matt reeder wrote: 16. Starla/(Beautiful) [Amherst, 1-28-1997]
Listening to this again I am once again astonished and blown away by this song, and this version of the song. Here's a song they performed only twice on the MCIS tour, likely because it doesn't really fit in with the rest of the material they were performing. Here they drop it in again, at the end of their first encore (instead of the usual Drown/Siva combo from this leg of the tour), and it elicits a fascinating response - there is a very small and very vocal minority who are very excited to hear it (none more so than the girl standing next to the taper), while the rest of the crowd is quiet. The song, stripped of the studio version's psychedelic lead, builds slowly - but when the whole band kicks in and starts to rock, Billy sings a verse of "Beautiful" over the third verse, and it fits in wonderfully.
When they reach the bridge, it's back to good old "Starla" - the listener can be excused for thinking Billy is going to kick into some serious guitar pyrotechnics (see the London 1994 version above, with the best guitar solo Billy Corgan will ever play) - but instead, when they kick into the outro, it's a slow burn that builds and builds and builds until Billy plays this restrained but unfathomably beautiful solo that just builds and builds until you wonder how he can possibly end it. And he does, and it's just PERFECT.
For all of the things that Billy Corgan and the Smashing Pumpkins have done and said that were just wrong, it's easy to forget just how incredible they were when they were on. This version of "Starla" is one of the finest examples of what an absolutely incredible band they could be.
