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

$Before most concerts Billy likes to gather some ardent fans to hear him warm up with bassist Nicole Fiorentino (left), guitarist Jeff Schroeder (behind the post) and 22-year-old West Coast drummer Mike Byrne. The crowd (to the left of the frame) comes up with questions for the band to answer like \"What are you striving for when you...?\"\r\n$ $Thereâs always the challenge of working the bridge between rock fan and star.\r\n$ $A realistic moon figured in various disguises during the evening. From spacey ardor to a complete prokection of an early French movie of a space crew landing on the moon.\r\n$ $I framed Billy and Nicole in a momentary concatenation of blue, white and red light.\r\n$ $Billy\'s jeans kept changing color under the lights.\r\n$ $Josh kept worrying about closeups and several times burst into the mosh pit like a Bear on the offense.\r\n$ $Billy modestly credits Nicole for the last riff.\r\n$ $Somehow Dick\'S album cover made it to the face of the moon as Billy hailed it musically.\r\n$ $Here\'s a rare view of the full quartet in full cry.\r\n$ $Like joyous ships that pass in the night, Billy and Nicole thrum past each other.\r\n$ $Suddenly the moon filled with red Martian channels.\r\n$ $I began to look through my telephoto for ransom scenes, such as this disembodied glass of beer reflecting its own view of pink light against the lunar landscape.\r\n$ $This woman turned her goggles on full bright then slipped her card in my camera bag. \"Send me one,\" she ordered.\r\n$ $India Murphy pauses between selections. She is wearing one of my late wife\'s blouses. (I can just hear Florence say, \"To A rock concert? Great.\")\r\n$

(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.

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