Alternative Rockers Smashing Pumpkins were recent visitors to the Kunstrasen and the Chicago trio, fleshed out with additional musicians, made sure it was a loud and proud evening to remember for the 3,500 progressive rock fans in the audience.
I’ve no idea what the three giant constructions on the Kunstrasen stage represented, but their dark bulk made for a ponderous stage dressing that proved a perfect match for the equally dark ponderous music. The Smashing Pumpkins have been around since 1988 with various incarnations, the only constant being the man standing stage center, Billy Corgan. Of the other two original members, drummer Jimmy Chamberlain is pretty well hidden from view behind the frame of his kit, and guitarist James Iha is definitely there to Cogans left – but not really making his presence felt visually and only sporadically musically. Most of the major guitar work comes from Corgan, and Iha has probably long since given up on outstaging the appearance on the other side of the stage of Kiki Wong – a looker of a girl who seems to change guitar after every song and use it as an accessory the way many would a handbag. I couldn’t really hear her contribution to the sound though so Alice Cooper’s Nita Strauss remains the best female guitar shredder that I’ve heard live in recent years.
All of which is to say that whilst there are numerous other musicians on the stage The Smashing Pumpkins are really, creatively, onstage at least, just one pumpkin – the man wearing a dark frockcoat as if he’s a medieval sorcerer.
But would a medieval sorcerer’s coat have bright red buttons? Billy Corgan loves his lyrics to be dark and his soundcarpet to be thick – which in this case also means loud. Song titles like ‘Pentagrams’, ‘Bullet with Butterfly Wings’, ‘Muzzle’, ‘Edin’, and most of all ‘Porcelina of the Vast Oceans’ are an indication of the territory covered. If that wasn’t indicator enough, then you should know that the band’s new disc is titled ‘Aghori Mhori Mei’ and the Aghori are a Hindu Monastic order. If you look them up, you will find that the Aghori make for pretty heavy reading, which can also be said of Billy Corgan’s lyrics. One of the most memorable being the chorus from ‘Bodies’: “Love is suicide. Love is suicide. Love is suicide. Love is suicide!” – I think we get the message.
The only break from Corgan’s private forebodings comes in the shape of a slow moving cover of Berlin’s ‘Take my breath away’ with it’s chorus ‘Take my breath away. My love, take my breath away, My love, take my breath away’ where the plea to “take my breath away” gets a macabre change of meaning if you couple it to Corgan’s own “Love is suicide”. In any case, the audience weren’t joining in as much as hoped by the band it would seem, which led to the exclamation “If this was a soccer game, you’d all be f**king singing along!”
There were not too many audience interactions, although James Iha did disclose a love for currywurst, and create loud cheers when he announced after over an hour “Don’t worry, we’re going to play about another 17 songs!”; which was something of an exaggeration, but having said that, Smashing Pumpkins certainly gave the best value for money timewise that I’ve encountered in a long time – over two hours.
If you like your music served with an apocalyptic tone then, The Smashing Pumpkins are your go-to band, and since they’ve been around for almost forty years now there are clearly plenty who do. Certainly it’s not a music that dates because it started out seeming primeval from the beginning. They may not be opening new musical frontiers anymore but The Smashing Pumpkins will undoubtedly contine just as long as their high priest Billy Corgan deems suitable.
Coming up to the last week or so of this seasons Kunstrasen it’s good to hear that around 100,000 tickets have been sold so far with the only major blow having been Massive Attack’s sudden cancellation. Even the weather has generally been kind. Check HERE to find out what’s still to come.
