The second coming of Billy Corgan begins with a suitably religious flourish. Corgan's been busy since the demise of The Smashing Pumpkins, recruiting an auspicious bunch of alt-rock players to the ranks of Zwan. He's also distanced himself from the preposterous goth grind of latterday Pumpkins, located a more visible sense of humour and, critically, written dozens of fine pop songs that may be the best of his career.
But to start Zwan's first British gig, Corgan draws in his frighteningly loyal fans with familiar gear: An Epic. 'Jesus I' stretches an old hymn into blustery spacerock for 15 minutes and manages to incorporate another lightning-scarred spiritual ('God's Gonna Set This World On Fire'), while sounding at best like Spiritualized in their 'Electric Mainline' phase and at worst like the Pumpkins at their fiddliest and most self-indulgent.
It's a curious sight, watching Corgan trying to play both ordinary guy and, still, the air-punching icon, especially since he's never seemed entirely comfortable in either role. In Zwan, the dichotomy is more pronounced than ever, since his guitarists (Matt Sweeney and the ineffably cool David Pajo) have a kind of indie-rock nonchalance, while his rhythm section come straight from the stadium circuit (Pumpkin Jimmy Chamberlin, with his initials on his bass drum, A Perfect Circle's Paz Lenchantin playing bass while practising her tantric back bends).
It should be a tense old mess. But once the epics are out of the way, Zwan reveal themselves to be nothing of the sort. Instead - as the 'Mary Star Of The Sea' album suggested - Zwan are a terrific and conspicuously happy pop-rock band. In essence, Corgan has prioritised his gift for writing bright, blasting anthems for our most uncomplicated Californian highway fantasies. The urge to fuck things up has mostly dissipated, and in its place are smiles, immediacy and harmony-enriched songs like 'Endless Summer' and 'Declarations Of Faith'.
The complexity now lies mainly in the background. Three guitarists, especially post-rock luminary Pajo, fill out these straightforward songs into big, hypertextured thickets of sound. Pajo seems to think he's in The Byrds, Sweeney that he's in Cheap Trick, Lenchantin that she's singing backing vocals for The Bangles. Bizarrely, it sounds wonderful.
It evidently pleases Corgan, too, since he gleefully spars with his illustrious bandmates rather than keeping a kingly distance from them. Hack psychologists might see Corgan as a classic divided soul, torn between fanboy admiration for his rock heroes (two of whom - Sweeney and Pajo - are now in his band) and momentous egomania. The beauty of Zwan is that he's worked out for the first time in a decade how the two can co-exist.
Of course the gig goes on a bit too long, as is traditional with supergroups. By the end, though, Corgan's enthusiasm is such you're willing to forgive him the odd noodly solo and even the half-jokey, half-arrogant postures that come with the multiple false endings of 'A New Poetry'. He's a rock demi-God rejuvenated, and this time you might even like him.
