Smashing Pumpkins 2018 Tour

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Sitting in Gila River Arena, waiting for the Pumpkins’ Shiny and Oh So Bright Tour to kick off, I felt like I was about to meet an ex I still held a torch for. Would they be as good as I remembered? Would it be weird? Could their music still make me feel the way it did when I first heard them?

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While waiting for the stage to transition from opener Metric’s setup to the Pumpkins’ stage, a friend of a friend swung by and said that the show was going to be three hours long. “The set list is like 30 songs,” he confided to us. On the one hand, that was shocking news: Three hours is venturing into Springsteen territory. That’s a goddamn marathon for any band to push through. But on the other hand, Corgan’s always been crazy generous to his fans. This is the guy who was dropping B-Side box sets and deep cut comps before Smashing Pumpkins Version 1.0 even broke up.

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Time and time again over the course of three hours, the Pumpkins showed off their best side. It isn’t their “God is empty/just like me” rocker posturing; it’s their romanticism. How songs like “Muzzle” and “Hummer” seem to soar toward heaven, eager to transcend the bounds of everything else. It’s why metal groups like Deafheaven draw inspiration from records like Siamese Dream for their prettier moments: The Pumpkins knew how to merge overwhelming power and beauty better than anyone else in American alt-rock. They found a way to splice Jimmy Page and Robin Guthrie into one perfect six-string rock god. It’s why I thought of them the way I’d think of an ex. So much of their music is about yearning, about desire, about wanting someone or something so much and not being able to contain yourself. The kind of feelings that are the death of cool if you say them out loud.

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Did Corgan and company faceplant a few times in Glendale? Yes. But for every embarrassment, there was a dozen triumphs. The three of them played together like old friends, cracking jokes and at ease in each other’s company. They even threw in a genuine curveball during their encore as Chamberlain picked up a mandolin and the band did a sweet, lilting cover of Alison Krauss’s “Baby Mine.” A moment of gentle bluegrass to cap off a night of gothic synth-pop and skyscraping guitars.

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And if you’re wondering if I felt the way I did in San Francisco, if the magic with “my ex” is still there … Let’s just say I could feel a piece of me splinter and crack open when they started playing “Mayonaise.”

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They played "Eye"

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