Experiencing the Smashing Pumpkins concert in Manila.

It was a very rainy Wednesday night when my friend, as well as me and my partner braved the torrential downpour just to watch the Smashing Pumpkins perform in the Araneta-Smart Coliseum. I was doubtful that it we would still have good seats considering that we arrived in the venue an hour before the start of the program. However, when we got in, I was surprised to see a lot of seats still empty, oh well, it was raining hard that night and traffic was horrendous all over the city. So I believed my friend when she told me that there were still a lot of seats remaining for that night, that early. 

The front stage area was barely filled in half, so while we wait, I was doubtful it was ever going to be filled by half when the concert starts. It was past 8:30 PM and people kept coming in, the show was supposed to start by that time. It was almost past an hour and the front stage area was already way past half filled, so not bad, a lot of people did come. The upper box areas of Araneta were also quite filled with people, not bad for a very rainy night.

I was lost and was quite bored when the band played their songs from their album Oceania, although I saw a few people singing to their songs, my friend and me were really lost and she surprisingly fell asleep. I was feeling a bit disappointed mainly because I no longer know what the band was playing. I kept on wondering, will they ever play the songs I wish they would play, the old ones? The crowd was mainly composed of my same age group, old-school fans that were listening to the band way back in the 1990s so the venue was generally peaceful and quiet with a loud clapping in between songs as the band played their newer songs.

When the band roadies finally put the keyboards aside, my heart pounded fast, and I was ecstatic, because I thought… “Finally, here we go, this is what me and the rest of the fans came here for”, because there were no keyboards in old-school Smashing Pumpkins music! We were not disappointed. People started screaming, raising their hands, and clapping their hearts out when the band played Tonight, Tonight; which was one of their greatest hits back in the old days, from their on, people were singing along to the Smashing Pumpkins’ greatest hits, “this is the Smashing Pumpkins that we came here to for”, I said to myself. The crowd went wild when they played Bullet with Butterfly Wings and 1979 as well as when they played the rest of their old-school hits. My partner and me were surprised and happy that the band played their song Stand Inside Your Love, that song was our sort of theme song.

Overall, the band did not disappoint, the band ended their two and a half hour gig with a song from Kiss. They played all the songs I wish and expected them to play except for the song Perfect. We had a great time, I’m sure rest of the fans did too!