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It's July 29, 2007. I am sitting on the floor of an incredibly ornate room on the street side of a government building in San Francisco, CA surrounded by cameras, cameramen, lights, and bottles of Voss water. All these cameras are fixated on one object in the center of the room: a single shining silver metal chair. Over the next 6 hours, this chair would be filled by all five members of the newly reformed Smashing Pumpkins. I watched quietly as director Jack Gulick asked each occupant of the chair introspective and thought-provoking questions. As we packed up and headed back to the hotel late that night, I thought to myself "This is going to make one hell of a documentary."

The Chair

The Interview Room

Water from Norway

Outside the building

Theatre 4: Home of "The Smashing Pump" for one night only

Fast-forward about 14 months to tonight's screening. Having been able to attend a few days of the Fillmore residency back in July of 2007, I must say that it sure has felt like this DVD had been a long time coming. After observing the amount of production going into the live performances during my stay, I was quite astounded. I knew that the finished project was going to be miles and miles beyond anything seen in the band's previous video endeavor, Vieuphoria.

The theatre held 249 and seemed like a cozy place for a first viewing of If All Goes Wrong. Most of the theatre-goers trickling into the seats were in their mid-to-late twenties, some wearing ZERO shirts, one opting for the less direct "Goat" shirt from the Adore era. One thing was clear, these were hometown Pumpkins fans eager to get an early first glimpse of what their Chicago band has been up to while away from the city by the lake.

The documentary starts off giving a brief history of the band, starting at the final Metro show. We quickly jump to the Asheville residency shows, and highlight the character of the town and residents of Asheville, NC. There is plenty of footage from this period, contrary to initial speculations. We then move on to footage from the Zeitgeist release show in Washingon, D.C. The second movement of the documentary centers around the longer Fillmore Residency in San Francisco, CA.

As I expected, the interview segments mentioned previously are interspersed between live performance segments and what one might call behind-the-scenes footage, shot mostly by Kristin Burns. Kristin has been working with the band for quite a while and has built up quite a bit of trust with the band. This allows her to get some very genuine footage and give the viewer a glimpse of Billy that most of the world probably would never believe existed. An example of this is when she asks off camera "Why don't you want to play Soma?" to which Billy responds by actually playing it for her on camera. He then delves into an explanation to his true reasons for not wanting to play Soma or Mayonaise for that matter. Realize this footage was shot over a year ago and both songs have been played live since. Knowing these songs have been played makes this scene particularly interesting and gives credibility to the notion that the band has been successful in its goal of moving forward.

The next day: Jeff's smashed guitar

If there is a unifying meaning to the entire documentary, it is that the band is indeed in a state of progress, of change. Billy has repeatedly stated that the band is looking to the future, moving ahead and not looking back. This is definitely the road less traveled by bands of this stature and it is not without its bumps. Jeff's frustration in particular comes to light during one of the Fillmore shows during which there is a particularly maiming technical difficulty with his equipment. Billy tries to bide the band time during the setback by chiding the crowd, and Jeff. This is followed by Billy's quote, as seen in the trailer, "We were The Smashing Pumpkins, I don't know what we are now...". Immediately afterward, Jeff slams his guitar to the ground with a gleefully surprised reaction from Corgan. This event stood out for me because it happened the day before I arrived in San Francisco. All I heard about was the guitar that Jeff smashed and how he had really "gotten riled up on stage". In the documentary, it seemed that Jeff was deeply upset about the whole event, and perhaps took some of it personally. Yet, the reality that I observed was of a content, happy and satisfied Mr. Schroeder. The story of the documentary indicated the result of the whole action was that of growth, which it most certainly was from my outside perspective.

Each of the new songs played or written during the residencies is called-out by a screen with its title as well as some stats on when the song was written and played. The songs are not performed in entirety, but some include lyrics. The final song, If All Goes Wrong, takes us out of the documentary through the credits. The final shot is of a lone solitary microphone that blurs out to black.

An hour and a half later, the lights were up and the viewers left the theatre. The total ticket count was over 100 for the Chicago screening, not bad for a one-off on a Thursday night in the Windy City. I left the theatre satisfied and looking forward to the 4-night extravaganza that Pumpkins fans in this town have to look forward to in 2 weeks.

Writing The Rose March on Piano

I hope you enjoyed my quick review that includes a little inside information that may have shed a small bit of light to the production of this documentary. I can assure you that there is a wealth of material that had to be shaved to make this a watchable-length and not bloated. Much of the footage inevitably hit the cutting room floor, so I wouldn't doubt the possibility of a fattened up version somewhere down the road with hours of extra footage. Here's looking forward to the DVD release next Tuesday and watching the live performance segment straight through.

See more photos on the SP Flickr page.