SP Show Reviews

Gourd vibrations
The pumpkins revert to Smashing mode at Radio city
By Jim Farber
8/1/98 Review
New York Daily News
Thanks to Eve for the review.

Nothing sounded like it used to at The Smashing Pumpkins concert at Radio city Music hall Saturday night. Songs that soothed and floated on disc thrashed and burned live. numbers with big arrangements got pared down to something spare. Old melodies fell away, new riffs took their place and different instruments assumed lead or supporting parts. You'd think the Pumpkins had something to run from. And in a way, they did considering the songs they chose to rejigger. Eleven of the sixteen pieces performed this night came from the group's baffling new LP "Adore" (abhor might be more like it)

It's a strange piece of work purposely swerving from every strength of Pumpkin head Billy Corgan while careening full speed into his faults. corgan finds his forte in banshee screams and raging riffs. Adore goes for gentle croons and little tunes. It's understandable that an ambitious artist like Corgan would want to make a bid for earnest expression after having explored anger so extensively on his other albums. But however much humanity he holds in his heart, he has little talent for tender or beautiful expression.

Live, he made few bids for either. rather, he led the band into bold new territory, not often with great success but at least with guts and occasional brilliance. If Corgan had threatened in the past to bring back elements of 70's art rock, here he went for it in a far bigger way. The band that night featured a guest keyboardist(mike Garson) who added noodling solos that Rick Wakeman might approve of, plus no fewer than three drummers, led by the most muscular stickman in rock Kenny Arnoff.

On all but the quietest numbers in this two hour set, Aronoff forced a pummeling beat behind what had been lighter songs on record. together it created az kind of gothic art metal, roughly reminiscent of King crimson's mid 70's work circa red. Unfortunately, playing the songs with more force didn't add more momentum. Most of the songs still plodded while the dual guitar solos Corgan and james Iha) droned. Numbers like Once upon A time or Tear proved torturous for all their daring.

Not until the concerts final third did the band match it's approach to worthy material. In the older Bullet With Butterfly Wings, they shafted the original guitar riff and let the drummers rule, pounding and thrashing to electrifying effect. Likewise the new For Martha found the two guitarist on soaring solos reminiscent of Robert Fripp at his most gloriously harsh. Such moments weren't enough to redeem all that went before, but it did reassert Corgan as an artist you can never count out.

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