Smashing Pumpkins - Sheffield Academy (18 November 2011)

Unlike with previous tours since their 2007 re-boot, tonight is a drama free Smashing Pumpkins gig experience. Gone are the silly costumes (well, Billy Corgan is sporting what appears to be a long-sleeve tshirt with the image of the Turin Shroud on it), the even sillier headwear and the tantrums aimed at fans. What we do get is a heads down, no nonsense intimate rock club show; with the majority of the set made up of new tracks alongside nuggets from Siamese Dream, and a handful each from Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, Pisces Iscariot and debut album Gish.

The opening double-header of Quasar and Panopticon, from the soon to be released Oceania, sidle up alongside the cuts from Siamese Dream perfectly. They are full of that classic Smashing Pumpkins sounds - creamy and thick guitars that feel they could engulf whole planetary systems with dreamy and psychedelic breakdowns. Next to Starla, which follows, they don’t seems out of place at all. What’s more fascinating is that the crowd don’t seem bored by the band opening with two unreleased tracks; both are welcomed with enthusiastic cheers. Perhaps it’s the nagging sense of familiarity that these songs bring, the excitement of seeing the band up on stage, or it could just be that these are genuinely good songs.

Geek USA sees the first of many moshpits start-up down the front and it’s played with brute force. It’s definitely the Siamese Dreams songs that are greeted with more enthusiasm than others. Soma seems to have become the Stairway To Heaven of the 90s Alt. Rock cannon - a much coveted track that builds up gradually in to a towering pillar of guitars; and when it takes off, boy, it goes inter-galactic as the Smashing Pumpkins spaceship takes-off.

All in all, it’s a varied set that elicits elation at every twist and turn. Frail and Bedazzled is a joy to behold and brings sheer delight to this particular reviewer and Window Paine is a rare treat that brightens up the first part of the set.

There are points though where it does feel the band are going through the motions and are playing the ‘crowd pleasers’ just to appease the more casual fan who perhaps don’t want to hear, say, an evening of crammed full of Machina and Zeitgeist album tracks. For instance, Muzzle is cast away early on and in such a slip-shod fashion that Billy fluffs the first few opening lines. It’s also telling that aside from songs destined for Oceania and the lone Teargarden by Kaleidyscope track (Lightning Strikes), nothing post 1995 is played. But with Gish and Siamese Dream re-issues to shift, it perhaps makes sense to remind people of these era-defining albums, but there is a feeling at the back of my mind that nostalgic revisionism is at play.

So tonight we get 2 hours of Smashing Pumpkins at their rocking best. Interaction with the audience is minimal, with the band preferring to keep their heads down and tear their way through their back catalogue and touting what, going on tonight’s performance, is set to be a new Smashing Pumpkins album that proudly harks back to their earlier output.

Set list
1) Quasar
2) Panopticon
3) Starla
4) Geek USA
5) Window Paine
6) Lightning Strikes
7) Siva
8) Muzzle
9) Oceania
10) Frail and Bedazzled
11) Silverfuck
12) Pinwheels
13) Pale Horse
14) Soma
15) Thru the Eyes of Ruby (with I Am One tease)
16) Cherub Rock
Encore:
17) Zero
18) Bullet With Butterfly Wings