The Smashing Pumpkins ventured forth for a worthwhile and exhilarating, if unusually awkward, two-night stay at Kansas City’s The Midland by AMC (one would be remiss to not note the corporate sponsorship of this music venue). Singer and guitarist Billy Corgan would surely be unhappy, or would he? Despite ceaseless battles with record companies (the band is currently label-less), Corgan is palpably torn between a need for notoriety and fame, and a dogmatic, unbridled artistic freedom, and has been for some time. I quite vividly recall an intimate, sold-out performance in Lawrence, Kansas during which Corgan at some length ranted against the commercial success of Korn, and this in the early 2000s.
Band relevance is something about which Corgan obsesses. Standing in the front row and watching Corgan glance to see if I know and parrot the lyrics to “I of the Mourning” tells me that he still holds such a concern; he appears strangely pleased and displeased with his current plight, but he has a cold tonight too.
The previous evening he draconianly chastised the audience for failing to recite the lyrics to one of his key hits: Siamese Dream‘s outstanding, ironic “Today”. He had a point there, but here’s the paradox: Billy Corgan eschews success just as much as he seeks it. As much as he despises the audience, he will shake its collective hand: Corgan tonight willingly admits that he has spite for audiences, but he also mingles with the crowd, even entering the seated areas. He, for instance, does not share the same malaise that his 1990s musical rival Kurt Cobain did concerning notoriety and fame, but notwithstanding, like Cobain, Corgan certainly does not wish to pander to the audience, in principle. He, too, finds that a grave offense against his musical integrity, and perhaps rightly so.
This latest incarnation – including new players Ginger Reyes (bass guitar) and Jeff Schroeder (rhythm guitar) – is amidst a so-called anniversary tour; the band that ignited the 1990s with its drama king, artsy, theatrical Queen and Black Sabbath indebted take on “grunge,” particularly in the wake of Nirvana’s unfortunate self-immolation, is celebrating twenty years of “infinite sadness” (drug abuse, band in-fighting, major depression), as well as, no doubt, substantial commercial and aesthetic, creative success – in the past.
But one must wonder at the entire notion of an anniversary tour with a new band, let alone a new corpus of songs. The band also is planning to record a new album, the follow up to Zeitgeist (2007), after it completes this tour. As Corgan concedes tonight, the band is not a “jukebox,” which means that it wants to attain commercial success again, but by absolutely functioning artistically on its own terms. Think Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead here. It’s possible, but it’s also incredibly improbable. (New single “G.L.O.W.,” however, could help Corgan attain such heights, as it is a true, obscure, satiric late-Halloween treat.) Its appearance on video games may indeed influence youthful fans.
But to the tour: it’s exceedingly difficult to applaud such an endeavor given that two main band members are noticeably missing, and that, technically, the band did say its farewell in 2001. The band reformed only recently, after Corgan’s FutureEmbrace (2005) solo tour, and after Corgan posted an emotional, romantic ad in the Chicago Tribune. The original Smashing Pumpkins emanated a sense of eccentric, artistic sincerity and materiality, a defined, reliable notion of integrity, even if it sought and accepted financial, commercial success. The music was undeniably great and cathartic, and the lineup was part of the music. Now Corgan finds the concept “reunion” to be a negative, and he is correct because it’s not an actual re-union. But perhaps that’s no matter; new music must be created by Corgan, as he is too talented; the band must move on, although the majesty and singularity of the Smashing Pumpkins of 1990s will be forever mourned.
Corgan, Pumpkin King, has conveniently retained the band’s name, but this band isn’t the Pumpkins of yesteryear; the latest incarnation is analogous in its lineup to the band that now dubs itself Guns N’ Roses: in GNR, for instance, all of its original members, save for Icarus-like, perfectionist, egoist crooner W. Axl Rose (who notably is, like Corgan, a notorious puppet-master) are nowhere to be seen. That said, Corgan’s new band (though doubtlessly Zwan-like) does dramatically and compellingly rock and roll; one can certainly appreciate a band’s pragmatic evolution, in spite of a wistful, desirous nostalgia for this seminal, alternative group in all its magisterial brightness: The musical universe simply would not be itself without the prodigious, masterful “boy wonder” Corgan and his several comrades, without The Smashing Pumpkins, past or present.
Ironic though it may be however, the bulk of the three-hour set entailed cuts from inarguably the band’s most “commercial” CD: the superb double-album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (1995): from the heavy metal-leaning, torturous, amorous poetry of “Bodies” (“Love is suicide!”) to the light-sounding, catchy, and youth-evoking “1979″, basically a new wave pop song , and a song into which one can enter a lost, surreal state of idealism, the band reveled in past dignity and stardom.
Corgan and his new band embraced its triumphant history, and all of this despite Corgan’s redundant, vociferous claims to refrain from playing solely hit songs, from pandering essentially. He did spend, however, a solid twenty minutes teasing the audience with song snippets on acoustic guitar: Corgan playfully mocked the crowd by turning down song requests; he and Schroeder had fun with this, with Corgan claiming his music was all just about “good times.” Hardly. Really it was, again, Corgan’s need to be both pertinent and idolized.
Corgan is, after all, a veracious, remarkable contradiction in terms. No requests, but he will play major songs. Maybe that’s a compromise of sorts; maybe it’s Corgan simply teasing. Corgan’s zeal, for example, was most evident in quite possibly the biggest and most recognizable song from the CD, excluding “Bullet with Butterfly Wings”: during the mercurially irate and morose song “Zero,” Corgan proved that he still both relishes playing songs from the recent past and pleasing an appreciative, devoted audience; a noticeable, gothic and passionate, hyperactive intensity accompanied Corgan’s performance , and he confidently deferred to the audience for one of its critical if bawdy, encoded lines: “Wanna go for a ride?” This time the audience nailed it; it was an excellent, energetic if atypical, rushed rendition.
The band played several other songs from Mellon Collie, including a moving, pristine version of “Galapogos”, with guitarists Corgan and Schroeder underscoring the quintessential soft-loud sound dynamic of alternative music. New songs were a mix between acoustic balladry (“Sunkissed”) and Sabbath-like metal sound and fury; probably the most stimulating new bit was “I am One, pt. 2,” which was part of the two-song encore. Other highlights: show opener “Ava Adore,” during which Corgan literally skirted about the stage in full-on Freddie Mercury mode, both kicking an amplifier and throwing confetti; and also the delightful Fleetwood Mac cover about mortality, “Landslide,” which appeared on the band’s rarities CD, Pisces Iscariot (1994). If this is the last time Corgan plays his major hits, so be it; tonight –tonight — was a rare, awe-inspiring and beautiful moment.
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Written by: William Carl Ferleman
