We enter the arena, sit down, and Aussie support band Jebediah play. Jason and I hate them, Karen loves them and INSISTS that I tape their set for her, which, with a sigh, I do. Jebediah play snot nosed punk pop shite for 30mins then leave. Good.

The Pumpkins enter the stage at 9pm on the nose, and the gorgeous chords to "To Sheila" wash over the arena. Facing the stage, D'arcy is stage left. She's wearing her hair up, with a headband with 2 little black horns on top. She's also wearing a top like she wears on the "Adore" inner sleeve-a transparent, fish net thing. She's also wearing black leather or vinyl trousers with red splotche all over the legs, and black boots with high heels. Billy is in the middle, clad in black trousers, black long-sleeved shirt, and black leather jacket. James, stage right, is wearing clothes similar to Billy's.

On a riser, centre stage behind Billy, a large, bald fellow plays some weird drum kit percussion thing. The drummer proper (Kenny Arnoff) is on a lower drum riser slightly to the right and behind Billy. Incidentally, the drummer from Jebediah used Kenny's drumkit for Jebediah's set, probably to minimise equipment change over time. Kenny's drumkit is actually rather small, it's also red, and he's a motherfucker of a player. To the right of James, on the right edge of the stage, facing the band instead of the audience, is the other percussionist and Mike whatshisface that played with David Bowie some years back. The percussionist is behind Mike and has what appears to be an upright xylophone and a large drum up there, along with some other weird instruments. In front of Mike's keyboards James has 6 guitars standing up.

Besides the ordinary foldback lining the lip of the stage, the Pumpkins had a row of speakers on top of each other and curving inwards, hanging from the roof or lighting rig, one either side of Billy. Darcy also had her bass amp just to the left of her.

So, "To Sheila" opened the show, drifting, absolutely gorgeous, drifting, building up and gently down again...

Then, "Behold! The Night Mare", the band seem good tonight, they're already a tight unit, slowly burning, D'arcy in particular appears less icy than previous performances, she's slowly loosening up. James is a worry, however. I watch him, he's standing still, playing the song on his guitar, not moving. I'm worried. Where's his usual silly grin?

Where's the dry, barbed, witty humour? D'arcy and Billy look like they're having some measure of fun, James doesn't look too happy at all. Still, the song is great.

The percussion something to behold.

Straight into "Ava Adore". A different performance to the album version-a different intro and modified verse and chorus. Sounds great. The album's was only released on June 1 in Australia (my birthday!), and already they're reinventing the songs. D'arcy's starting to move more, but not terribly much. Billy's howling the words. James is still not moving much.

"Pug" is next. I'm surprised they played this. From previous setlists I've seen, they don't seem to play this song much. They didn't play it on the June 19 Circular Quay show in Sydney, Australia, that I taped from Triple J radio the previous night. But it really smokes. Fantastic. "Come and kiss me sweetly..." such a beautiful sentence, sung by Billy with such malevolence...great stuff. D'arcy is starting to throw rock star moves now, standing with one leg in front of the other and throwing her arm out in front of her with every bass note she plays. Leaning backwards and playing better with more passion than I've seen her before. James walks to Kenny and plays off the drums, facing Kenny and playing, but he just doesn't seem too excited tonight.

"Crestfallen" is up next, another gorgeous song, relatively faithful to it's recorded counterpart. Billy looks like he's having a ball, the Mike is playing his arse off, and that rhythm section has to be seen to be believed. Then "Tear". Everybody says this about one song or another, but I honesty believe I heard the DEFINITIVE version of this song tonight. Extended jam, great drumming, and Billy pouring his heart into the vocals. It's not one of my favourites on the album, but tonight it was a definite highlight.

Then comes the mini "Melon Collie..." set, interrupted by only 1 "Adore" track. "Thru The Eyes Of Ruby" is first, and it is nearly a whole new song compared to it's studio cousin...jammed out, lengthy, every player absolutely shines on this song. Musically dense tonight, it takes on a whole new life. D'arcy plays facing the audience, facing the crowd, swinging her arms, having a ball. Billy's warmed to the audience tonight, he's said very little, but he's had a few laughs and appears content. Still can't say the same for James though.

"...Ruby" is followed by "Perfect", similar to the studio version, and D'arcy's backing vocals are fantastic. They're mixed well, they're in tune, and they add a different emotion to the song. This is followed by Billy plunking strings on his guitar and announcing the get-to-know-D'arcy-session. D'arcy states her supposed hobbies, while James-James!!! finally chimes in with "I like wombats"!!! and the crowd laughs. This is the James we know and love, but it's only a glimmer, and it's soon gone.

The rest of the mini-"Melon Collie..." set is begun with a new rendition of "Tonight, Tonight". It's acoustic, it's strummed quickly through, and is soon over. This is followed by the now traditional percussion jam (WOW!!!) and segued into Bullet With Butterfly Wings" which has undergone drastic changes. It still rocks like the best of them, but in a whole new way now. Less dense musically, the song seems to 'breathe' more, there's room to jam on it, there's room to do anything with it, and Billy sings the chorus in musical silence. D'arcy's obviously having fun, and it's great to see the Pumpkins play all these older songs and have fun with them by reinventing them.

This is followed by "Daphne Descends" which was one of Jason's highlights, although how Billy could consider keeping "Daphne..." on the album and not wanting "Appels and Oranjes" on it is beyond me. Thanks for pushing him D'arcy!!! Billy's not moving around onstage as much as he did in 1996, but this is OK, the music doesn't require smashed guitars and alternarock howls. It requires concentration, meditation, and still Billy and D'arcy are, I think, loving this.

"Shame" is next, and is also fantastic, Billy breathing life into the beautiful "Sh-sh-sh-shame" chorus. "For Martha" follows, and is lengthened, explored, and put away with Billy stating we can all go home now, for the set is over.

Of course, it isn't. Everyone except James returns to the stage. Again, I wonder, what the hell is going on with him. Billy states that James is sick. D'ary teases it's because he got too drunk. His absence doesn't stop Billy and D'arcy having fun, which implies they're not too worried about him, which means it's nothing too serious. Triple J, before the gig they broadcast the night before, had an interview with Billy and D'arcy, but not James. I don't know if this was because he was ill, or because the interviews may have been pre-recorded without him, but James did not look well the entire time he was onstage. Billy stated it was time to play another old song, and the remaining Pumpkins burst into the wonderful bouncing tune that is "1979". Unlike the 1996 shows, the electric version played this night did not include the backing tapes of the "dididi" noise between each line of the verse. After the song, the crowd began chanting "Zero, zero, zero...", Billy and D'arcy stopped, listened, smiled, then Billy laughed and stated he's put that shirt into "retirement", which led into a rollicking "Transmission" which was jammed out and highlighted by Billy's howls of "TRANSMISSION...ON MY RADIO!!!" I'm not familiar with the song, but I absolutely loved this version of it. As the song eased to its end, Billy told us all to leave, as the song should have finished by now, and would get a lot worse in the next few minutes. Some people actually fucking complied!!! For those of us who stayed, however, we were treated to a beautifully messy ending to the track.

Then D'arcy, perhaps remembering the crowd's earlier chant, began playing the bass line to...you guessed it..."Zero"!!! Then Billy joined in on guitar, playing that familiar riff, rocking out like the Pumpkins we used to know, showing that they know how to rock with raw power as well as with a devastating subtlety shown by the new songs. They reared into the track and crashed on in, Billy singing the first verse, forgetting the words, messing up the riff, and then improvising on it, instrumentally, the percussionists and Kenny, who probably didn't rehearse this song, doing a more than capable job of (bluffing?) powering their way through it. The crowd loved it, and I possibly more, because having studied the setlists for this tour, I knew they shouldn't be playing this!!! Billy stated, we could definitely go now, that we were a great audience (remember the old Rolling Stone article where Billy says the Pumpkins both mock and embrace the old cliches?) and bid us goodnight. And what a fucking night it was.

I have a tour t-shirt, the complete show on tape (I taped it and it came out beautifully!), and a load of great memories of the gig.

Postscript: Flying home today (Monday morning), Karen and I were seated next to a man on the plane. We all got to talking, and we found out his name was Dave, and that he was a drummer who lived in Sydney and had gone to Melbourne on business and that he attended a drummer's convention there. (He was on a plane to Adelaide with us because he had more business here, too). Anyway, we told him about the gig, and he stated that Kenny Arnoff also attended the drumming convention. Dave stated he spoke to Kenny, who didn't say much about the Pumpkins except that it was "...a gig". Dave stated that session drummers, no matter how talented, usually played for a few years with somebody famous for the cash in order to be able to live without financial worries, and then to improve their skills later. He implied this was the situation with Kenny at the moment. Dave stated he has liked Kenny's drumming for years, and that Kenny also played with John Mellancamp. Just thought I'd share this bit of info for any out there who may be the least bit interested.

SETLIST
Main Set:
To Sheila
Behold! The Night Mare
Ava Adore
Pug
Crestfallen
Tear
Thru The Eyes Of Ruby
Perfect
D'arcy Jam
Tonight, Tonight
Percussion Jam
Bullet With Butterfly Wings
Daphne Descends
Shame
For Martha

Encore 1:
1979
Transmission
Zero