Memorabilia Monday: Celebrating 20 Years of Sadness, Tour Package

Smashing Pumpkins’ management reached out to Brad Serling, CEO of NUGS.net, in Summer 2008 about the possibilities of a digital and physical release of the complete 20th Anniversary Tour. This US-only tour was named Celebrating 20 Years of Sadness, and consisted of 25 stops. At several cities double gigs were being played at the same venue, dubbed Black Sunshine and White Crosses.

Due to a recording melt-down, the 2008/11/16 show played in Mohegan Sun Arena, Uncasville, was never released. The remaining 24 shows, from the 2008/10/31 Newport Music Hall, Columbus gig all the way to the 2008/12/08 Auditorium Theatre, Chicago concert were released in January 2009 as a ‘boxed set’ called Tour Package.

When being asked about the release process, Brad Serling remembers: “It runs the gamut from band to band, but with the Pumpkins, the hard drives of the multi-track recordings were sent from the road each night to an engineer here in Los Angeles who mixes each night in his studio. He would then upload the finished product to NUGS.NET, where we would post the files on LiveSmashingPumpkins.com and prepare the CD masters. A friend of the band did the artwork for each label and would upload that to us as well. There are no restrictions, it’s “warts and all.” There were no edits, overdubs, or any other doctoring in the studio.”

The end result is a highly cherished live memorabilia from the extensive Smashing Pumpkins discography, which is currently out of print and hardly available on the well known auction sites…