Smashing Pumpkins Reward the Faithful, After Testing Their Patience -- Chicago Concert Review

Concert Review

The Smashing Pumpkins
w/ opening act Anberlin
Allstate Arena, Rosemont, IL
October 19, 2012
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Although I think Billy Corgan's penchant for petulantly confounding--and even alienating--fans has substantially contributed to the diminished popularity of the Smashing Pumpkins, I can't help but to somewhat feel his pain.

While the Pumpkins are now in their 7th incarnation (8 including Zwan), with Corgan the only original member, on the heels of a strongly-reviewed new album, Oceania--even if I don't quite love it--their first hometown arena show in many a year should've been quite a triumph.

But at the same arena the Pumpkins sold out three times at the height of their fame in 1996--albeit after the tragedy that began to derail it--only a quarter of the seats were sold, plus a general admission main floor.

Due to the stage being set close to center ice and no tickets being sold for the 200 level, I believe the show was officially termed a sellout. In this age, being a band that sells 4,000 tickets is no tragedy--and isn't far from what other '90s alt rock heroes like Soundgarden and Weezer drew to their most recent Chicago area shows.

Yet on my way into the Allstate Arena, I noticed--and imagine Billy may have as well--that this week Justin Bieber is playing two shows there, both of which have long been completely sold out.

Say what you want about Corgan--and believe me, I have--but the guy has written some of the greatest songs of the past 20 years, and based on my scant familiarity with the musical prowess (or lack thereof) of Bieber, I feel it fair to suggest that Billy has more talent in his pinkie than young Justin has in his entire being. While I haven't heard Corgan directly diss Bieber, he does seem to whine about his influential band's growing irrelevance in the face of musical mediocrity.

This is a somewhat justified gripe, even if Billy can come off untoward in making it.

The only rebuttal I'd have is that I imagine Bieber is more forthright in giving his fans what they want in a concert setting. Hence, my first sentence of this post.

While at Friday night's show, Corgan was gracious is his on-stage banter, rather than openly antagonistic as at shows in the past, and the crowd was wildly enthusiastic (and presumably largely comprised of rather avid Pumpkinheads), Billy once again made the show a good bit more challenging than it needed to be.

As I referenced earlier, Oceania enjoyed some good critical press upon its June release. As my review of it indicated, I think it is worthwhile but not fantastic, and a step below the best of the Pumpkins exalted past.

But I didn't need to hear it played live in full, for the concert's first 70 minutes.

I am certainly not advocating a full greatest hits set, although when--after Oceania and a cover of Bowie's "Space Oddity"--the Pumpkins launched into, among others, "Disarm," "Tonight Tonight," "Bullet With Butterfly Wings," "Zero," "Cherub Rock" and "Mayonnaise," all sounded glorious. (See Friday's full setlist on Setlist.fm)

But I'm not sure why Billy--who I can't accuse of taking the easy way out--couldn't just build a setlist around, say, six Oceania songs, a selection of classics and some old album tracks (such as one he did play, "X.Y.U." from Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness).

To his credit, over the course of 2-1/2 hours on Friday, Corgan avoided the long, angry vocal harangues (he did banter for a 10 minute stretch, but good naturedly) and over-indulgent extended feedback frenzies of old. The band--now filled out by second guitarist Jeff Schroeder, Nicole Fiorentino on bass (the latest in a string of pretty female bassists that Billy somehow digs up) and Mike Byrne on drums--sounded solid, even stellar, though Byrne isn't quite on par with former drummer Jimmy Chamberlain.

In fact, nothing that was played, even from the entirety of Oceania, sounded bad in itself. The live versions of several Oceania tracks (mainly from the disc's first half) made a good case for the new album being a bit stronger than I previously thought. And the great old songs sounded great.

It's just that the way the show was structured could have been considerably more satisfying.

Even the visual display featuring a huge orb onto which videos were projected (devised by Sean Evans, who has worked with Roger Waters) was impressive, but really not all that necessary.

I realize the contradiction of questioning why an artist who has impressively avoided conventionality can't put on a more conventional rock concert.

And the truth is, I've now seen Billy Corgan on stage 24 times (with seven different incarnations of the Smashing Pumpkins, plus Zwan and on his own) and I can't deny that at this point tracking the melodrama is part of the appeal.

But I just don't know why he goes to such an extent to make people scratch their heads.

I consider the Smashing Pumpkins the 5th best alternative rock band of the past 25 years, and among my 15 favorite rock artists of all time. Although I feel that at this point, Billy might be better off writing film scores and/or composing musicals--both of which he should be great at--while indulging his love of wrestling (he runs Resistance Pro Wrestling), tea (he owns Madame Zuzu's tea house in Highland Park) and poetry, I'll forever love the great Pumpkins music of old--and some of relatively new--enough to pay attention to whatever he does next.

Despite it all, I remain a fan of Corgan and the Pumpkins of whatever makeup, and ultimately found Friday's concert thrilling enough to be well worth seeing (once he got around to playing some self-described "classics").

I just wish Billy didn't have to make things so difficult. As such, what could have been an absolutely phenomenal concert throughout was only partially Smashing.

Pumpkins Still Smashing But Only in Parts -- Concert Review: The Smashing Pumpkins

Photo Credit: Chris Sweda, Chicago Tribune

Concert Review

The Smashing Pumpkins
with Light FM, Fancy Space People
Riviera Theatre, Chicago
October 14, 2011
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In considering a Smashing Pumpkins concert at this stage in their career, it's easy to focus on what "they" no longer are.

As in, "they" no longer include 3/4 of the original band--with singer/songwriter/ guitarist Billy Corgan the only holdover--and they are precipitously shy of their peak mid-'90s popularity, when the Pumpkins were truly one of the world's biggest bands.

But although I have some mixed feelings about the current incarnation being called the Smashing Pumpkins, in truth the band name may have always been more of Corgan's alter ego (his Nine Inch Nails or LCD Soundsystem) than a unified group.

While the band, so to speak, once consisted of Corgan, guitarist James Iha, bassist D'arcy Wretzky and drummer James Chamberlain, on their breakthrough 1993 album, Siamese Dream, Billy played all the instruments except drums. When I first saw them at Lollapalooza '94, the band sounded rather loose and sloppy, and at their '96 peak, Chamberlain was ousted after a drug incident that left tour keyboardist Jonathan Melvoin dead.

The band would continue as a 3-piece, augmented by several musicians on their 1998 Adore tour, and by their 2000 farewell tour, Chamberlain was back but D'arcy was gone.

Since even in their heyday, the Pumpkins were often carved into various manifestations, it's somewhat hard to rue that the original band no longer exists. Chamberlain accompanied Corgan after the initial 2007 resurrection--with Iha and D'arcy seemingly wanting nothing more to do with the supposedly dictatorial head Pumpkin--but he split in 2009.

Now the so-called Smashing Pumpkins are Corgan and guitarist Jeff Schroeder, 21-year old drummer Mike Byrne and Nicole Fiorentino, the latest in a line of hot female bassists that Billy somehow manages to perpetually find and recruit.

And at the Riviera, on several great Pumpkins songs of yore, the new band still sounded smashing. Although not quite as powerful as Chamberlain, one of rock's best drummers, Byrne was rather impressive. And though I used to think Iha did a bit more onstage than Corgan probably gave him credit for--I liked the way his guitar fills danced around Corgan's 6-string roar--Schroeder seemed adequate and Fiorentino appeared to offer more than eye candy as she supplied bass licks and background vocals that sounded rather strong.

There are few bands, ever, whose sound I enjoy as much as the Smashing Pumpkins, and if Billy is able to fairly-well replicate it accompanied by trained monkeys, well, I'll probably be there cheering, playing air guitar and singing along. On great back catalog cuts like "Geek USA," "Muzzle," "Siva," "Cherub Rock" and "Bullet With Butterfly Wings," the thunderous melodies sounded sublime and any qualms about promotional legitimacy seemed rather pointless.

But though, in direct opposition to latter-day Pumpkins concerts in late 2008 and even in their heyday, Corgan avoided any ill-advised verbal harangues--in fact, he barely spoke to the hometown crowd at all--he still couldn't resist his tendency to deliver roughly half of a truly sensational show. Although Saturday's setlist looks pretty decent on paper, particularly to a pretty avid fan--I've seen the Smashing Pumpkins and other Corgan incarnations (Zwan, solo) over 20 times, more than any other act except Bruce Springsteen--there were still large portions of the show where the music meandered and dragged.

While I feel my @@@@ rating is about right, it's more based on the really good parts of the show deserving @@@@1/2 and the lesser sections only about @@@, rather than being solidly fulfilling throughout. Which serves to remind that even during their initial run, there were often portions of Pumpkins shows that left me scratching my head, while the great parts kept bringing me back for more.

At this point, my advice to Billy Corgan--not that I'd expect him to heed it--would be to start focusing on composing rock-based stage musicals (or even rock operas), something that clearly should be within his talent and comfort zones. And when he wants to play concerts, it should be as Billy Corgan, allowing him to mine not only the Pumpkins' glorious past, but also some of the stellar work he did with the short-lived Zwan, whose 2003 album is probably the best thing Billy has created in the last decade or so.

But as Saturday night proved, whatever brand of Pumpkins gets served up, I'll still be there, gloriously happy, at least for part of the night.

I should also mention that there were two opening bands, Light FM--of which current Pumpkins bassist Fiorentino is a former member and who were quite enjoyable--and Fancy Space People, which was one of the weirdest, most annoying bands I've ever seen (all the members wore space outfits). And as part of the Pumpkins' encore, Billy reunited the members of a band named Catherine, who he explained used to share rehearsal space with his band. I've never heard of them, so it didn't mean much to me, but the two songs they played sounded decent enough. Sure, I would rather have heard "Zero" and "Tonight, Tonight" but the Pumpkins weren't going to play them anyhow.