Thursday February 17th, 2000- Tree Sound Studios: Atlanta, GA
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| The Smashing Pumpkins Thursday February 17th, 2000- Tree Sound Studios: Atlanta, GA |
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| OK so when we heard about the Pumpkins doing a Live X here I was very excited of course. My friend Stephanie (who is the biggest Pumpkins fan ever. Billy pulled her up on stage at the Fox show in �98) was going to get these tickets no matter what. But as you can imagine, it was practically impossible getting through the radio station. She stayed home from school on that Monday to win tickets. I called her when I got home and she was so upset cause she hadn't won, even though she had stayed home all day. So she just begged me to try also and to call all of my friends and have them try too. Well, I can never get through the radio station, so I hopped online and found my friend Jason. He's got a bald head like Billy. But anyway, I told him that he just had to try and win these tickets for us. So he said, �OK�. The first few times he got a busy signal, but then it started ringing...and it rang and rang and rang. He was still online with me while he was trying to get through so I just kept saying to him, �don't hang up! don't hang up." Sure enough he got through and won! I was so excited I started jumping up and down and everything. I ran to the phone to call Stephanie. I was so excited that I dialed the wrong number the first time. When I finally got through I got her mom and I was like, "Oh my god that was my friend on the radio, Jason. He won the tickets. We're going to see the Pumpkins!" She gave the phone to Stephanie, and Stephanie had been crying because she had heard Jason on the radio and was upset that she hadn't gotten through again. Boy was she thankful when I told her. She said that she was forever indebted to him. So the live set was on that Thursday. On that same day, my senior class had to go on this retreat thing at this church (I went to a catholic private school) and I was so happy that I got to leave early. All of my friends were like, "That's so not fair, that you get to leave to see The Smashing Pumpkins!" I thought it was quite fair ? So Stephanie and her mom picked me up around noon and we went to the "secret location" which was Tree Sound Studios. We got lunch first at a near by Chick-fil-A and saw two guys with bald heads and 99x t-shirts on. We asked them if they were going to the recording and they said that they were so we talked to them for awhile. So we went to the studio after eating and we were basically the first ones there. So we waited outside. There was a large bus that looked like a tour bus and we wanted to know if Billy was inside. so we asked this guy if Billy was inside and he said, "Do you really think that Billy Corgan would be sitting out in a parking lot all day long?" Hey...you never know. People started coming and some guy who worked for the station said that we couldn't bring in any cameras or beepers or phones or anything. There were supposed to be two sessions of the live x. The first would be the session that was on the radio and the second was going to be the Pumpkins recording a few songs. Half of the people would go to one, while the other half to the other. Stephanie and I both wanted to go to the second session because we thought that would probably last longer if they were recording songs. But when that same guy came to talk to us, I think his name was Rich or something, he said that Billy would be the only one there, because Jimmy was stuck in Florida with an eye problem and Melissa and James had the flu. We were sad about that, but they decided to just have one session instead of two which was good. The only reason I think they were going to have two sessions was because the recording studio was really small and the room we were in couldn't hold too many people along with instruments for all of the band members. Around 3:30 they let us in, and it was funny because the DJs were like, "Now when Billy comes out make sure to give him a big round of applause." We were like, "No, we�re just gonna stare at him. Well duh of course we're going to clap for him. He's like god." So, Billy came out and we were all just so excited. He was so nice and funny and just really cool. After he did the radio broadcast for about an hour and a half, we went off the air. It was so funny, that's when Billy started cussing up a storm. It was hilarious. Every other word out of his mouth was 'fuck.' Even though we were off the air, he decided to answer more questions. Some girl asked him if he ever wears short sleeve shirts and he said that he did, and then proceeded to show us his birth mark. I thought that was so cool. He rolled up his sleeve and showed it to us. I was sorta standing in the back of the room and I was just dying to ask Billy a question. I was really nervous about it, but I thought that I had to ask him a question or I�d really regret it later. So I raised my hand and some DJ who couldn't see me said, "ok I think that girl in red has a question," and then Billy said, "no I think that girl back there had her hand up first." that girl back there was me! So, I took a deep breath and I said. "Hi Billy. You guys have done some really awesome covers in the past like 'never let me down' and a 'night like this' are there any covers that you'd like to do in the future and if so which ones are they?" He said something to the affect of when the do covers they usually fuck them up on purpose or do them as a tribute but that they probably wouldn't be doing any, any time soon. then he said, "That was a good question." I smiled. So after all the questions Billy signed autographs for EVERYONE in the room. We could only bring in one thing for him to sign so I brought my copy of Siamese Dream. Stephanie was way ahead in the line so she left way before I did. When I got up to Billy I was so nervous. I said, "Hi Billy. Can you make this out to Shaliza?" and he said, "Oh that's such a pretty name." I almost died! I said 'thank you'. Then I said, "Oh I wrote this poem for you," and I gave it to him. And he said, "Oh that's so sweet," and he grabbed my hand and pulled me down to him and kissed me on the cheek. I was totally freaking out! Then I left and went out into the lobby and said to Stephanie and her mom, "Oh my god! Billy kissed me!" I was so happy. Everyone around me was so jealous. It was awesome. So Stephanie and I were just so pumped because that was like the coolest day ever. We knew the Pumpkins were going to do a signing at Spin Street the next day and before we had said that if we didn't get into the Live X, that we would go to the signing instead. But being the big pumpkin heads we are we decided to go the signing anyway because James was going to be there and I really wanted to see him. We talked about the awesome day we had all the way home and looked forward to the next day, where we just knew something cool had to happen. | ||||||
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