Night one at the Chicago Theatre was billed as "Black Sunshine," while Wednesday's return engagement is labeled "White Crosses." (Friday at the Auditorium Theatre is "Black Sunshine" again, while Saturday there is "White Crosses." All four shows sold out.)
After the opening night, I still don't have any idea what "Black Sunshine" means. But like many devoted fans, this veteran chronicler of the Great Pumpkin long ago gave up trying to discern the now 41-year-old singer and songwriter's motives, methodology or psychological well-being.
In the years between Pumpkins Mach I and Pumpkins Mach II, we got a soulful solo acoustic Corgan, a spiritual Zwan Corgan and an electro-glam solo Corgan. And he seemed happier and more well-balanced in all those incarnations. Though Corgan wasn't as surly at home as he's reportedly been at other tour stops, the Elk Grove Village native wasn't particularly content either, at one point baiting the crowd and daring it to berate him.
When Corgan calls a
project "the Smashing Pumpkins," it partly signals a return
to his bombastic, grandiose style of rock. But more
importantly, it seems to indicate a certain mindset, one
best described as rat-in-a-cage,
life's-a-bummer-when-you're-a-hummer "miserable"--or at
least driven to the point of insanity.
As the bald wonder put it in the new DVD "If All Goes
Wrong," a documentary chronicling the early days of this
reunion: "My tendency is to push everything to its absolute
breaking point."
And push Corgan did. After an opening drum solo by Chamberlin, one of several, the band's leader took the stage adorned as a gothic sun god to deliver the bubblegum chant "Everybody Clap Your Hands," proclaiming, "Rock 'n' roll, people, this is rock 'n' roll!"
Things only got sillier and more excessive from there. No
rhythm was busy enough, no vocal was tortured enough, no
guitar solo was long or furious enough and there was no such
thing as too many crescendos. In other words, yeah, it was a
lot like the Pumpkins of old. Only they had more good
melodies back in the day.
As at all the "Black Sunshine" shows, the 2 1/2-hour set
list was a mix of new material and much-loved '90s hits,
heavier on the former than the latter, even though this was
billed as a "20th Anniversary Tour." Corgan could be
applauded for refusing to live in the past. But the sad
truth was that with too few exceptions--"Tarantula" from
"Zeitgeist" (2007) and the new video-game single
"G.L.O.W."--the new material didn't measure up to old songs
such as "Tonight, Tonight," "Today" or "Heavy Metal
Machine."
The nadir was a ridiculously jammed-out "United States," as indulgent an example of pointless wankery as anyone's endured since "Tales from Topographic Oceans."
On the bright side, the mid-evening acoustic interlude was lovely, and for progressive rock done right, you had to love the cover of Pink Floyd's "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun," which closed the set proper.
Wait, could that be what he meant by "Black Sunshine"? To quote one of Corgan's old alt peers, oh well, whatever, never mind.