I was somewhat heartened when I learned that the Smashing Pumpkins would finally play their hometown of Chicago, after seemingly avoiding it since the band "re-formed" in 2006. That heartening has sort of been crapped on with this report from Matthew Perpetua of fluxblog describing a Pumpkins show he attended last night.

According to Perpetua, the Pumpkins dished out "40 minutes of abrasive, off-putting music," and when it came to the encore, instead of playing the hits that every audience  always wants to hear, the band aimed to pleased themselves, rather than their fans. When the crowd wasn't pleased by this, Corgan reportedly resorted to telling the "visibly disappointed audience that [Corgan would] see them in hell." 

Coming from the voice of my adolescence, that's a pretty lame thing to hear. One of the things that worked so well for the Pumpkins on albums like Gish and Siamese Dream was Corgan's sense for melodrama and hurt feelings. Apparently he hasn't outgrown those qualities, but they're not coming through so well in his music anymore, as anyone who's heard Zeitgeist can tell you. I hope for all the hometown fans who've been waiting since 2000 to see the Smashing Pumpkins, that this report is an exaggeration, or that they change their act before they hit Chicago.

[Idolator]