Point/Counterpoint: The Smashing Pumpkins Announce New Live Dates

By Tankboy in Arts & Entertainment on Sep 24, 2008 4:55PM

Since The Smashing Pumkins have finally announced four Chicago dates -- November 18 and 19 at the Chicago Theatre and November 21 and 22 at the Auditorium Theatre -- on their Gish 20th anniversary tour, we asked our resident music critic to debate the merits of said tour with ... our resident music critic.

CYNICAL TANKBOY: Oh great, Billy's back. As if it weren't insult enough that he pulled the Pumpkins' name out of the grave once his solo career stalled, now he has to add insult to injury by touring with a bunch of session musicians while cashing in on the sentimentality train? I understand times are tough dude, but if you're not going to tour with James Iha and D'arcy you should be calling yourself either The Billy Corgan Experience or ... Zwan.

OPTIMISTIC TANKBOY: Whoah dude, this isn't like Mike Love hijacking The Beach Boys good name and putting out a song like "Kokomo." Everyone knows Bill;y played just about everything but drum on those early albums, so I don't think it's too far a stretch to call any band he's in that includes Jimmy Chamberlain The Smashing Pumpkins. I too wish James and D'Arcy were involved, but they're not, and I actually suspect that the live show might be better for it. I mean do you remember the Gish era Pumpkins? They were terrible on-stage! I'm kind of looking forward to seeing that old material, which includes a lot of what I consider to be the best songs in the Pumkins canon, performed well for the first time.