As they prepare to leave the Pumpkingdom forever, Chicago's art punks deliver a perfect final gesture. A final 'f**k you' to their now ex-record company, Virgin, whom they felt didn't support them, a final embrace of the fans who did. A dramatic farewell from a band who were never going to leave quietly.
We are referring of course to the fact that they've brought out a last album, 'Machina II', avoiding all record company, record shop and band profit - it's free, and, as an invisible man announces before the show, available only through bootlegs and the net. "Download it tonight!" he exhorts us. Clearly no-one had told him our schedules were a little full this evening.
Or perhaps he was just giving us some well-considered advice, perhaps he didn't want our final memories of the Pumpkins to be filled with disappointment. For, as send offs go, this gig ranks slightly above waving your pet slug off at the bus station.
The arena might be cavernous and imposing enough for the Pomp Kings, but it's also characterless, its large expanse devouring their passion and swallowing up any pretensions to personality. And tonight personality isn't overly in evidence anyway, confined as it is to thank-yous, and a little band repartee. Pretension, on the other hand, is present as always.
Under the melodramatic lighting, in front of a an intricately painted backdrop Billy Corgan appears, clad in white top and billowing, ragged skirt, flanked, like a cross-dressed Nosferatu angel dropped into hell, by red clad guitarist James Iha and bassist Melissa Auf de Maur, as they begin a series of melodic ditties. Many songs later, after a poignant 'Thirty-Three' ("you can make it last forever" has taken on extra resonance) and a slow, tepid 'Stand Inside Your Love', the angel comes out of the gusts of dry ice and purple beams that herald a rawk set, fallen from grace - somehow, Corgan's managed to change into identical black garments.
Organising the set in this way is like eating a meal in which every course is made of the same ingredients - the subtleties, the potencies are lost, as it all becomes a mass of similarities. Without the juxtaposition of skull-crushing noise and soothing lullaby, delicate harmonies are dulled in a sea of sweetness, endless guitar splurges become a rather tedious clamour, the screaming frustrations of 'Bullet With Butterfly Wings', sound, coming after 'The Everlasting Gaze' more like irritations. By the time they get to the last segment of heart-slaying epics - 'I Of The Mourning', 'Tonight, Tonight' - (thankfully, without more costume changes) we do finally remember that this is a band we really will miss, but we also are made to realize that the Pumpkins are masters of self-indulgent prog rock who would rather express themselves in four riffs instead of one. Oops.
All in all then, this is less a triumphant 'adieu' than a drawn out 'catch you later'. Don't expect to see me at the reunion tour.
