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Background: Billy Corgan and a lean ensemble dubbed the Machines of God (and featuring Cleveland’s own Kid Tigrrr on bass) are currently touring behind a box set that celebrates Corgan’s “director’s cut” of a concept album originally released in truncated form as Machina/The Machines Of God, in 2000. It wasn’t a massive hit upon release, leading some critics to brandish the album as a sign of alternative rock end times. Perversely, it’s probably my favorite Smashing Pumpkins album, featuring as it does a cryptic brand of goth metal powered by the reinstatement of virtuosic drummer Jimmy Chamberlin and the introduction of bassist-vocalist Melissa Auf der Maur, who replaced D’arcy Wretsky. It’s also the Pumpkins’ most ambitious, indulgent and bombastic collection, which is saying something for a group who unapologetically pursued a “more is more” maximalism, often to great effect. I haven’t experienced the album’s current restaging, but I did review a performance of it when Smashing Pumpkins were originally touring Machina, making a stop at the Kent State Mac Center on Easter Sunday, April 23, 2000. So… for posterity’s sake, here’s my original take on the band’s performance, shortly before they called time on the operation (they subsequently reunited in 2006 and now feature three of the four original band members). For all the album’s darkness, it’s interesting to note how playful Billy could be when he was doing what he loved, without the pressure of big-city expectations, something I also witnessed when they were playing smaller venues on the band’s initial climb out of the club scene. That Billy seems to have reemerged in recent years, a welcome return.

Smashing Pumpkins: Billy Corgan Resurrects the God Machine*

By Robert Cherry

“I know we just came out with an album, but we have a new one ready. It’s a collection of holiday songs. This is one we wrote for Easter. This is ‘Heavy Metal Bunny,’” said Pumpkins leader Billy Corgan mid-set Easter Sunday, in Kent, Ohio. If anyone was taken in by his line initially, the big smile that crossed Corgan’s face gave the joke away as his band pounced on “I Of The Mourning” off the band’s for-real new album Machina/The Machines Of God. 

The Easter egg-ons started early in the evening as the Pumpkins arrived onstage with a giant inflatable Easter Bunny perched before Corgan’s mic stand. Guitarist James Iha sported giant fuzzy bunny ears as did new bassist Melissa Auf der Maur, who amended her pink and white outfit with a cotton tail. Although Corgan opted out of a cheeky Easter ensemble—instead choosing a fetching designer skirt—he was no less moved by the holiday spirit, as he thanked the near-capacity crowd for blasphemously sharing Easter with the band. 

The blow-up bunny (unavailable for comment) was perhaps less enthusiastic. As Corgan paused mid-song during the enormo-rock opener  “Heavy Metal Machine,” he ironically saluted the audience with the sign of the devil horns and punted the hare off the lip of the stage as the band picked up the colossal riff once again. Thankfully the crowd quickly quarried the rabbit and gingerly handed it back to stage security for safe keeping. Just kidding—they followed the Pumpkins’ lead for the evening and ripped it to shreds. 

Leaning heavily on songs off the new album, Corgan seemed unconcerned with losing the audience with less familiar material. Though the set routinely killed momentum in favor of a slow instrumental or an extended guitar solo, the audience remained rapt. And while ’90s hits such as “Disarm,” “Today”  and “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” evoked the most explosive response—even when the riffs were hard to discern above the horrific acoustics of the university gym—Corgan was in a playful mood throughout the set and the spirit was contagious. At odds with his horror-show look, he couldn’t hide his inherent geekiness whenever he addressed the fans. Ultimately it’s that inner adolescent that maintains the connection between Corgan and his followers despite the singer’s drive to challenge the faithful. 

If critics have been busy writing the band’s epitaph this year, claiming the sluggish sales of Machina signal a changing of the guard, the Kent State crowd seemed blissfully unaware. No one came to bury Corgan that night, only to praise him. And Corgan proved he’s still having too much fun to do anything but dance around alternative rock’s grave. The Great Pumpkin has risen again.

*Not to be confused with the late, great God Machine, one of my all-time favorite bands.