’m currently on.” Once you step back and think about it for even a second, it can be no other way.” You not only have the band entourage to deal with but the road crew as well.” And this doesn’t even begin to delve into the world of venues, unions, curfews, and all that other boring stuff.” I’m glad someone else gets paid to think about and organize all these things.” What it means for me is that I get be a dumb, out-of-touch, sometimes-can’t-deal-with-reality musician.” Just joking, of course.” Well. maybe ”¦
On a tour of this size, the Tour Manager issues a “day-sheet” most often at the end of the day.” The day-sheet tells you exactly where and when you have to be somewhere and what you have to do.” You don’t have to think about anything — you just step in the bubble and go. Here’s a recent example:
4:50 pm – Lobby Call for everyone to go to soundcheck
5:15 pm – Sound Check
7:20 pm – Doors
8:15 pm – Smashing Pumpkins Performance
11:00 pm – Curfew
After show – return to hotel
Venue:
Massey Hall
178 Victoria Street
Toronto, ON
Actually, this is an excerpt from a much longer day-sheet.” My whole point is that being on tour with a rock band isn’t as crazy, random, or chaotic as you might think. For some bands, I’m sure it is.” With the SP, we take playing and performing pretty darn seriously, and the controlled environment allows for peak rock performances at every show.” However, this isn’t saying that what actually happens onstage is completely calculated because it isn’t by any stretch of the imagination.” We go for it every single night.
Mostly this diary is going to focus on the private rather the public.” What actually takes place from show to show is pretty easy to find in our YouTube world, so I won’t really talk about that stuff at all.” Focusing on the private will hopefully bring an element of the unexpected to this tour diary but most likely in very subdued and subtle forms.” As a young teenager enthralled by the world of rock, I read books like “Hammer of the Gods” with a devotion that only rock ‘n’ roll can bring out of a person.” I have to say, the world described in that book is still mythic to me, since I personally haven’t experienced anything that happens in it, which is probably a good thing.
What the heck am I talking about?
[…] Find out by following along with his tour diary at Buzzbands.LA; the first entry is up! […]
hi jeff. how have things changed for you with the addition of the new members? good, bad, backstage, on stage….just looking for your input on the impact of the new members and how the tour experience has been impacted if at all.
i must say you guys have assembled an amazing group of musicians. present company included.
Jeff. Thanks for doing this. Im looking forward to reading your thoughts on the private, especially since the public is, well, all over the place.
Thanks, and I look forward to seeing you guys in California.
Jeff.. Could you please clarify or shed a light in the status of the livesmashingpumpkins.com recordings?
Are they really coming? Has it been aborted? What’s happening?
Would love some official statement on that.
Thanks
Jeff,
I did not see James play and I don’t care.
I have now seen The Pumpkins with you, six times and the show just keeps getting better. I was in Hammond at the Horse, Louisville at the Palace and Charlottesvile at the Pavilon all in August and then was at the Palace in Cleveland. Nice, nice, work when you did it all with Billy dancing.
Columbus and Nashville last year. Loking forward to your entries.
Joe
Jeff,
With such well timed schedules issued to you, do you have time to work on your side projects (ie. Lassie Day Foundation). Or would that be a huge distraction to you at this point in time?
Devin — The Columbus show is now available on livedownloads, as of last night. So Yes! They are coming! And the sound great!
JACK SHACK?