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photo by Michael Darpino.
The Smashing Pumpkins (2010 edition) performed at Ram’s Head Live in Baltimore on Monday night. The show was part of the current ‘small venue’ tour to promote Billy Corgan’s latest free-on-the-internet Smashing Pumpkins’ project/album, “Teargarden by Kaleidyscope”. The small venue tour also seems designed to generate the buzz of exclusivity for shows that are meant to erase the memory of the 2008 anniversary tour that swayed in quality from disappointment to fiasco. As both a promotional tour for the new album (it got me downloading it*) and a do-over for the infamous 2008 “shitshow“, Monday night’s concert was a success. The show was less a nostalgia trip (although some classics were performed) than it was an introduction to the new line-up, an exploration of the band’s more recent output, and an ego-stroke for The Smashing Pumpkins’ perpetually wounded band-leader Billy Corgan.