Any Smashing Pumpkins fan missing the Melissa Auf der Maur era was in for a treat last Friday in Montreal, as the former Pumpkins and Hole bass guitar hero joined Corgan and his new band, the Machines of God, on stage in her hometown.
She joined the band for the encore track The Everlasting Gaze in Montreal, Canada, on June 13 as the newly formed group celebrated the Pumpkins’ turn-of-the-century material.
According to fan footage, the bassist even recalled her first-ever conversation with Corgan.
“Billy, do you remember the first words we ever exchanged, on July 23rd, 1991?” she asked the Pumpkins frontman. “I walk to the side of the stage after you played I Am Oneand you were packing up your gear, and do you remember what I said?” He quipped, “I love you, never leave?”
“Very close,” she added with a laugh. “I said, ‘On behalf of Montreal, Canada, I apologize for the broken beer bottle that was thrown at him, and I am Melissa from Montreal and I will follow you ’til the end of time.’”
The band – spearheaded by Auf der Maur – then launched into the final song on the setlist – The Everlasting Gaze from 2000’s Machina/The Machines of Godan apt nod to Auf der Maur’s era with the Pumpkins.
In a video posted to the Pumpkins’ socials, Corgan and his former bandmate share a warm embrace before digging into the song’s hardened groove. Their chemistry is tangible, even in a phone-filmed video.
The former Hole bassist joined Corgan’s crew for one year in 1999. She held down the low-end across the Sacred and Profane tour, and features in a number of music videos from that period. Her time ended when Corgan disbanded the group, which she knew about from the offset.
Speaking to Bass Player last year about her time with two of the bands that defined ’90s rock, she said, “Courtney and Billy were both very different. But I have so much respect for both of them. My time with Hole was more character definition, creating me as a person, and then my crash course in music, one on one, was with the Pumpkins, who refined and defined my musicianship.
“Billy in particular: his level of efficiency and musicianship and his commitment to art was pretty remarkable. He was a real mentor in that way.”
“It was just a very dramatic coincidence. Billy said, ‘You’re gonna be in my band!’ And I couldn’t say no, because it was a dream come true,” she continues. “It was fulfilling a teenage fantasy but it was also the best music lesson of my life.
“I knew it was only for one year because they told me they were splitting up. And knowing I was going to be taught their back catalog was incredible.”
Corgan, meanwhile, has said his new project is focused on fusing classics with deep cuts. Material from Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness, Machina/The Machines of Godand Machina II/The Friends & Enemies of Modern Musicas well as 2024 release, Aghori Mhori Me, will feature.
“The A Return to Zero Tour,” he adds, “reintroduces a four-piece, two-guitar lineup in which music from these seminal Pumpkins albums were created.” Now Auf der Maur, who was a key player in the band’s purple patch, has also been reintroduced.
She reprised her spot in the band for, quite possibly, one last time, giving her hometown Pumpkins fans a moment to savor.
Billy Corgan is also set to star in a supergroup with Tom Morello and Tool’s Danny Carey at Black Sabbath’s Back to the Beginning as heavy metal’s forefathers bow out with one hell of a party.
