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From The Vault Of Art Shay: Behind The Scenes At A Smashing Pumpkins Concert

By Art Shay in Arts & Entertainment on Oct 24, 2012 4:00PM

(Legendary Chicago-based photographer Art Shay has taken photos of kings, queens, celebrities and the common man in a 60-year career. This week, Art takes us behind the scenes at a Smashing Pumpkins concert.)

My tireless rock star friend Billy Corgan phoned with an invitation to his concert with his band, The Smashing Pumpkins, last Friday at the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Ill. "We’ll need coverage for next year’s documentary.” He’s always planning the future as if it were a chess match.

"I'll send someone or a limo to pick you up with Dickie, if he can make it.” My son Dick is very high with Billy since he did his last album cover—a lonely lighthouse on the Highland Park beach. I also called my groupie and camera case schlepper, Josh Murphy-Strong (he of the long distance bike and ready camera) and I was faced with doing something I hadn’t done for a long time: covering an event for the fun of it; for the sheer interplay of humans, colors and overriding sound.

It’s great discipline for a 90-year-old fotog new to rock and roll, boasting to whomever would listen that Rolling Stone had published my weirdly sad picture of the Supremes at Motown and called it “one of the 50 greatest pictures of rock and roll ever.”

If you can't wait until this time every Wednesday to get your Art Shay fix, please check out the photographer's blog, which is updated regularly. Art Shay's book, Chicago's Nelson Algren, is also available at Amazon.