When I was younger, my family would play Rock Band on our Xbox just about every night. We took the game pretty seriously—we bought the drum kit, the microphone, the guitar, and the bass, so that all four of us could play at the same time. We each had our favorite song selections from the game, and of course I would quickly grow tired of my brother’s favorites (I went through a phase of hating the band Cheap Trick because of the frequency at which we would have to play the song “Hello There” per Tony’s request). Among others that we all loved though, were “Psycho Killer” by the Talking Heads, “Give It Away” by the Beastie Boys, and “Today” by the Smashing Pumpkins.

At the age I was when we played rock band, the way I would obtain and listen to my music was by going to the library, getting some albums from the music section, and having my dad rip them and put them onto my little iPod nano. My taste back then was weird, I would listen to almost exclusively Jason Mraz, this one album by Green Day, a few songs by Bruce Springsteen, and the Beatles. As I got older, like around middle school, I listened to One Direction, and a lot of punk and soft metal bands. It wasn’t really until high school that I started to expand my taste, and spend my time listening to multiple different bands rather than just a select few.

From the time that I had this borderline epiphany, that I could actually broaden my taste beyond five or six bands, the only song from Rock Band that I really stuck with was “Today”. I remember being so struck by the soothing tones of Billy Corgan’s voice when I first heard the song, that now I wanted to explore the band deeper.

The Smashing Pumpkins have since become one of my favorite bands, and they’ve also always been one of my dad’s favorite bands. So yesterday, my dad got a text from a friend with two extra second row tickets to see The Pumpkins at DTE. My parents thought they’d surprise me and my dad and I would head to the concert after my Papa’s 85th birthday dinner, but I’ve never been good at surprises; I have a tendency to accidentally ruin them for myself.

After dinner, we drove out to the concert, and walked straight down to our second row seats. I’ve never sat so close to the stage at DTE, I’ve been at the very front at a general admission show, but never at this amphitheater. We were off to the side, so directly in front of us was the guitarist, James Iha. As a guitar player myself, it was unreal to be able to see up close the way his hands moved across the strings and up and down the fretboard.

I’ve never really seen any of my favorite bands live before last night. I saw Blink-182 in 2016, but they were touring without Tom DeLonge, which obviously wasn’t the same. All Time Low opened for them, but that was an opening set, and they didn’t play for very long. This was the first time I really got to experience a band that I love, live, up close and personal.

The band opened with “Today”, which felt like the perfect way to represent my relationship with the Smashing Pumpkins.