Smashing Pumpkins Reveal 20th Anniversary Tour Details

Smashing Pumpkins announced some details for their upcoming 20th anniversary tour. To kick off the festivities in August, the band will take to "smaller venues" to play "unique sets and songs." In November, the tour will shift to much-larger venues in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York, as well as a few more unannounced cities. "The August tour is going to be a blast... Expect a very loud and raucous show from us...and we are very, very happy to know we will finally be playing our own shows come November in New York, L.A., and Chicago... The 20th Anniversary shows will be magical... We are already working on lots of surprises," Billy Corgan wrote on the band's website. The planned Gish tour — coinciding with the reissue of the Pumpkins' ferocious debut album -- has been pushed back to 2009. So far, only one date has been announced--August 9 at Hammond, Indiana's Horseshoe Casino--with the remaining dates and venues expected to be announced shortly. Corgan revived the Pumpkins in 2006 after a five year breakup and toured behind the release of the new album Zeitgeist; only Corgan and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin were involved in the reunion, and it seems unlikely that original members James Iha and D'Arcy Wretzky will be involved in the anniversary festivities.

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Song Stories

“Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Nirvana | 1991

"Smells Like Teen Spirit," named after a brand of deodorant marketed to girls, was Kurt Cobain's attempt to "write the ultimate pop song," he said, using the soft-loud dynamic of his favorite band, the Pixies. Cobain "had that dichotomy of punk rage and alienation," the song’s producer, Butch Vig, told Rolling Stone, "but also this vulnerable pop sensibility. In 'Teen Spirit,' a lot of that vulnerability is in the tone of his voice." Sadly, by the time of Nirvana's last U.S. tour, in late '93, Cobain was tortured by the obligation to play "Teen Spirit" every night. "There are many other songs that I have written that are as good, if not better," he claimed.

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