Despite All Their Rage, The Smashing Pumpkins Made The Impossible Possible

Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness turns 31 years old this year. An album of quite literally everything. Astronomical pretension, orchestral whimsy, gnarly heavy metal freak outs, generational anthems, and wistful ballads. It may be one of the most bang for your buck albums of all time. It’s certainly one of my favorites, if not as insanely consistent as Siamese Dream (how could it be at double the length), it certainly bats at the same average. And now, The Smashing Pumpkins are on tour celebrating the 30th anniversary of it, playing two sets in a night, one Mellon Collie oriented, the other devoted to other material. So naturally, I had to catch the Rats in a Cage tour at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

For the first chunk devoted to Mellon Collie songs, the band jumped instantly into the big boys. “1979” and “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” rang in the evening, immediately getting the venue hopping and singing along. Right after that, Disc 1 standouts “Cupid De Locke” and “Porcelina of the Vast Oceans” pivoted the show into more baroque and progressive directions, with “Jellybelly” following right behind. A nice display of the many sides of Mellon Collie I mentioned before. Next came “Bodies”, the high octane deep cut from the start of Disc 2, right into the sublime twofer of “Galapogos” and “Thirty-Three”, coming off the heels of Olivia Rodrigo’s viral rendition from Lollapalooza earlier this year. Despite being a double album, I’d argue Mellon Collie is probably one of the most consistent double albums of all time, with banger after banger, and this set is a testament to that fact.

Speaking of bangers, the orchestral “Tonight Tonight” made the crowd believe in the Pumpkins as they believe in us. After that, band introductions were made by the most Smashing of Pumpkins himself, Billy Corgan. First came James Iha and Kiki Wong on guitar, Jack Bates (son of the legendary Peter Hook of Joy Division/New Order) on bass, and lastly, the almighty Jimmy Chamberlin on drums. After that, the anthemic “Here Is No Why”, with its iconic stop-start riff getting the teen machines moving. Slowing things down, the band went into Disc 1 midpoint “To Forgive”, which proceeded the brutal “An Ode to No One”, going by its original title here, one of the heaviest Pumpkins cuts.

“Wanna go for a ride?” No? Doesn’t matter, cause God is empty, just like “Zero”. One of the Pumpkins’ shortest and most ruthless cuts, augmented by a snippet of the even heavier “Tales of a Scorched Earth”. After that, Jimmy took the mic to talk about famous NYC venues, CBGBs, Roseland, MSG and Barclays, and thanked the NYC “market,” as he put it, for their support. “Muzzle” followed suit, fitting since it’s one of Jimmy’s best performances on the kit, into the second to last track on the album, “By Starlight”. Closing this half, the title track, “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness”, as gorgeous an outro as it is an intro, with Jimmy taking the guitar and Billy taking the piano while Mellon Collie iconography adorned the screen. After which, a 20-minute interlude commenced while the stage was being redesigned, so I’ll take this midpoint to talk about the band.

Musically all are in fine form, ESPECIALLY Chamberlin, arguably the greatest drummer of his generation with the likes of Dave Lombardo of Slayer and John Stanier of Helmet in my opinion, and Corgan still proves why he’s one of the best guitarists of his era. On that note, Corgan’s vocals sound pretty good, he can’t hit all the ferocious notes he used to, but he does fine. Iha is as nonchalant and sarcastic as always, and Wong and Bates bring some fresh energy to the table. After the 20-minute intermission, the band returned with Kristeen Young performing a highly exaggerated “Bullet” before the live debut of ATUM’s “Sojourner”. Oh, and Corgan threw a top hat on. Don’t ask. “Edin” from Aghori Mhori Mei followed suit, which was pretty good. Admittedly, I’m not much of a 21st century Pumpkins guy, I haven’t checked anything out post-Zeitgeist (which was kinda whatever in my opinion), and while the new stuff didn’t quite hit the same, it was still fun.

“Pentagrams” from AMM came in afterward, and while I admire Corgan’s commitment to playing new stuff a lot, it does come at the cost of other stuff I’d personally rather hear, but more on that later. “Disarm” thankfully brought the crowd back a bit, though I’ve personally never taken to it myself, but it was cute seeing old clips of Corgan as a kid (those cheeks man, dead giveaway). “Ava Adore” came right after, the only cut from Adore, sadly, but this hard rocking rendition made up for the lack, sort of. “War Dreams of Itself” followed, catching me by surprise somewhat for being so heavy, but overall, a decent cut. And that’s kinda how I’d describe this show anyhow. Going from incredible to decent, averaging out at pretty good overall. The first set struck the true balance of hits and properly beloved fan favorites, whereas the second set had slightly more cliche crowd pleasers and merely decent new stuff. Of course, “Cherub Rock”, “Today”, “Mayonaise” and “The Everlasting Gaze” appeared, in addition to a Gish era outtake called “Jesus Is the Sun” appearing after 35 years.

But because of that additional anniversary, I’d have personally slid in more Gish, namely “Rhinoceros” or “Siva”. In addition, some extra Adore material would’ve been nice, namely “Perfect” or Lost Highway cut “Eye”. What caught me most by surprise was the lack of a Pisces Iscariot song like “Landslide” or “Hello Kitty Kat” or even “Starla”, considering that the show landed on the 32nd anniversary, but I guess that’s too much celebration. I don’t have these same feelings for the Mellon Collie half, because even if the appearance of my favorite Pumpkins song “X.Y.U” would’ve been incredible, it still captured a lot of great songs, and none of them felt like they could’ve been swapped. But overall, I still really liked the show. Overall solid setlist, great performances, and great visuals and wardrobe (“[Corgan] looks like the pope,” – Mom). I guess it’s just the diehard in me that wishes for more insane earlier cuts, but it covers a lot of solid bases. If you can get tickets that aren’t an arm and a leg these days (and trust me, that’s few and far between it feels), then go into the eyes of the jackal and say KAAAABOOOM!

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