If Billy Corgan’s world still is a vampire, he seems none too worse for the wear.
At 45, the Smashing Pumpkin’s iconic baldheaded balladeer of hard-rocking melancholia, can still deliver a full serving of the signature piss and vinegar blend that launched his band to international stardom two decades ago.
The Smashing Pumpkins, who at this point are really just Corgan and a somewhat revolving cast of bandmates, played a solid performance Friday night at San Francisco’s Bill Graham Auditorium. It was a two-and-a-half hour medley of artful distortion, cranked-up amps, and nostalgia-laden angst, performed before a remarkably subdued audience; the same crowd who 20 years ago would have eagerly been thrashing in a mosh pit, but who stood relatively motionless, the occasional head nod and hand wave a subtle remembrance of the lost wilder days of youth, when there was less cash for drinks but greater capacity to enjoy them.
The evening began with an efficient run-through of the new album, Oceania. The band’s first release since touring again five years ago — and the first to feature Corgan’s new accompanists — it includes a handful of notable tracks, and succeeds in retaining much of the original character and nuanced intensity of the Pumpkins’ of yore. Unsurprisingly, though, it’s lacking in the same level of gravitas that propelled the group to its generation-defining status in the ’90s. Many of the compositions work nicely as background pieces, but struggle to emerge as stand-alones.
Among the exceptions are “Pinwheels” and “Pale Horse,” two beautifully delivered compositions emphasizing the sustained strength of Corgan’s voice. Among the most distinct, and deliberated-over, in the rock and roll business, Corgan’s voice has the unique ability to convey loosely contained packages of raw emotion.