The Smashing Pumpkins at the Delta Center

I love seeing The Smashing Pumpkins in concert (I've seen them multiple times including a rather memorable night at Saltair when my friends and I got stuck in the parking lot for over an hour after the show because the cars were packed in like sardines).  They always put on an epic show and last night was no exception!  They played for over three hours, with a very brief intermission between their two sets, and I loved every minute!  The first set was in honor of the 30th anniversary of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness and featured 16 tracks from this seminal album.  I definitely enjoyed hearing the hits, including "1979," "Bullet With Butterfly Wings," "Tonight, Tonight," "Thirty-Three," and "Zero," but it was also fun to hear "Cupid de Locke," "Galopogos," and "By Starlight" because they are not played live as often.  The second set was billed as a career-spanning journey through four decades of hits, deep cuts, and newer material.  The hits included "Disarm," a funky version of "Ava Adore," "Mayonaise" (I had forgotten how much I love this song), "Today," and "Cherub Rock."  Some of the deep cuts were "Machina, Machina" and "Sojourner" and the new material included "Edin," "Pentagrams," and "War Dreams of Itself" from their most recent album Aghori Mhori Mei and "Black Stars" from the forthcoming The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping soundtrack (I hadn't heard this before and I really liked it).  The visuals were incredibly theatrical with graphics announcing each song title projected on large screens (the ones used in the first set mimicked the original artwork for Mellon Collie and the ones in the second set were inspired by their classic music videos) and the lighting design was very dramatic with dark purple, blue, and pink stage washes.  Frontman Billy Corgan was in rare form last night because he was much more animated than I have ever seen him before and he joked that half the crowd hadn't been born when Mellon Collie was released.  He is is such a weirdo (complimentary) because he came on stage wearing a long black leather tunic over a flowing skirt (he switched to white for the second set) but he sounded fantastic and his guitar solos were amazing (especially during "Porcelina of the Vast Oceans").  It seems like I have been anticipating this show for so long (I bought the ticket months ago) and it was even better than I was expecting!  I had the best time and, as with the other times I've seen them, I would rank this among my very favorite concert experiences.