Since James Iha and Jimmy Chamberlain rejoined the Smashing Pumpkins, it feels like the band has been touring non-stop. Of course, that’s not quite the case since they found the time to work on a THIRTY THREE song three-act rock opera “Atum”. The first act will be released on Nov 15th, and each subsequent act eleven weeks later. The ‘Spirits on Fire Tour’ began in inauspicious fashion as opener Jane’s Addiction frontman Dave Navarro had to cancel due to long COVID and was to be replaced by Troy Van Leeuwen, the guitarist for Queens of the Stone Age. The tour seemed to be progressing nicely until Jane’s Addiction’s surprise cancellation at the Philadelphia stop and subsequently in Pittsburgh as well, at PPG Paints Arena on Saturday, October 22nd. It seems a band member had been injured and could not continue. Very bad luck. However, indie rocker Meg Myers was still set to open with the Pumpkins going on at a very early 8:15pm. The good news was that, if the previous night in Philadelphia was any indication, the fans would be treated to an extra-long set, as Smashing Pumpkins had added four songs to the setlist!!

As the music began to play, a giant death’s head moth with SP underneath the skull as the backdrop, the band slowly walked onto the stage. It was a bit eerie and seemed to mirror the energy in the venue. While Billy Corgan was quite animated, dancing at times, and interacting with the crowd in a way that hasn’t seen in a long time, the crowd was oddly quiet most of the time, except for this one girl who was dancing to every song! Exceptions were, of course, during the big hits and during Jimmy Chamberlain’s drum solo. It felt like the crowd expected every song in the set to be a big hit. But the set was varied and included songs from all different times in their career. The stage setup was quite interesting though. During “Ava Adore”, spookily dressed mannequins on pikes were rolled onto the stage. And when they played their latest single “Beguiled”, the music video played on the background. The visuals for each song seemed to have been designed very thoughtfully.

The crowd finally perked up during Corgan and Iha’s acoustic rendition of “Tonight Tonight”, where they started to sing along. I was finally feeling a lot of energy in the crowd with the trio of “Cherub Rock”, “Zero”, and “1979”, with at least most heads banging even if there was no longer any moshing at these shows. Unfortunately, that was the end of the energy from the crowd for the night, except when Billy Corgan thanked the crowd for coming on a Saturday night and James Iha joked that, “What else do you have to do in Pittsburgh on a Saturday night?”

Wrapping up the evening with “Disarm”, the band played twenty-two songs all told, two more than in NYC but two fewer than the previous night in Philadelphia. There was no encore but the crowd seemed to leave satisfied. Kudos to Corgan and the rest of the band for putting on a great show, no matter what the audience was doing.