Smashing Pumpkins @Birmingham Academy 19/11/2011

There are 20,000 songs on my ipod. I own roughly 8000 CD’s.

But not one of those songs or CD’s is a Smashing Pumpkins one –which rather begs the question of how I found myself to be at a Smashing Pumpkins gig.

The answer is a simple one. At the start of the year I decided to try and go to a gig a week. Largely I have done this. There have been only five weeks this year where I haven’t seen a band (it would have been four, but Eddie Spaghetti was called off after the riots).

When this gig went on sale I didn’t have any other gigs at the time and my brother was a Pumpkins fan a few years ago so we decided to go.

Whilst I wasn’t a fan as such, I did have some knowledge of the Pumpkins. I liked “Siamese Dream”, I liked “Mellon Collie….”So a glance at the setlist for tonight’s show meant I was a little unprepared – there were around 20 songs played and I knew about four.

This wasn’t a help.

The second thing that put an immediate dampener things is the Academy itself. We decide to give the first band a miss (my love of avant garde pop isn’t too big and that what they are billed as) meaning that by the time we get to the balcony we can’t see a thing.

There is a third problem. The crowd. The audience isn’t my usual gig-going brethren. For a start there is almost no one wearing a gig T-shirt for the Pumpkins. For a second thing the only two shirts for other bands I can see (apart from my AC/DC 09 shirt and my Brother’s Wildhearts hoodie) are a Dandy Wahols shirt and one of those Zeppelin shirts they sell in Top Shop. Frankly we are a million miles from the metal I understand.

But what of the show itself. Well, to be honest it was ok. I would be lying if I said I enjoyed it – it is difficult to enjoy something you just don’t know. The band play well, although Billy Corgan is an odd frontman – he never speaks to the crowd apart from in the encore but as always when you go and see a band on spec there are two possible outcomes: one is that feel like you are at a party somewhere you don’t belong and the second is that you get into it and have a great time. “Tonight, Tonight” – to borrow one of the songs I do know - is definitely the former.

There is a brilliant encore of “Zero” and “Bullet With Butterfly Wings”  during which the Pumpkins sound great, then, after two hours 15 very long minutes its over.

Not an experience I will repeat too quickly.