Smashing Pumpkins Announce Charity Tour

All ticket sales revenue from group's 13-city summer tour to go to local youth charities.

Music News Editor-in-Chief Michael Goldberg reports:

The Smashing Pumpkins today announced a 14-show, 13-city charity tour, billed as "An Evening with the Smashing Pumpkins." The tour will begin in San Francisco on June 30 and end in Miami on August 8.

The group will donate all ticket sales revenue from the 14 shows to local youth charities; one non-profit organization in each city where the Pumpkins perform will be the beneficiary of the ticket sales revenue in that city, according to the group's management.

"With this tour and in choosing these specific charities we believe it is very important not just to lend our name but also give our money," Pumpkins leader Billy Corgan said in a prepared statement.

"Each organization has such a positive impact in the community," Corgan continued, "we wanted to shine the spotlight on their work."

The much anticipated summer tour by one of the most popular rock bands in the world will begin in San Francisco on June 30 at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium; the money from that show will go to the East Bay Agency for Children.

The group, whose latest album, Adore, was released on Tuesday, will also hit Detroit, Dallas, Houston, Toronto, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Boston, New York City, Atlanta, Nashville, Charlotte and Miami, where the final show will take place.

The Pumpkins have been touring Europe since mid-May, performing 90 minute sets that have drawn mostly from their new album, but have also included "1979" off their smash 1995 album, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, and a cover of Joy Division's "Transmission."

As has been the case in Europe, for the North American shows the trio -- guitarist James Iha, bassist D'Arcy Wretzky and Corgan -- will be joined by drummer Kenny Aronoff, percussionists Stephen Hodges and Dan Morris, and keyboardist Mike Garson.

The Pumpkins, traveling with a 19-or-so member crew, will bear all expenses incurred during the tour. Those expenses are expected to be "much more than" several hundred thousand dollars, according to the group's publicist, Gayle Fine. "There's transportation, hotels, sound, lights..."

The shows will be billed as "An Evening with the Smashing Pumpkins," and there will be no opening acts. In Nashville on August 5, the group will do a "special acoustic show" at the Grand Ole Opry, said Fine. "The plan was never to do a long tour," said Fine. "This is a way to get to major areas of the country and to pay back their fans.

"The band wants to be involved in positive things," Fine added, explaining the decision to do a charity tour. "Each of those [charities] does very positive work in their communities. They're all great, local grassroots organizations. The Pumpkins have been together for ten years. This is a way to give back to the kids and communities that have been supportive during the past ten years."

The Pumpkins spent several months researching charities in the cities where they will perform, ultimately selecting non-profit organizations that "work with kids and are family oriented," Fine said. "Taken as a whole [the charities] cover pretty much all walks of life."

Fine added that the goal in each city is to "give at least six figures [over $100,000] to the local charity." If they accomplish that goal, more than $1.4 million will reach the 13 youth-oriented charities. In addition to the charity tour, the group will perform at four H.O.R.D.E. dates, Milwaukee's Summerfest, Minneapolis' free Hennepin Avenue Block Party, and headline a benefit show at Chicago's Soldier Field (with net proceeds going to the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Northern Illinois.

"An Evening With The Smashing Pumpkins" Summer Tour

June 30; San Francisco; Bill Graham Civic Auditorium; East Bay Agency for Children (charity)
July 8; Detroit; State Theater; HAVEN
July 10; Dallas; Will Rodgers Auditorium; The Family Place
July 12; Houston; Bayou Place; Houston Children's Charities
July 20; Toronto; Massey Hall; Street Outreach Services
July 28; Philadelphia; Tower Theater; Cramp Community Reading Center
July 29; Washington, D.C.; Constitution Hall; City Lights School
July 31; Boston; Orpheum Theater; Children's AIDS Program
August 1 & 2; New York City; Radio City Music Hall; Hale House
August 4; Atlanta; Fox Theater; Reach
August 5; Nashville; Grand Ole Opry; W. O. Smith Nashville Music School
August 6; Charlotte, North Carolina; Ovens Auditorium; Elon Homes for Children
August 8; Miami; Sunrise Theater; Center for Children in Crisis

Smashing Pumpkins Set Homecoming Benefit Show

Smashing Pumpkins will have a homecoming party in Soldier Field after all. The band is playing a show there on July 7 with Cheap Trick opening to benefit the Chicago Make-A-Wish Foundation.

The show kicks off at 7:30 p.m. with all tickets priced at $30. Fans will be able to get their hands on tickets Saturday June 13 at noon Central time with an right ticket per-person limit. Credit card carrying fans can order tickets over the phone at (312) 559-1212. The Pumpkins had previously been turned down in their efforts to stage a free concert at the site.

"We're thrilled that this situation worked out," Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan said of the show. "And although we can't play a free concert like we had hoped, we're excited to be able to play a charity show and support a local Chicago charity like the Make-A-Wish Foundation."

Pumpkins to Play Huge Hometown Charity Show

Concert will be band's only Chicago appearance during upcoming tour.

Senior Writer Gil Kaufman reports:

The Smashing Pumpkins will live their dream of giving something back to their hometown fans when they play a charity show at Chicago's Soldier Field on July 7. The band will donate 100 percent of net proceeds from the show at the 55,000-capacity home of football's Chicago Bears to the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Northern Illinois, according to the group's managers.

"We're thrilled that this situation has worked out," said Pumpkins' leader Billy Corgan in a prepared statement. " Although we can't play a free concert like we had hoped, we're excited to be able to play a charity show and support a local Chicago charity."

The show, which will be opened by the group's heroes and Illinois neighbors Cheap Trick, will be the band's only appearance in Chicago during their brief upcoming U.S. tour, the dates and venues of which have not yet been released.

The Pumpkins had originally hoped to celebrate their 10th anniversary as a band with a massive, free party for their hometown Chicago fans at the Petrillo Band Shell in Grant Park near the city's waterfront. City officials, however, denied the band's offer last month, citing fears of an overflow crowd estimated at between 100,000-600,000 mobbing the 60,000-capacity space.

At the time, the band's co-manager, Cliff Burnstein, said of the rebuff, "This was a way to give back. In their hometown. It sucks big time."

Pumpkins publicist Gayle Fine added that the group's members handpicked the charity, which works to fulfill the wishes of children between the ages of 2 and 18 suffering from life-threatening illnesses.

Corgan had told the Chicago Tribune last month that the denial from the city to do the free concert was "one of the biggest heartbreaks I've ever had in my life."

Tickets, priced at $30, will go on sale June 13. There is an eight-ticket limit per person.

A representative for the Make-A-Wish Foundation said the charity group is overjoyed at the generous offer from the band. "We are totally excited and elated to be in this partnership with them," said Linda Parck, director of corporate and community relations for the foundation. "I couldn't believe it when I heard, I had to sit down." Parck said she was unclear as to why the group had chosen the Make-A-Wish organization but that she was aware of them working with the charity in the past.

"I think they did some research and came up with us, probably because we have such a heavy presence in the Chicagoland area," Parck said. "We had a child years ago who wanted to meet a band and had the Pumpkins as their backup and when they met the Pumpkins said, 'those other guys are so much nicer than the band I wanted to meet,' " in reference to the Chicago trio, who just released their new album, entitled Adore.

The massive charity show at the 55,000-plus capacity football stadium is the first of its kind at the venue, according to Joanne Kelleher, an administrative assistant at Soldier Field.

The Pumpkins are scheduled to play to more than 100,000 fans at the free Hennepin Avenue Block Party on July 17 in Minneapolis. In early May, Corgan had called that event's sponsor, Rock 100.3-FM, and complained that several cities had denied the band's requests to stage free shows. The group will wrap a one-month European promotional tour on June 9, during which it played a number of unusual venues, including the Guggenheim Museum in Bilboa, Spain, and the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Smashing Pumpkins Debut At No. 2; Master P Moves To No. 1

The almighty Master P rises from the middle of The Billboard 200 next week to No. 1, depriving the Smashing Pumpkins' latest album of the top spot.

Master P's Da Last Don moves to No. 1 from No. 112, where it debuted last week prematurely due to a street date violation. Da Last Don was slated to come out -- and for the most part did -- last Tuesday (June 2); however, some stores got a hold of the disc early and sold it, selling enough for its bow at No. 112. According to Billboard magazine's Geoff Mayfield, it was the largest street date violation in the history of SoundScan.

Meanwhile, the Smashing Pumpkins' Adore nabbed the No. 2 position, selling 173,996, according to SoundScan, in its first week out. Last week's No. 1, the City of Angels soundtrack, falls down to No. 3. Other artists debuting on next week's chart include: Onxy's Shut 'Em Down at No. 10; Gloria Estefan's Gloria! at No. 23; the X-Files soundtrack at No. 31; Lord Tariq & Peter Gunz's Make It Reign at No. 38; Rod Stewart's When We Were the New Boys at No. 44; the Jimi Hendrix Experience's BBC Sessions at No. 50; and Tricky's Angels with Dirty Faces at No. 84.

Change Their Name to Smashing Tortoises?

Recording industry observers expecting a tight rap-versus-rock showdown may be disappointed Wednesday when SoundScan reports first-week sales totals for new albums by New Orleans rapper Master P and the Chicago-based alt-rock band the Smashing Pumpkins. The initial-week figure for Master P's "MP Da Last Don" is expected to be as much as three times higher than the number attained by the Pumpkins' "Adore," perhaps exceeding 500,000 copies. By the time the albums run their course, however, the Pumpkins could end up smashing Master P. "It appears that Master P will be th ebig winner this week, and I underline THIS week," says Gary Arnold, vice president of marketing for the Best Buy retail chain. "As happens frequently with rap records, you have this huge groundswell of fans who show up in Week 1 to buy the album. It's part of being in fashion, but that usually lasts only a few weeks.". Acts such as the Pumpkins, on the other hand, are built to last, according to Arnold. "They're about to start a tour and a long-term relationship with the consumer in connection with this album," the executive says. "Don't discount them from being the overall winner in this sales battle when all is said and done. It's kind of like a tortoise-and-hare thing."

The Big Album - Fully Ripened

SMASHING PUMPKINS (8/10)
Adore
(Hut Recordings)

May 1991 saw the release of two albums central to the grunge explosion in America and later in Britain. The first, of course, was Nirvana's staggering Nevermind; the second, the Smashing Pumpkins' Gish which, although fairly well-received, bowed a little under the weight of the band's obvious affection for early Seventies rock, and Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath in particular. By the time of the Pumpkins' second album, Siamese Dream, in 1993, Nirvana were huge and grunge was all conquering. The sheer scale and grandeur of Siamese Dream had critics salivating. Some suggested that Nirvana's imminent follow-up, In Utero, could not possibly match it. Kurt Cobain's band did not even try, and their stripped-down, terrifying third studio album stole the limelight once more.

A year after Cobain's death, the Pumpkins and their leader, Billy Corgan - dysfunctional by his own admission - took their pomp grunge even further with the sprawling and flawed Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. The self-loathing and ludicrously over-blown posturing were beginning to look ridiculous, especially when set against Nirvana's intimate intensity. Even Corgan appeared weary, proclaiming, "It's the end of this band." For all the wrong reasons, 1996 was a turning point in the group's development. The band's tour keyboard player, Jonathan Melvoin, died of a heroin overdose after a night of narcotic indulgence with the band's drummer Jimmy Chamberlin (who departed soon after). Worse was to follow as Corgan's mother Martha, who had often been excoriated in Corgan's songs for abandoning him as a child, was diagnosed as having terminal cancer and died five months later, with Corgan at her side.

Two years on from this worst of times, and remarkably, the Smashing Pumpkins have produced their best album to date, an album that, for a number of reasons, is shocking. It is for the most part a very un-rock album. The trademark thunderhead guitars have been abandoned and replaced by nimble melodicism, imaginative string arrangements and liberal splashes of pop's primary colours. It is a record very much overshadowed by the death of Corgan's mother. Once Upon a Time, a lovely, pastoral acoustic lament, features the heartbreaking line, "Mother, I hope you know/ that I miss you so." But it is on the epic tribute to his mother, For Martha, that Corgan's grief is fashioned into something truly spectacular. It is simply beautiful; a piano motif guides an elegantly structured verse into the tranquility of the chorus: "If you have to go don't say goodbye/if you have to go I will get by/Someday I will follow you/and see you on the other side." The song then explodes into a guitar barrage reminiscent of the bombast on their earlier albums, before subsiding again. And it all works perfectly.

The new album also sees Corgan embracing the light and shade of pop. The wonderful Appels and Oranjes is stripped down New Order, possessed of a sinewy, direct tune and distinguished by a resignedly optimistic chorus, "What if the sun refuses to shine/What if the clouds refuse to rain/What if the clocks hesitate/What will you do?" Furthermore, The Tale of Dusty and Pistol Pete is a fluid, gorgeous acoustic lilt which passes itself off as a Pumpkins' summer anthem until you clock the line, "As he holds her down in the cold lonely wind", and you realise that Corgan now understands that uncomfortable subject matter need not be clothed in music of sackcloth.

Confounding all expectations, the Smashing Pumpkins are now out on their own, making the kind of heartfelt and ambitious music of which Kurt Cobain would have been proud.

- PAUL CONNOLLY