Description
In February of 2000 Smashing Pumpkins released their album Machina, an ambitious rock opera that would be the end of the band would split up in December of that year. Billy Corgan once explained that the album was written as a pseudo-rock-opera type deal and when the band completely fell apart in the middle, the album never really got finished in the way I’d written it, so I view it as kind of an unfinished album. Many of the tracks were painstakingly designed to be Smashing Pumpkins hits in the year 2000, unmistakably the work of Billy Corgan, but sleek, shiny, and ostentatious enough to compete with nu-metal and boy bands that were crowding them out of MTV. None of it worked and the album was a commercial failure compared to the bands earlier albums. The band hit the road to promote the album and called it the Sacred And Profane Tour. They hired ex-Hole bass player Melissa Auf Der Maur for the tour and this album captures the band live at the Electric Factory in Philadelphia on the 1st of May 2000. However internal fighting, drug use and diminishing record sales started to take its toll on the band on May 23rd Billy Corgan announced that the band had taken the decision to break up after the tour was over. The final show took place on December 2 at The Metro, the same Chicago club the band started their career at twelve years earlier. This show from Electric Factory is actually a cool part of the Smashing Pumpkins history. The show this night run longer that many other US shows from this tour. The band did do 22 tracks, unfortunately only 14 could fit onto this album, and many of them are great versions of these tunes, the band even performed a full version of Drown, which is a rarity live. The opening though sounds a bit weird, Pale Scales sounds distant and lots of crowd noise. It takes a minute or so before it comes in full. This was also the last time the performed The Who tune Join Together before breaking up. So overall a great sounding show from a rough time in the bands history.
Track list:
1. Pale Scales
2. Age Of Innocence
3. Stand Inside Your Love
4. To Sheila
5. If There Is A God
6. 1979
7. Mayonaise
8. Bullet With Butterfly Wings
9. Once In A Lifetime
10. Drown
11. Blank Page
12. Today
13. Band Introduction
14. Join Together