O2 Arena, London
February 16 | Reviewed by Ewan Kingston

I’VE ALWAYS been a fan of the Smashing Pumpkins. Early in their career, they showed ability to make music that conveys sadness, anger and passion all at once. Twenty years after they formed, I hunted down standing tickets for the sold-out concert and walked into London’s massive O2 arena wondering if they could still do it.

The man next to me is twice my size and wears an Iron Maiden t-shirt. He roars along with Billy Corgan ‘Lips like sugar.... sugar kisses’. This is the spell the Smashing Pumpkins has cast on us – the enchantment of music sweet and powerful, innocent and all-enveloping.

For those of you not receiving regular dispatches from Pumpkinland, the band is back together – well sort of. After releasing his solo album in 2005, Billy, the Peter Pan of rock, put out a full page ad in two Chicago papers stating ‘I want my band back. I want my dreams back’. He got Jimmy Chamberlin back, but not James Iha or D’arcy, and so recruited California pop-rock-scene musicians Ginger Reyes and Jeff Schrader for live bass and second guitar duties respectively. Jazz-trained Lisa Harrington now joins them on the keys. They are competent enough players, but still finding their niche in the band. I missed Iha’s chaotic solos and feathery voice; and D’arcy’s vacant stare and thrumming basslines.

It’s obvious the strong core of this new lineup is the original SP pair. They played all the parts on the new album Zeitgeist and recent EP American Gothic (just as they did on Siamese Dream) and their presence and musicianship is what captures our attention live. The giant Billy hunches over his guitar like a question mark, wringing gorgeous whines and squeals from the instrument, ripping at chords like his life depended on it. Behind him Jimmy pounds away – a fitting pulse for Corgan’s bleeding heart. Then Corgan stands tall to the mike, raises his plectrum in a rock salute, and lets loose that strange, strange voice of his – part whisper, part howl, and full of sincerity.

What does he sing, then? A lot of songs. We get some of those old anthems, to which the crowd sing every word, but it is no nostalgia-fest. For example, only two of the night’s 25 or so songs – ‘Mayonaise’ and ‘Today’ – come from the classic Siamese Dream.

Five come from Mellon Collie, but the band plays the witty, country-ish ‘Lily’ over a sure-fire hit like ‘Zero’. There’s a sense of playfulness here: during a mid-concert acoustic set, Billy plays twelve bars of Girls Aloud’s ‘Raise Your Bets’ (‘the best song ever written – better than anything by the Beatles’ he deadpans) before playing an acoustic version of ‘1979’ – sweeter and cheerier than the one we know, without being twee. That same acoustic set sees the most surreal moment of the night. We see Billy in his ankle-length padded silver skirt, shuffling around the stage between crooning verses of the 1920’s hit ‘My Blue Heaven’.

The Adore-era songs sound even better with the versatile Chamberlin behind them now, who willingly picks up a tambourine to accompany Corgan for the poppy ‘Perfect’ then powers the gothic love song ‘Ava Adore’ with an urgent, double-time beat that works wonderfully well live. This is typical. Despite all the Pumpkins’ studio releases being overdub-heavy opuses, the songs really work in a live setting, thanks in good part to the intensity of Corgan and Chamberlin.

The songs come from all waters the good ship Pumpkin has sailed through, with a definite emphasis on the present. Of the new material, the feisty Tarantula chugs along powerfully. Billy’s acoustic version of ‘That’s the Way’ reveals an emotional honesty not present on the new album. There are failures though. ‘Doomsday Clock’ is the best song from Zeitgeist and is not played, new song ‘The Rose March’ may have the thumbs up from Pete Townshend but makes little impression tonight. Some of the new songs with a brighter sound which exhort us ‘Lets Go!’ and to ‘Bring the Light’ fall flat. ‘United States’ is a poor comparison to ‘Silverfuck’ as an end of set wig-out. And near the end of the two hour-forty minute set, the crowd loses a little energy.

While the rest of the band is quiet, even a little shy, there was no doubt that the frontman is enjoying himself. Throughout the concert he smiles and jokes and talks rubbish. Don’t get me wrong, I’d rather have a chirpy silly Billy than the petulant one that ungraciously terminated the Nottingham show (two nights previous) mid-set. But his cheeky banter makes for uncomfortable moments, like when, under the cover of irony, he tries to steal Jimmy Chamberlin’s deserved thunder, or muses about his female band members’ availability to potential suitors while they blush. He makes cryptic, outdated quips about George Bush and the Dixie Chicks and – worst of all – tells us we all have beer guts. However if the parochial element are not amused by the banter, they are more than compensated: as if to make amends, Billy nods to his English influences – playing an excellent cover of Echo and the Bunnymen’s ‘Lips Like Sugar’ as an encore – the song that had my metal comrade roaring.

So luckily when Corgan stopped havering and the band played, the crowd surged, cheekiness became youthful vigour, irony became cryptic sincerity. That night the Pumpkins made music that sounded like lullabies, like explosions inside bell towers. The music lived up to its promise: “we’ll make things right, we’ll feel it all... tonight”.