Background and development
On 16 October 2023, the American rock bands The Smashing Pumpkins and Weezer jointly announced a concert tour of the British Isles planned for June 2024, with five shows in the United Kingdom and one in the Republic of Ireland. [1] [2] [3] The two bands had previously both co-headlined the BeachLife Festival in California in 2022. [3] The tour would be The Smashing Pumpkins' first in the United Kingdom since 2019, [4] [5] and according to the online magazine Consequence , the band was using the tour to promote their latest album, Atum: A Rock Opera in Three Acts . [6] In a June 2024 interview with Kerrang! , The Smashing Pumpkins' lead vocalist Billy Corgan discussed the tour and stated that, despite the fact that both bands were popular in the 1990s, the tour would feature a collection of songs from both their older and more recent albums. [5] Tickets for the show were made available via Ticketmaster, See Tickets, [1] and, later, Viagogo. [6]
Concert synopsis
Teen Mortgage served as an opening act for the tour. [7] [8] Additionally, at the Birmingham show, Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine served as a supporting act. [4]
Weezer performed first, followed by The Smashing Pumpkins. [7] [9] The decoration on the stage for this act consisted only of a representation of the band's logo. [8] In addition to a number of their original songs, the band also played "Celebrity Skin", a song originally performed by Hole, in reference to the fact that Corgan was a co-writer of the song. [10] In total, Weezer's performance lasted about 75 minutes. [10] [11]
The Smashing Pumpkins were the closing act for the tour. [7] [9] The band's lineup consisted of founding members Corgan, Jimmy Chamberlin, and James Iha alongside Katie Cole and new guitarist Kiki Wong. [12] [7] Additionally, Corgan's children accompanied him onstage for part of the band's performance. [8] In total, the band's performance lasted about two hours. [8] [12]
Critical reception
The tour received mostly positive reviews from critics, with many saying that the bands were an odd pairing. [7] [11] For example, journalist Peter Ormerod wrote that the pair were "two bands seemingly at opposite ends of the alt-rock spectrum", while Joe Goggins of the Manchester Evening News described the collaboration as "perhaps a strange one on paper". [9] [10] Reviewers felt that they worked well together, however. Rich Hobson of the website Louder rated the tour 4.5 out of 5 stars, calling it a "Gen-X wet dream", [13] while Danny Kilmartin similarly called the tour a "Gen-X and millennial alternative rock fan's dream" in a positive review for GoldenPlec . [12] The Birmingham Mail , The Irish Times , and the Manchester Evening News all gave the tour 4-star reviews in their coverage of the events. [4] [10] [14] Jonathan Geddes of The Arts Desk gave the tour a rating of 3 out of 5 stars, commenting that "[b]oth 90s favourites went hard and heavy, if occasionally too bludgeoning". [8] However, Ian Gittins of The Guardian was more critical of the tour, giving the Weezer portion a rating of 3 stars and The Smashing Pumpkins portion 2 stars, criticizing the later band's set list as being "uneven" and calling the co-headliners "mismatched 90s rockers". [15]
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