SP Show Reviews

The Arizona Republic - 12/7/96 Concert Review (America West Arena)
Monday, December 9, 1996

ENCORE - Reviews of Weekend Entertainment
By Salvatore Caputo - Staff writer

(Thanks to Josh Provost for the article)

Lead guitarist James Iha needn't have to be bothered to invite the audience to dance for 1979 during Smashing Pumpkins' second encore Saturday at America West Arena.

The crowded house already had been dancing for more than 90 minutes to the quartet's smashing-eardrums music, ever since the band came on stage to the tune of the piano instrumental Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. So, even the sight of an auxiliary acoustic guitarist dressed up as a green angel wasn't going to stop them.

This was one loud show, even though vocalist-guitarist Billy Corgan sprinkled more gentle tunes such as the epic Porcelina of the Vast Oceans throughout the evening.

During Porcelina, someone threw a metallic object at Corgan. The singer must have eyes like a hawk because he pointed out the person to security and had him ejected, then Corgan resumed the song with unflappable cool.

The 2 1/4-hour concert was performed before a huge conical framework or girders that looked like a rocket ship's skeleton. It evoked the rockets that showed up in a number of the video backdrops used to enhance such songs as Tonight, Tonight.

The main set, drawn mostly from the Mellon Collie album, was well-paced, building up to a smashing climax -- what else?

The final encore started out well but wandered off into a meandering jam as though Corgan didn't want it to end. Finally, bassist D'Arcy had enough and left the stage. Yet Iha picked up the bass, and he and Corgan noodled on into the night (or at least a few more minutes). This is the way the show ends, not with a bang, but a whimper.

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