Smashing Pumpkins have announced details of a special 30th anniversary edition of their sprawling 1996 double album Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness. Their third and most successful record, Mellon Collie… turns 30 later this month and new super deluxe 6LP and 4CD editions of the album will be released on November 21.
The attraction for Pumpkins diehards who might already own the extensive reissue of Mellon Collie… that the band issued in 2012 and again in 2022 is a collection of previously-unreleased live recordings taken from the group’s 1996 Infinite Sadness tour.
“Unearthing these live recordings from the original lineup’s true, last large-scale tour was a labour of love,” frontman Billy Corgan said, “and for me certainly a bittersweet as once we blew apart in 1996, we were never quite the same: be it emotionally, or spiritually. Thankfully, I can say this as the band is now enjoying our greatest public success since that time, and one can hear in these tapes the raw power that such nascent faith afforded us, then, and the will and wisdom to persevere that followed.”
The live cuts are taken from various shows across the US in 1996 and also amongst the Mellon Collie… cuts also include performances of Siamese Dream’s Geek U.S.A and Rocket alongside Siva, from their debut Gish.
Listen to the scintillating take of Geek U.S.A. below:
