If All Goes Wrong: A Concert That Provides Example

Concert Review

Billy Corgan brings the Smashing Pumpkins Back to Life. What Could Go Wrong?

The electronic beat of “Ave Adore” starts. Slowly the members of the Smashing Pumpkins file onstage. Billy Corgan is the last one to reach the stage as he slowly lurks with a plastic pumpkin in hand. Notably, this isn’t the same Smashing Pumpkins. Even though this is their 20th Anniversary tour they are celebrating without two of their original members: James Iha and D’Arcy Wretzky. To my surprise the Smashing Pumpkins now consist of nine members, including Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlin.

The 20th Anniversary tour shows are divided up into two set lists, Black Sunshine and White Crosses. This was a White Crosses show. About one-third of the show was made up of new songs. I didn’t expect anything new from an Anniversary tour. (The new material is featured on their new DVD, If All Goes Wrong.) It seemed that the new songs did not transition well into the old. Yet there were exceptions, like the hard-rocking, “As Rome Burns,” a fantastic song with vintage Smashing Pumpkins written all over it.

The first half of the show felt like 1996 and by no means is this a bad thing. The sold out crowd erupted when the intro to “1979” started. The highlight of the show came with the triple threat of “Cherub Rock,” “Zero,” and “Bodies.” These songs were played with such energy and emotion. Soon after, Billy Corgan went on a rant about his love of the Chicago Cubs, sounding very jealous as he cut down Eddie Vedder’s Cubs song. Corgan unnecessarily mentioned that he was sick, apparently asking for sympathy from the crowd. This was followed by incredible versions of “Disarm” and “Galapagos.” From this point the show took a turn for the worst and it plunged into the unknown.

The Pumpkins busted out several new songs that were near or longer than ten minutes. Corgan then decided it would be a good time to play with his guitar effects. The Smashing Pumpkins soon transitioned from rock, to shoe-gaze, to completely boring in just minutes. The atrocious cover of Simon and Garfunkel’s, “The Sound of Silence”, was a perfect example.

The true low point came during the encore when Billy exclaimed, “I’m tired, I want to go home.” He asked, “Who wants me to go home?” Few people raised their hands. He said, “Well if you didn’t want me to go home now, you will after this song.” Billy Corgan was right about this in two ways. One was that I did want to go home after that song, which was fifteen minutes of jamming. While others just left during this song. He was also right because whether or not you liked it the song, it was the last one, so you pretty much had to go home.

The first half of the show was great, and the second half fell right off the Sears tower and plunged to its death. There was no energy during the encore and if there was any from the crowd it was sucked dry, not to mention the encore was only two songs. The show seemed to severely lack the passion I always thought Billy and the Pumpkins had for their music. There wasn’t much interaction with the fans, and being a Chicago show, one might expect more. Billy never even introduced the band. But as many bad points there were in the show, there were also flashes of greatness.

To put it simply Billy Corgan should just focus on the music and drop the immature antics because the live show suffers greatly from this. When the music speaks it speaks clearly.