Review: Smashing Pumpkins achieved peak Corgan during marathon 3-hour show
Billy Corgan, and by extension, the Smashing Pumpkins, have always embraced excess. When their indie-rock peers in the 90’s were embracing the low-fi aesthetic, Corgan pushed back, doubling down to create sonically lush records like Siamese Dream, that owed more to the guitar histrionics of Boston than say, The Jesus Lizard.
While Corgan has been the lone original member since the mid-2000’s (with drummer Jimmy Chamberlin sporadically joining the band), the current Shiny and Oh So Bright Tour (what a mouthful!) features a semi-reunion of the lineup from the 90’s heyday, including guitarist James Iha and Chamberlin back on the drums. Notably absent is bassist D’arcy Wretzky, who very publicly announced she would not be part of this reunion tour even before the dates were announced, leading to an avalanche of bad press for the band.
The entire concept of this tour seems anathema to what Billy Corgan has always been about — after calling out bands like Pavement over the years for reforming, it was surprising that Corgan would embark on a tour essentially built around nostalgia. By promising to (mostly) stick to material from their early records for this tour, Corgan was basically asking fans who had left the Pumpkins fold for any number of valid reasons over the years (the band’s increasingly muddled records, Corgan’s questionable politics) to come back for one last ride on the ice cream truck from the “Today” video.
Any doubts that this show was meant to be a nostalgic look back were vanquished when an animated video preceded the band’s entrance, featuring a mash-up of Pumpkins iconography from the early years, from that famous ice cream truck to the star-gazing woman from the cover of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.
Corgan then took the stage for a solo version of “Disarm,” while childhood photos of him and his family were projected behind him with child-like scrawls written over them, including phrases like “I will never forget.” It was a startling way to kick-off a rock show, and put Corgan’s pain and openness front and center — any other band would have closed their set with something so raw and emotional, but Corgan is anything but predictable.
After a lengthy interlude while a small army of stage-hands quickly set up the full stage, which included a number of large sliding panels that could be put together or broken apart to act as video screens throughout the night, the band, also featuring guitarist Jeff Schroeder, bassist Jack Bates, and keyboardist/vocalist Katie Cole, kicked into “Rocket” off Siamese Dream, with that unmistakable fuzz intro getting the crowd up on their feet.
Throughout the rest of the 3-hour-plus show the band oscillated between classics cuts off fan favourite albums like Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie, with a mix of deep cuts and a few oddly basic cover choices. The covers must have served some point, but seemed like a strange choice given that this tour is essentially about repurposing the Pumpkins as a legacy rock act, one with a deep enough catalogue that can fill a 3-hour set. Nevertheless, there was Corgan dressed in a silver hooded cloak belting out a very faithful and energetic version of Bowie’s “Space Oddity” just 20-minutes into their marathon set last night.
The entire set had a push and pull quality that was either meant to reward Pumpkins diehards or test the loyalty and endurance of everyone else in the crowd (or both, most likely). For every crowd-pleaser like “Zero,” there was the lesser-known “Try, Try, Try,” or the James Iha sung B-side “Blew Away.”
Then there was the “Stairway” cover — if there is one song that never again needs to be covered outside of the bar band circuit it has to be “Stairway to Heaven,” yet somehow the band included it smack dab between “Tonight, Tonight” and “Cherub Rock,” two of their most beloved songs. And this was no ironic, dashed-off cover — with Corgan sitting at the piano, he led the band in a note-for-note rendition, while figures in dark cloaks pushed some sort of lit-up religious-looking icon across the arena floor with a statue that featured Corgan’s likeness with a crown around his head. The entire thing was so ridiculous (and maybe amazing?) that it somehow fit right in with the rest of the excessive show, one that often felt like a Broadway version of an alt-90’s revue.
In keeping with the ridiculous nature of much of the night, there were also a pair of video interstitials throughout the show featuring none other than Sugar Ray’s Mark McGrath addressing the crowd in a weird sort of Vaudevillian barker tone, and one with Corgan proselytizing about something that eventually led into “Zero.”
Those strange inclusions shouldn’t detract from the fact that the band may never have sounded better than they do on this current tour. Even those of us who caught the Pumpkins in the 90’s might recall that they were never the tightest band, but they sounded incredible last night. When a band has memorable enough solos that the crowd can sing along to them, any false note will stick right out, but they sounded note-for-note perfect last night. Even Corgan’s voice, which for the latter half of the band’s career has slid into a brutal, nasally draw, sounded completely refreshed last night, like he had just strolled out of the Siamese Dream recording sessions at Butch Vig’s studio and stepped out to the Bell Centre stage.
Corgan seemed to be basking in the crowd’s energy throughout the show, a far-cry from the grumpy figure that usually stood brooding from the stage during their shows. Maybe he’s relishing the fact that the band have finally come together to present the most lavish stage show of their career this deep into their run, but he seemed truly engaged with the crowd last night, in a rock n’ roll persona way we’ve never really seen with the Pumpkins.
While barnburners like “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” had the biggest reactions during the night, it was often the quieter moments of the set that really tugged at the nostalgic heartstrings, from a pitch-perfect rendition of “Mayonaise,” to the slinky “Drown” off the Singles soundtrack, one of the most crystalline 90’s artifacts we have.
In its totality, the night achieved a sort of peak Corgan — it was equal parts heartfelt and schmaltzy, personal and yet incredibly overblown. In spite of the show’s embrace of the past, it also retained some of Corgan’s pettiness — all of the video clips played behind the band had been expertly cut up to remove any footage of D’arcy, essentially writing her out of the band’s story. It was a needless exercise, but showed that for all the seeming goodwill in putting most of the original band back together for this nostalgic run, we should never forget who was really steering the ship all along.
Setlist
Disarm
Rocket
Siva
Rhinoceros
Space Oddity
Drown
Zero
The Everlasting Gaze
Stand Inside Your Love
Thirty-Three
Eye
Soma
Blew Away
For Martha
To Sheila
Mayonaise
Porcelina of the Vast Oceans
Landslide
Tonight, Tonight
Stairway to Heaven
Cherub Rock
1979
Ava Adore
Try, Try, Try
The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning
Hummer
Today
Bullet With Butterfly Wings
Muzzle
Encore:
Solara
Baby Mine
I was at the Detroit show on August 5th, and I am still in awe a complete 5 whole days later. 18 years had passed since I saw them last, and I really felt that the miracle itself was that James, and William were sharing the same stage again.
Smiles all around. The cover’s were the absolute highlight. Jeff showing off his chops on the Stairway to Heaven solo, and William pacing the stairs up to the sun in Space Oddity.
Jimmy hitting every beat, and James with his interactions with the audience. They teased us with Detroit Rock City.
I have been a huge fan of this group since 1990, and I feel that now more than ever, it is a great time indeed to be a Smashing Pumpkins fan.