Smashing Pumpkins: Billy Corgan and James Iha talk up Gold Coast in Southport Broadwater Parklands gig
Smashing Pumpkins founders Billy Corgan and James Iha have suggested they would relocate to the Gold Coast during their triumphant performance on the Glitter Strip. FULL REVIEW
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Smashing Pumpkins founders Billy Corgan and James Iha have jokingly suggested they would relocate to the Gold Coast during their triumphant Sunday night performance on the Glitter Strip.
The alt-rock powerhouse closed out the evening session of the World is a Vampire Festival at the Southport Broadwater Parklands.
To the joy of thousands of fans watching on, the Pumpkins delivered 90 minutes of new tracks and classic numbers from the band’s 90s heyday, including a handful of unexpected covers.
The covers included an intimate acoustic duet between Corgan and Iha of the 80s classic Under the Milky Way by Australian band The Church and the Talking Heads song Once in a Lifetime.
The pair dedicated an acoustic performance of the band’s 1995 hit Tonight Tonight to the Gold Coast audience.
Iha and Corgan delighted the crowd with their onstage banter, during which they praised the city and its reputation for “partying pretty hard”.
“I asked somebody about the Gold Coast, a local man, and he said ‘there’s gold here so everybody is rich” guitarist Iha told the crowd.
“Every year they give out 12 ounces of gold to the citizens of the Gold Coast and I was like ‘wow that’s an amazing place’ … so I’m ready to move here.”
Corgan responded asking “does this mean you’re going to leave the (Smashing) Pumpkins and join The Church?”
Iha responded: “I’m just going to hang out on the Gold Coast, go surfing even though I don’t know how to swim.”
Corgan chuckled and responded, saying: “I am here to do everything you want, whatever that is, here to live, destroy and f**k and kill and breed and write poetry and surf.
“I’m here to do it all.
“Thank you for 35 years of the Smashing Pumpkins.”
Corgan presided over the audience dressed as a Catholic Priest and hitting the high notes like he did 30 years earlier.
“Welcome to the rock show circa 2023,” Corgan told the crowd early in the evening.
Most of the concert featured tracks from the band’s second, third and fourth studio albums – 1993’s Siamese Dream, 1995’s Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness and 1998’s Adore, along with a few new tracks from the recently released Atum: A Rock Opera in Three Acts,
Among the highlights of the setlist were Zero, 1979, Bullet with Butterfly Wings, Today, Cherub Rock, Ava Adore and Empire.
ANALYSIS: ALL THRILLER, NO FILLER
The Billy Corgan-fronted Smashing Pumpkins wasted no time cutting straight to the bangers.
Second song in: Bullet without Butterfly Wings.
And 7000-plus concert goers at Broadwater Parklands nodded their heads in unison while yelling ‘despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage’.
It didn’t let up.
Their hit song Today followed soon after as the band that was one of the shining lights of the 1990s and beyond took the crowd down memory lane.
At one point they just jammed for a very long time, noodling away introspectively as the light show played its part, with one concert goer swaying ¬- and seemingly mesmerised - remarking: “That’s one for the trippers.”
After the low-key melodic stripped back ‘We Only Come Out at Night’, Corgan - wearing face paint and a black full length trench coat - spoke his first words to the fans: “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the rock show circa 2023. We appreciate you and we love you.”
His guitarist James Iha noted: “Holey Moley - how are you guys doing? Are you having a reasonable enough time?”
On they played with the hits at regular intervals - Tonight, Tonight, then Zero then later the sweet, carefree 1979.
It was all interspersed with plenty of light and shade plus sheer, utter, heavy darkness with some deep, hard and very funky base lines.
They are a group with incredible range. One moment soft, gentle and dreamy - the next seemingly possessed by the devil or some emotional burden.
By the close, the band let their instruments do the talking and finished with an atmospheric, feedback ridden jam before finishing and walking off to appreciative cheers and applause.
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Originally published as Smashing Pumpkins: Billy Corgan and James Iha talk up Gold Coast in Southport Broadwater Parklands gig
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