Billy Corgan of The Smashing Pumpkins. KEVIN PYLE / Courtesy
proved its versatility -- and raw power -- with an intimate, sold-out show Friday night at the historic
Cain’s Ballroom.
Early on, Billy Corgan thrust himself into the full 13 songs from the band’s new album, “Oceania.” The mini-set could easily be considered the culmination of all things Pumpkins to this point.
There were straight-up rock elements, moments of huge drums, thrusting bass, celestial keyboards, sharp guitars and punk drive. His vocal range is still full-throated Pumpkins, emotive and ethereal.
The set production was stripped-down and straightforward, missing some design elements of the band’s upcoming arena tour.
Songs like “Panopticon,” “Violet Rays,” “My Love is Winter” and “Pinwheels” are, lyrically, everything the band has ever been. Corgan’s songs plumb the depths of the heart with loss and longing and love and anger and redemption. “Breathe! Love is the air!” he sang at one point. The crowd did, and was carried along with him on the journey.
Frankly, it takes a lot of chutzpah to open a concert with a full-length album’s worth of new tunes. The Pumpkins pulled it off with mastery. Sure, a 25-foot projection screen with scenes by Sean Evans, who assisted Roger Waters in his mind-bending production of “The Wall” tour.
Corgan and his band presented the album with almost no dialogue. Fans were receptive (and loud), excitably immersed in the music.
The album’s title track, "Oceania," was the only song he introduced from the album, and was the standout to this point of the night. The tune is epic and cinematic in every sense, lyrically and sonically. There were the metal guitars, heavy drums, soaring guitars. Every instrument sang together in unison, an overwhelming sum of its parts.
And then everything exploded.
The Pumpkins charged into what Corgan called the “dusty” set of the show, filled with greatest hits and covers of the bands that have inspired him.
He was chattier, warmer, more cantankerous, more hilarious. Songs included covers of David Bowie’s “Space Odyssey,” and KISS’s classic “Black Diamond,” along with “Disarm,” “Zero,” “Bullet with Butterfly Wings,” “Tonight, Tonight,” “Ava Adore” and others.
Midway through this set, and by all accounts the apex of the night, the band erupted into superhard, screaming rage-rock on a near-dark stage as “X.Y.U” took on an intensity that set the roiling mass of fans into near-hysteria. Men screamed primal, including Corgan.
"I can turn into that guy any fu—ing time I want!" Corgan said after the song rampaged for seven-plus minutes.
He confronted a hulking man in the audience who stood at a salute, arms raised and both middle fingers pointed skyward. “Hey, bald man, why are you flipping me off?,” he said, then laughed. Honestly, it was testosterone-fueled high praise from his core fans.
As one of my favorite authors, Norman Mailer, once wrote, “With the pride of an artist, you must blow against the walls of every power that exists, the small trumpet of your defiance.”
Friday night, minds were pried open with Corgan’s take on the band’s past and present as it vaulted into its future.
PS: Twitter was abuzz beforehand with sightings of actor Juliette Lewis, who is in Oklahoma to film the star-laden movie “August: Osage County.” Yes, she was there.
