DiS Missive: Rotten nostalgia and Smashing bores as Billy ploughs on

Saturday's show has to rank as one of the most bloated performances I've seen in a very long time. The early highlight of Tonight, Tonight followed by Mayonnaise only showed up what a dirge much of the rest of it was.
Acoustic 1979 was okay. Silly version of My Blue Heaven was not.
It was a huge relief when it all ended.

So as a fairly fanatical fan, I was thrilled when they announced reformations and actual live shows so I could see them. But what I got when I saw them at Leeds was so vapid and dull, that it slightly destroyed them for me. It wasn't that bad a set, but the way it was played (Tonight, Tonight falling on its arse live has got to be embarassing) just made it nearly unbearable. Real car crash moment for me, genuinely couldn't believe a band I loved could be so bad. It's like you say mike, the new stuff is just so indifference inducing. If they were plain bad I could take it, but dull and bland and ultimately pointless? No thanks.

I don't think I've listened to an album of theirs the whole way through since seeing them this summer.

Were actually great. The backlash they received was/is/and will ever be pretty dull.

i am in agreement here - although i was over the pumpkins since they released adore, which really let me down.

they will always hold a nostalgic place in my heart though, with few albums listened to with as much teenaged obsessiveness as gish, siamaese dream & mellon collie.

The Future Embrace is a massively excellent album.

If releasing new material means that I can see the back catalogue, then new material ftw.

Zeitgeist is turgid, but as for live quality this rump of the former band don't appear to be much different. Inconsistency, impromptu jamming, constantly changing how certain tracks are played live etc.

What I think is the main problem is the casual fans who like the singles or own SD/MCIS turning up to see a band prone to technical ostentatiousness and not getting a 'greatest hits' set. They get bored; they wail, and cry for more Mellon Collie. When I saw them In Shepherd's Bush last June it was much different. Rarities like 'Winterlong' and 'Lucky 13' got huge cheers and it was clear it was the diehard fans who were willing to have been up at 9am and pay £37.50 (when they had already been announced for Reading/Leeds) to be there.

Smashing Pumpkins; like them or loathe them always had a HELL of a lot going on in terms of material. A stupidly large amount (across a wide variety of established genres) was written over that initial 9 year periods, and for some reason they are one of those bands that really breed obsessives. Corgan has been aware of this been aware of this; and has mixed the sets up to appeal to all.

Poor sod can't win. If they didn't record any new material and he just played the hits he'd get accused of just 'doing it for the money with no soul'. Yet, he mixes up the set lists, records material (and if your not in Nottingham really seems to be enjoying himself again) and he gets similarly chastised.

Were they REALLY that bad that it required a damn article? The current tour contained Drown, Today, 1979, BWBW, Tonight Tonight, Stand Inside Your Love, Everlasting Gaze, Ava Adore, Perfect, Try Try Try in terms of singles; alongside Mayonnaise & Porcelina. The members showed enthusiasm and could play their instruments.

Just seems sometimes people hate something for the sake of hating.

before last week I actually HATED shitegeist with a vengeance, i could not listen to anything more than once except for 7 Shades Of Black (one of the best songs of Billy's career methinks) - but saturday's show seemed to put it in context and, well, it's not that bad, it's finally clicking for me.

I agree with the "he can't win" arguement above, and the show may have distanced the more casual listener such as Diver (OMG you bought siamese dream and mellon collie! so did a few million others...) but for the hundreds of thousands that stuck with them until Machina 2 a show like the O2's is more than enough. Perhaps if Diver etc stopped demanding that their entertainment was spoonfed to them and put a bit of effort back then they would enjoy the experience more. Failing that go see U23D instead.

it was liking watching another band impersonating the Pumpkins. I've seen the pumpkins 6 times (93, 95, 96, 97, 2000 and 2008) after a promising start I was bored shitless by the end - i ended up thinking what i am doing and what the fuck are they doing. a once great band, I felt like they were living for music and being in the pumpkins was essential to their own personal survival and life's mission, and we their audience were on an unpredictable journey with them. now it just looks like the souless cash in that its accused of being......they pull out the stops for the london show when all the record label corporate suites are rolled out at the O2 but don't give a fuck about a nottingham gig

to be fair a 23,000 arena is not an enjoyable place to watch any band, and the pumpkins noise histrionics were not help by the shit sound at the O2. But like Mike they should have called it a day at least in 2000 if they are unable to come up with new material to justify the come back. James and D'arcy's none appearance on this reunion speaks volumes about the wisdom of Billy's move.

particularly the suggestion that billy "can't win".

i think the article starts off a little confusing as it suggests that reformations that produce new material can be good and similarly those that are just 'greatest hits' live shows are also noteworthy. it'd be interesting to see whether this article would have been written if Zeitgeist was a great album.

i think that the smashing pumpkins' reformation simply hasn't worked as well as many of us would have liked and therein lies the problem. of course when i hear the new songs live i'm going to be more indifferent to them than the older songs and rarities, but i don't necessarily think they come across badly when played live. i saw the band at reading and though a lot of the new songs came across really well, despite the fact that they will probably not stand the test of time like the rest of the set.

i don't think its necessarily fair to have a missive against the pumpkins just because the new album isn't brilliant and some of their live shows are questionable. i was at the nottingham show and yeah i was pissed off at the end, but it hasn't ruined the band for me. similarly i don't think the band is now pointless, they have place in many peoples hearts and it's great to see them touring again.

it'll just be interesting to see how long the band lasts now. if the next album is bad then i'm sure that'll be it. it's a bit unfair to judge them at present

and he chooses them well but United States is terible both on record and live, however Tarantula is pretty good live.... and 'Thats The Way (My Love Is)' isn't a bad song in its own right.

Im glad they reformed as i wasnt in the posistion to see them whilst at their peak now was I... and I always think its nice when bands reform cause people can see things they may of missed.

really, kids. What were they thinking?

Lovely song that.

Pfff

last time i checked this band was called zwan?

'Out on tour with the Smashing Pumpkins..'

Billy can't win. I admit I may be among the more obsessive, hardcore fans who will accept many things from Billy Corgan, no questions asked, but I do think it's rather unfair to complain about some of this stuff.
I was at the O2 and the thing I was most worried about (having been too young to see the Pumpkins at their peak) was that the band would show up, stand there and play while looking bored, get their money and go home. I don't want to hear songs exactly like they are on cd, but louder. I want energy, enthusiasm and some personality when I see a band live, and I got all that. I saw the Pixies the first night at Brixton when they reformed, excellent. They seemed like they wanted to be there. I saw Slint when they reformed, they might just as well have put Spiderland on loud.
A bit disappointing.

I can understand the more casual fans being bewildered, annoyed, etc - but I think what we got (at the O2, at least) was Smashing Pumpkins doing a gig as themselves, not Smashing Pumpkins as those guys who did Bullet With Butterfly Wings and apparently released some other stuff. And I'm happy with that. I heard my favourite songs live, with energy, and felt that the band enjoyed performing almost as much as I enjoyed watching.

I know I'm in a minority here, but then I was also possibly the only person to get excited when they played My Blue Heaven. :-)

...they were fucking mind blowing live if you caught them on a good day. Siamese dream tour at wolverhampton Civic and Reading 95 headline slot being the life affirming experiences you mention

I think I must be one of the only people who thinks Zeitgeist is actually ok........

Corgan isn't that old, why should he not want to continue making records...

If anything it is the audience who are complacent and lazy... People seem to just want nostalgia and increasingly as they get older they stop buying records and stop wanting to be the slightest bit challenged by something new.... I have a lot of friends like this.

I actually liked Zeitgeist, but your audience is your audience. Deal with it. People are paying £40 to see you, give them what they want. A gig at a venue as big as The O2 is where you're expected to deliver a singles set, as that's what the majority of people there are going to want.

Christ, even bands like Blur accepted this where they did their 'Singles' tour at arenas then went back to relatively small venues like the Astoria to tour Think Tank, because they knew they wanted to play mainly new stuff. They flagged it up so people knew exactly what they were getting.

Srsly.

They are perfectly in with the five-albums-per-year crowd, £50 man, whatever.

Some people have slightly misinterpreted this article.

Mike gets things massively wrong.

This is one of those times

…wants to "work a bit more"? Seriously, answers on a postcard

I've seen them twice within the last year, and it's affirmed everything I've ever felt about them. They're just one of those bands you either grew up with and love or don't get along with at all. Zeitgeist isn't fantastic and it isn't terrible. It's a hell of a lot better than most of the crap that's on radio one but when you're comparing something to the likes of MCIS and Siamese Dream, anything can seem shit. There's something fantastically romantic about the smashing pumpkins. They're not cool to like, they're not constantly on the radio and a hell of a lot of your friends have never heard of them, but as a person coming to terms with how they are and without the need for indie coolness, they genuinely are a band you can become emotionally invested in despite being well aware of the air of naffness and ego that follows them. They've managed to rear a second generation of teenagers, even after they've split, and I reckon they'll be one of those bands that future generations will look to when they hit that age when girls are dicks and they don't know their place in the world.

I agree. :-)

I'm glad we've got that sorted