The Smashing Pumpkins Play Old and New for Young and Old in Kansas City
Recently I was able to check out one of the more legendary bands still touring, when I saw The Smashing Pumpkins perform at the Starlight Theater in Kansas City. Now days they have most of the original line up together with Billy Corgan, Jimmy Chamberlin and James Iha being joined by newer members Katie Cole and Jack Bates and Kiki Wong. Kiki who plays guitar, won an open contest to join the band and has a large social media following.
The Starlight Theater has a capacity of roughly 7700 people and the venue was mostly full by the time the opener PVRIS was closing out their set. Looking around at the other attendees I was surprised to see just about as many young people as older faces. I had read that the Pumpkins had been being discovered by the younger generation via Tik Tok and other social media. On top of the social media attention they also had just released their new album ‘Aghori Mhori Mei’ and had some added attention with that.
They kicked off the show with the fast and hard “Everlasting Gaze”. The crowd was into it immediately, especially on the bridge where the music drops out and it’s just Corgan’s vocals before the whole band kicked back in. I remember seeing them back before they broke up and that song being a highlight early on in the show. It was fun to think about it being 24 years later and the song still stirring the crowd. They followed that up with the hard rocking “Doomsday Clock” from the currently out of print album, Zeitgeist. Throughout the set they played many of the hits people wanted to hear like “Mayonaise”, “Disarm”, “Cherub Rock” and “Today” from Siamese Dream as well as “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” and “1979” from Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness and “Ava Adore” from Adore. Oddly enough they did not play anything from their new album but did play several tracks from their previous release “Atum”, including “That Which Animates the Spirit” and “Springtimes”.
A couple favorite moments for me personally and the crowd were the epic “Thru the Eyes of the Ruby” and one of their fastest hardest songs in “Jellybelly”. A bit of deeper cuts from the Mellon Collie release were a treat for the bigger fans in the crowd. They mixed in big hits like “Tonight Tonight”, the soft and gentle “Rhinoceros” from their first album Gish along with a U2 cover in Zoo station and short snippets of covers of Kansas and ZZ Top. Another treat for hardcore fans was “Gossamer” which is a song without a released studio recording and is an outtake from a album in Zietgiest that is no longer available. After that treat they closed out the show with the iconic “Cherub Rock” and “Zero”. The crowd was going nuts and calling for more. The Pumpkins came to KC and rocked like it was decades ago for a crowd of all ages. It was a great experience and don’t let anyone tell you that The Pumpkins are on the decline.
