Year 1999. I was 18 years old, I met a rock music fan in high school. I was a fan of the Rolling Stones, newly converted to Rock n’Roll, and I wanted to have my own band. I told him I wanted him to be a part of my future band and I wanted to be the singer. He wanted to hear how good (or bad) I was so he asked me to sing two songs that he liked. He gave me an audio cassette with the instrumental version of Losing My Religion by REM and the other song was Bullet with Butterfly Wings by a band that had a weird vegetable name. I remembered I had heard this song somewhere. I quite liked the song. So I rehearsed for a week then I gave him my performance which he found acceptable.  I was curious about those “Smashing Pumpkins” so he brought me the VHS of Viewphoria which didn’t appeal to me a lot. I was still not convinced this was such a great band. So he brought out the big guns and lent me Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, the double CD.  At first listen, I thought it was quite good. Then I listened to it again. It was really good. Actually, it was more than really really good. It was beautiful and epic. That winter, this new friend told me The Smashing Pumpkins were going to come to France on January at the Elysée Montmartre concert venue. We bought two tickets for the show and when it was over, I knew one thing: I was a Smashing Pumpkins fan. I still am. Forever.