Smashing Pumpkins Concert

As Nancy Reagan never said, "Just say yes!"

This past Wednesday Pau called me up around 7pm and told me that he had an extra ticket to see the Smashing Pumpkins at Razzamatazz, a local Barcelona club. The catch was that I had to leave immediately because he was already in line waiting to get into the show.

No problem! I hopped on the metro and got to the club in less than 30 minutes just as he and Pili were approaching the front door of the venue. I'm not the biggest Smashing Pumpkins' fan but I am familiar with their material and do like a handful of their songs. Regardless, I was stoked to get to see such a big-name band at such a small venue.

With Pili and Pau waiting in line for a while before the show, we were able to get right up against the stage. We were close enough to lead-singer Billy Corgan to watch the massive spray cloud emerge from his mouth as he spit a huge hocker between each song!


The club is a relatively intimate space - my guess is that the place holds less than 3,000 people but I'm not really sure. The sound quality seemed to just be okay but that could have been an artifact of being so close to the stage that most of the speakers were pointed behind us. Also, it's standing room only with no seating on the first level but some folks sit on the floor along the railing of the second level.

Since we were against the stage during the whole show, there were no bathroom or adult-beverage breaks but no biggie. The band played just enough of their "classics", including two of their most popular during the encore, to keep the audience fired up. This one's called "Zero" and is one of their better known songs:

So, following along with my plan to try to never say "no" when someone asks me to do something new, I got to enjoy a great show with some great folks. Thanks for the invite Pau!

By the way, I'm so old that I can remember when it was absolutely forbidden to ever take a camera, much less a video camera, into a concert. Now, every person in the place is shooting photos and/or video. My, how times have changed...wait, where's my buggy whip?