If Billy Corgan wants to go out and explore some lesser-known Smashing Pumpkins tracks, that’s fully his right.
Corgan, after all, is the singer/guitarist as well as the primary songwriter for the psychedelic, fuzz-laden band that broke big with hits like “Cherub Rock,” “Disarm” and “Today” as alternative rock exploded in the 1990s.
To take that deeper dive — with not all of the Pumpkins camp fully on board — he formed Billy Corgan and the Machines of God, which hit the Roxian Theatre in McKees Rocks on Monday on the A Return to Zero tour. (Don’t worry: the Pumpkins are still together, with a European tour starting in July.)
Instead of revisiting those early songs, Corgan is choosing to showcase tracks from the 30th anniversary of 1995’s diamond-selling “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness,” the 25th anniversary of 2000’s “Machina/The Machines of God” (and its enigmatic counterpart “Machina II/The Friends & Enemies of Modern Music”), as well as last year’s “Aghori Mhori Mei.”
Accompanied by Smashing Pumpkins touring guitarist Kiki Wong as well as bassist Jenna Fournier and drummer Jake Hayden, Corgan covered a lot of ground in a set wildly divergent from a typical Pumpkins show. Dressed in a shin-length gray robe — think of a wizard or gothic priest — Corgan had to have been toasty as temperatures hovered near the 90s outside and a packed floor generated heat and sweat. With his shaved head, the 58-year-old Corgan didn’t look all that different from his “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness” days.
Notably, the show included five songs from the ill-fated “Machina II” — originally envisioned as part of a double album before Virgin Records balked at that and a standalone record. Corgan wound up releasing it himself on his own label, with just 25 vinyl copies produced, encouraging fans to share the album online for free. A deluxe box set, with both “Machina” albums, is tentatively scheduled for an August release.
Those album tracks included Monday’s opener, “Glass’ Theme,” a two-minute burner that set the tone for the night. “Real Love” had Hayden pummeling away on the drums, and the band ripped through a fast-paced “White Spyder,” the most metal song of the night. It wasn’t all heavy, though, as “If There Is a God” featured a solo Corgan strumming away on his electric guitar.
“Machina/The Machines of God” may be more well-known, highlighted by a noisy “Heavy Metal Machine,” “The Crying Tree of Mercury” with an atmospheric solo and a space-y “Glass and the Ghost Children.”
The songs from 2024’s “Aghori Mhori Mei” had been heralded as a return to the band’s classic sound, playing “Pentagrams,” “Sighommi” and “Edin,” underscored by the scratchy riff of “999.”
Exploring those albums may satisfy Corgan and the band’s hardcore audience, but the more casual fans definitely appreciated appearances from “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness,” which sold more than 5 million copies in the U.S.
“As many of you know, it’s the 30th anniversary of ‘Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness,’” said Corgan, drawing cheers.
“Which, of course, was released before all of you were born,” he continued, triggering mock boos before jokingly adding it came out “before Kiki and Jenna were born.”
“Porcelina of the Vast Oceans” could serve as a microcosm of the band’s strengths, going from quiet to loud, soft to heavy, over and over again. And that’s not to mention some extended guitar solos where Corgan seemed to coax and squeeze out just the right notes with his guitar vertical. (The main set’s closer of “The Aeroplane Flies High (Turns Left, Looks Right)” proved to be another strong point with similar peaks and valleys, not to mention a blistering solo.)
A rocking “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” may have drawn the loudest cheers, while “1979” created plenty of smiles from the crowd (and Corgan) as one of his children came out to dance and toss guitar picks into the audience. For “Tonight, Tonight,” Corgan played an acoustic guitar with Fournier accompanying him on vocals, with both being bathed in shimmering lights.
“Bodies” had segued perfectly out of “If There Is a God,” but a little bit of the snarl was missing in Corgan’s voice on this one.
For the encore, Corgan teased some Led Zeppelin followed by Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train” before a raucous “Zero” with Wong getting a shoutout before she handled the warped guitar solo. Then came a hard-rocking “The Everlasting Gaze” to cap off more than two hours of a trip through some of the Pumpkins’ less-explored catalog.
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Los Angeles-based Return to Dust opened the show with 30 minutes of neo-grunge — like a distant relative of Alice in Chains or Soundgarden.
A broken right foot had relegated bassist/co-vocalist Graham Stanush to performing while sitting down, but Monday’s show was his first standing up since the break. The young band — guitarist Sebastian Gonzalez is still a teenager, and the rest are in their early 20s — included at least one song, “Bored,” from their “Speak Like the Dead” EP coming out in August.
