Corgan and Pumpkins don't miss a beat
The first of the Smashing Pumpkins' three reunion shows at the Orpheum Theatre, on Saturday night, was both more than a fan could've hoped for, and a little bit less. Reunions can be a depressingly cynical affair as old bandmates punch the clock and cash the checks. Not so with the Pumpkins, who continue their mini-Orpheum residence with shows tonight and tomorrow.
There was Billy Corgan in all his shiny-pated glory, shooting sparks from his guitar and snarling and crooning in his tortured nasal whine just like he did back in the days when he had hair. Drummer Jimmy Chamberlin proved still adept at anchoring a groove with both thunder and delicacy. Couple that with a sometimes blindingly inventive light show and a vaunted catalog of songs that careened from venomous invective to poetic abstraction played with energy and care, and you had a reunited band that hadn't lost a step since it dribbled to its demise in 2000. Its comeback record, "Zeitgeist," from earlier this year might not have stirred up much interest, but its show had backbone and bite.
Still, there was a feeling that something was missing - that no matter how good it is today, the band can never be what it was. Two of the Pumpkins' biggest hits, "Today" and "Disarm," went missing in a far-reaching, sometimes indulgent two-hour set loaded with less-tuneful new material. (Twenty-minute version of "Heavy Metal Machine," I'm looking at you.)
Of course, the real elephant in the room was Corgan's calling the band the Smashing Pumpkins even though original bassist D'arcy Wretzky and guitarist James Iha aren't aboard the reunion train. Whether it was a simple oversight or an intentional way of not calling attention to the absences, Corgan didn't introduce the capable replacements - bassist Ginger Reyes, gui tarist Jeff Schroeder, and keyboardist Lisa Harriton. He did introduce Chamberlin.
For some, that's a matter of semantics, since the Pumpkins have always been songwriter Corgan's baby, and Wretzky and Iha were both gone before the end. And anyone who saw the band in the heady alt-rock '90s would never accuse the Pumpkins of having any kind of amazing personal chemistry onstage. Yet there was a sense of a small tear in the musical seam.
The sold-out crowd, however, was ecstatic to have their leader back in the saddle, and he was his endearingly goofy self, riffing on Friday's Red Sox game and the allure of Boston's dark and mysterious history of "revolution and death and Paul Revere and all that [expletive]."
Corgan obliged diehards with a set that covered the group's entire catalog from the dreamy yet hard-edged guitar charge of "Cherub Rock" to tender acoustic performances of "1979" and "Perfect" to the tribal bombast of the new "United States," which included a blistering insertion of "The Star-Spangled Banner" a la Hendrix. The prog-metal guitar epics were out in force with the swirling "Tonight Tonight" as were righteous, to-the-point rockers including "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" and "Zero."
The aforementioned "Heavy Metal Machine" was equal parts thrilling and interminable as Corgan led his charges through a perverse mash-up that resembled a collision of Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Van Halen, and Led Zeppelin, then forced everyone to sing Joan Jett's "I Love Rock N Roll" near its conclusion.
It's clear just how much Corgan really does love rock 'n' roll, both the music and the myth. If it makes him feel better to make it under the guise of a band name with sharp players serving his needs, well, there are worse reasons, with worse results.
Sarah Rodman can be reached at srodman@globe.com, for more music go to boston.com/ae/music/blog. 