Smashing Pumpkins Headlined Benefit For Madina Lake’s Matthew Leone

If there’s anything better than rocking out at a show like a rebel without a cause, it’s rocking out at a show for a cause. That’s exactly what Billy Corgan and company did this past week.

Chicago’s Metro was a temporary home to a gathering of supporters of the Matthew Leone Benefit show. If you’ve ever been helped by a stranger or good samaritan, then you will understand the significance of Leone’s charity. Smashing Pumpkins and Kill Hannah were there to perform and raise money in retaliation to the disgusting act of violence that put Leone in the condition he’s in.

Madina Lake bassist, Matthew Leone, was the victim of an aggressive physical assault this past June, after trying to save the life of a woman who Leone witnessed being physically abused by her husband. The husband of the woman then attacked Leone and left him suffering with a broken jaw, broken nose, and fractured skull. His hospitalization and treatment has left the Leone family with huge medical bills, and with no insurance, they have no foreseeable method of paying.

Madina Lake's Matthew Leone

The show held at Chicago’s Metro featured Smashing Pumpkins and others and raised between $60-80,000 to help the Leone family. Ticket sales, raffled band merchandise, and auctioned meet and greets were some of the major contributors for the charity.

The music being played was carefully chosen to fit the message being told throughout the entire charity event. Billy started off with “Astral Planes,” and continued with a seventeen-song set that was finished off with a two song encore of “1979,” and “Gossamer.” Shortly after, the one-of-a-kind guitar Corgan was playing throughout the night, was auctioned off for a whopping $10,000. All of which went straight to the charity fund.

The set list of songs that was played that night:

• Astral Planes
• Ava Adore
• Hummer
• As Rome Burns
• A Song for a Son
• Today
• Eye
• Bullet
• United States
• Blessed Mother
• Perfect
• Cherub Rock
• That’s the Way my Love Is
• Owata
• Stand Inside Your Love
• Tarantula
• Tonight, Tonight

[ENCORE]

• 1979
• Gossamer

If you’re interested in making your own contribution, go to Sweet Relief’s website to send donations and/or condolences to the Leone family. Spreading the word in any kind of charity with music is the sure way to get a message across.