Smashing Pumpkins

Published on Wednesday 13 February 2008 21:28

SECC, GLASGOW ***

EVEN a six-year layoff couldn't see Billy Corgan persuade half of his most famous band – guitarist James Iha and bassist D'arcy Wretzky, that is – to return to the Smashing Pumpkins, but he, drummer Jimmy Chamberlin and their replacement members seem to be doing pretty well regardless. A healthy four-figure crowd were in to see them deliver a two-and-a-half hour set.

Great value if you're an incorrigible Pumpkins fan. Otherwise, the way bandleader Corgan stretched out each song with expansive instrumental breaks might have similarly drawn out the patience. Corgan is a good-to-great songwriter, and his very finest moments shone here. From the urgent stampede of Tonight Tonight to his pristine solo version of 1979, moments of greatness were neared.

Yet the huge, dead sound in this ancillary hall of the SECC sapped the drama from less special tracks, and many songs floated by unremarkably. It didn't help, of course, that Corgan and band seemed intent on wringing every last note of false endings – followed by crashing codas – from most of them.

Ironic, then, that the two best songs should be the most simple and the most complex. First, finding its way into a mid-show acoustic spot, was a short and almost creepily cheerful rendition of Fats Domino's My Blue Heaven, while the main set-closing United States was 20 minutes of angrily monumental protest-rock.