The Smashing Pumpkins reunited with former bassist Melissa Auf der Maur during their Lollapalooza set this past weekend. It also marked their first performance at the festival since its traveling edition back in 1994.
Billy Corgan and co. – guitarists James Iha and Kiki Wong, and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin – went head to head with headliner Charli XCX. They delivered a 17-song set that paid homage to their most beloved records.
Opening with 1979 from Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (1995), they dove straight into Bullet with Butterfly Wings from that same album, and Today from 1993’s Siamese Dream.
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The Pumpkins balanced nostalgia with their more recent era by incorporating Edin, War Dreams of Itself, and Pentagrams from 2024’s Aghori Mhori Mei.
Speaking of contemporary, Olivia Rodrigo – albeit guitar-less – joined the band for the deep cut Thirty-three.
Ozzy Osbourne protégé Yungblud was also summoned to the stage to take over vocal duties on Luna from Siamese Dream.
The previous evening, the fast-rising rock star – wielding his vintage “voodoo” ES-330 – shared the stage with a Flying V-laden Corgan at his own Lollapalooza aftershow at Chicago’s Riviera Theater. They performed a live rendition of his track Zombie, which the two had collaborated on earlier this year.
However, the biggest surprise for Pumpkins fans came by way of a lineup addition on bass.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have one more special guest – our former bandmate, a former member of Hole, Miss Melissa Auf Der Maur,” Corgan told the audience. Auf Der Maur held down the low end on The Everlasting Gaze, from 2000’s Machina/The Machines of God.
It was a fitting choice, considering the single’s music video was the first to feature Auf der Maur following the departure of original bassist D’arcy Wretzky.
The band had road-tested the collaboration at their July 29 pre-Lollapalooza show at the Riviera Theatre, marking a reunion that came just over a year after the bassist performed with the band in Montreal for the first time since 2000.
In a Bass Player interview earlier this year, Auf Der Maur referred to her stint with the Pumpkins as her “‘Master’s in Music’” – a notion she details in her recently released memoir.
As for the Pumpkins, they’re about to embark on The Rats in the Cage Tour – kicking off on September 30 in Columbus, Ohio – which celebrates the career-defining Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.
Before the arena run, Corgan will also set out on his own European tour – dubbed A Night of Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness – which promises to be an operatic and orchestral rendering of the album.
