Gig review: Smashing Pumpkins, Glasgow

AS one of our thornier rock stars, Billy Corgan may be criticised on several fronts, but his ambition cannot be knocked.

Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins. Picture: Getty

Smashing Pumpkins

Academy, Glasgow

* * *

It is not enough for him simply to reactivate Smashing Pumpkins, one of the biggest global rock bands of the 90s, with an entirely new line-up, he has to announce a spanking brand-new concept opus to go with it.

The typically cumbersomely titled Teargarden By Kaleidyscope has been a work-in-progress for the past few years and has already been through a couple of rewrites but fortunately Corgan and Co keep coming back to their strong suits – bursts of thundering metal-influenced riffola interspersed with wistful, even romantic, melodic numbers.

New drummer Mike Byrne looked like a harmless college kid but drummed like a demon, giving new songs such as Panopticon that crucial rocket propulsion over which guitarist Jeff Schroeder could liberally spread his wah-wah guitar. However, Smashing Pumpkins Mk Whatever were a pretty uncharismatic bunch.

In contrast, Corgan remained an imposing, largely cheerless focal point as he took a sledgehammer to David Bowie’s Space Oddity and unleashed his most indulgent prophet of doom delivery on a mighty X.Y.U.

Corgan reaffirmed his band’s intentions to keep doing whatever they want to do, but this encompassed accessible favourite Tonight, Tonight which soared in a manner Mumford and Sons can only aspire to as much as the 
(self-)flagellating Bullet With Butterfly Wings, laboured Ava Adore or the unexpected synthesizer phasing which featured on a couple of the new songs.

There were longueurs throughout the two-hour show, but the successive pile-driving waves of set-closer United States really demonstrated this band’s mettle an unbelievable 25 years to the month since their first-ever gig in that Polish bar in Chicago, rendering their encore cover of Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song somewhat superfluous.