I had first took notice of Tonic by way of their song “Casual Affair.” Based on that I had my friend Marvin burn me a copy of the album Lemon Parade (sidenote: burning CD’s was still a very new thing). I grew keen on the whole album but somehow failed to notice the album Sugar, which had come out almost a year before this show. Lucky for me they played most of the songs off Lemon Parade. I’m almost positive that this was one of the first concerts I ever attended by myself. Berbatis Pan was packed for this show because it is not that big of a place to begin with.
I was really excited to see the Smashing Pumpkins because I had liked them pretty much since learning of them after Siamese Dream came out. I also don’t remember really getting another chance to see them after I missed out on Lollapalooza 1994. This show was a weird free concert thrown by the radio station KUFO. The protocol was to show up at Music Millennium in uptown Portland earlier in the week to receive a bracelet that you would in turn have to wear for the next few days to get you into the concert. I believe they ended up changing some of the details but ultimately Roscoe and I got in and the show was held at Berbati’s Pan, which is a very small venue. It’s more like a bar than a proper place to see a band of magnitude like the Smashing Pumpkins, which is probably why they ended up playing a semi-acoustic show. They were still about a month away from releasing the MACHINA/the machines of God album but that did not stop them from playing songs from the then unreleased album. The original band was intact with the exception of D’arcy Wretzky who was replaced by Melissa Auf der Maur for bass duties. Billy Corgan looked genuinely happy and had a very distinct way of rocking his body when he played guitar. The whole thing was very informal and they actually had a little Q & A near the end. I was also able to go up to Billy and shake his hand after the performance was over. I said, ”thanks for rocking” and he winked at me! It was a little weird but I’ll take it. The other really memorable thing was that the sticker you see was actually affixed to a bald cap wig in honor of Billy’s shaved head. Many people were wearing them, which looked pretty funny on a crowd as a whole.
SETLIST: Glass and the Ghost Children, Crush, I of the Morning, Today, Blue Skies Bring Tears, Heavy Metal Machine, If There Is A God, Age of Innocence, 1979, Everybody (Backstreet’s Back), Join Together, Bullet With Butterfly Wings, Rock On, Zero
